Carl Rogers Client Centered Therapy

Current psychotherapy attaches great importance to the relationship between the therapist and the client, who is seen as an equal that must be understood and respected. However, this was not always the case.

Carl Rogers and his client-centered therapy, or in the person, marked a very significant turn in the conception of psychotherapy. In this article, we will describe Rogers' therapy, as well as his analysis of the clinical process in general and the attitudes of the therapist that allow the intervention to be successful.

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Carl Rogers and client-centered therapy

Client-centered therapy was developed by Carl Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s. His contributions were fundamental for the development of scientific psychotherapy as we know it today.

Rogers' work is part of psychological humanism, a movement that vindicated the goodness of the human being and his innate tendency to personal growth facing the colder and more pessimistic perspectives of psychoanalysis and behaviorism. Rogers and 

Abraham Maslow they are considered the pioneers of this theoretical orientation.

For Rogers psychopathology stems from incongruity between the experience of the organism (“organismic self) and the selfconcept, or sense of identity; thus, symptoms appear when behavior and emotions are not consistent with the person's idea of ​​himself.

Consequently, therapy should focus on the client reaching said congruence. When you do, you can develop fully, being open to present experiences and feeling confident in your own body.

Probably the most important contribution of Rogers was the identification of common factors that explain the success of different therapies. For this author - and for many others after him - the effectiveness of psychotherapy does not depend so much on what certain techniques are applied such as passing through specific phases and the attitudes of the therapist.

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Phases of therapy

Based on his research, Rogers proposed a basic and flexible scheme of the psychotherapeutic process; to this day this model continues to be used, regardless of the theoretical orientation of the therapist, although each type of therapy can focus on a specific stage.

Subsequently, authors such as Robert Carkhuff and Gerard Egan investigated Rogers' proposal and developed it. Let's see what the three main phases of psychological therapy are.

1. Catharsis

The word "catharsis" comes from classical Greece, where it was used to refer to the ability of tragedy to purify people by making them feel intense compassion and fear. Later Freud and Breuer called their therapeutic technique "cathartic method", consisting of the expression of repressed emotions.

In this model, the catharsis is exploring one's own emotions and of the vital situation on the part of the client. Egan speaks of this phase as "identification and clarification of conflictive situations and untapped opportunities"; It is about the person being able to focus the problem in order to solve it during the following stages.

Rogers Person Centered Therapy focuses on the catharsis phase: it promotes development customer staff so that later the customer can understand and solve their problems on their own same.

2. Insight

"Insight" is an Anglo-Saxon term that can be translated as "Intuition", "introspection", "perception", "understanding" or "deepening", among other alternatives. In therapy, this term denotes a moment when the client reinterprets their situation as a whole and perceives "the truth" - or at least begins to identify with a specific narrative.

In this phase the role of the client's personal goals is key; According to Egan, in the second stage a new perspective is built and a commitment to the new objectives is generated. Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy focus on the insight stage.

3. Action

The action phase consists, as its name suggests, in act to achieve the new goals. In this phase, strategies are prepared and applied to solve problems that block well-being or personal development.

Behavior modification therapy, which uses cognitive and behavioral techniques to resolve clients' specific problems, is probably the best example of psychotherapy focused on the phase of action.

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Therapeutic attitudes

According to Rogers, the success of therapy depends fundamentally on the fulfillment of certain conditions; considers that these are necessary and sufficient for therapeutic change, and therefore more important than any specific technique.

Among these requirements, which refer to attitudes of the client and the therapist, Rogers highlights the three that depend on the clinician: authenticity, empathy and unconditional acceptance the client's.

1. Psychological contact

There must be a personal relationship between the therapist and the client for the therapy to work. In addition, this relationship must be significant for both parties.

2. Client inconsistency

Therapy will only be successful if there is an inconsistency between the organismic self of the client and his self-conceptor. As we have previously explained, the concept of “organismic self” refers to physiological processes and that of “self-concept” refers to the sense of conscious identity.

3. Authenticity of the therapist

That the therapist is authentic, or congruent, means that he is in touch with her feelings and that he communicates them to the client in an open way. This helps to create a sincere personal relationship and it may involve the therapist making self-disclosures about her own life.

4. Unconditional positive acceptance

The therapist must accept the client as he is, without judging her actions or thoughts, in addition to respecting him and genuinely caring for him. Unconditional positive acceptance allows the client to perceive his experiences without the distortion of everyday relationships, and therefore that he can reinterpret himself without a priori judgments.

5. Empathic understanding

For Rogers, empathy implies the ability to get inside the customer's perspective and to perceive the world from it, as well as to experience its feelings. Understanding on the part of the therapist makes it easier for the client to accept himself and his experiences.

6. Customer perception

Although the therapist feels true empathy for the client and accepts it unconditionally, if the client does not perceive it, the therapeutic relationship will not develop adequately; therefore, the therapist must be able to convey to the client the attitudes that will help him change.

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