Okay. I googled this and it seems rather in-depth. What's a basic, easy definition to operate under with this?

In the first place, some counselors- usually those with little specific training- have supposed that the counselor's role in carrying on nondirective counseling was merely to be passive and to adopt a laissez faire policy. Such a counselor has some willingness for the client to be self-directing.

He is more inclined to listen than to guide. He tries to avoid imposing his own evaluations upon the client. He finds that a number of his clients gain help for themselves. He feels that his faith in the client's capacity is best exhibited by a passivity which involves a minimum of activity and of emotional reaction on his part. He tries "to stay out of the client's way."

This misconception of the approach has led to considerable failure in counseling- and for good reasons. In the first place, the passivity and seeming lack of interest or involvement is experienced by the client as a rejection, since indifference is in no real way the same as acceptance. In the second place, a laissez faire attitude does not in any way indicate to the client that he is regarded as a person of worth.

Hence the counselor who plays who plays a merely passive role, a listening role, may be of some assistance to some clients who are desperately in need of emotional catharsis, but by and large his results will be minimal, and many clients will leave both disappointed in their failure to receive help and disgusted with the counselor for having nothing to offer."