As a boy Carl dedicated his free time into building up a foundation of scientific understanding, firstly in closely studying and breeding moths and later (still just around 14 years old) in learning in-depth methods to improve the efficiency of the breeding of livestock on the family’s farm. This imbued Carl with a deep re-spect for the scientific approach, research methodologies and the complexities involved in the testing of hypothesis (Thorne, 2003, p.3). This stood in stark contrast to the nine years Carl spent deploying a psycho-dynamic approach – from his mid 20s – where eventually he became aware of the “coercive or pushing” nature (Rogers, 1961, p.11) of interpreting a client’s behaviour.
The importance of effective and measurable solutions.
THE CLIENT AS EXPERT At 26 Carl took on his first professional Psychologist post at the busy Rochester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and during this “exceedingly valuable” (Rogers, 1961, p.11) twelve years there was driven to innovate new approaches to deliver measurably better outcomes for the children. The principles outlined in his 1939 book The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child reveal the result of his (post psycho-analytical) work and clearly shows the beginning of his formal journey towards the Person-Centered model
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include the conclusions that children are best helped when the relationship between the helper and parents is non-threatening and it’s one that facilitates
Carl worked closely with Eugene Gendlin, who was key in developing a map of client growth through the therapeutic process, this was revealed as The Seven Stages of Process in the book On Becoming a Person (Rogers, 1961). Gendlin continued his work on inspecting the moments of client change and he called this phenomena Focusing. The work though carved a rift between him and the purist non-directive practitioners who questioned the applicability of directing client attention and on setting rigid process stage definitions and Focusing Therapy was born. Gendlin’s work was further elaborated by Leslie Greenberg, Germain Lietaer and others with a further emphasis on process depth by proposing interventions to aide the flow of client experiencing. This clear breach of non-directivity became the third leg of the newly emerging Person-Centered family stool and was labelled Experiential Therapy.
The Seven Stages of Process describe the broad phases of change that can be observed through the course of the therapeutic journey (Rogers, 1961, p.132). Stages 1 and 2 include with clients who can acknowledge difficult life situations but see them as originating from outside of their control and responsibility. They see themselves as fine and reality as objective, and therefore often lack the incentive to dedicate time to ther-apy. Stages 3 to 6 involves the steady acknowledgement and exploration by the client of their subjective self, their needs and drives, their conflicts and complexities and they develop a sense of responsibility, agency and a reflexive awareness of their emotions and experience. Stage 7 is Self Actualisation, where the person is fully functioning, and has the cognitive and emotional awareness and flexibility to achieve their potential.
