Quote:
Originally Posted by guilloche
Can I ask a silly question? What's the opposite of "person-centered"? I've been looking for a new T, and so many of them use this phrase, and it honestly sounds a little meaningless. What else would they be centered on? Hopefully they're not going to be a "self-centered" therapist, or a "puppy centered therapist" (hmm that might not be so awful), or whatever.
I understand that the term was used to describe Carl Rogers way of working, and that he must have been doing something different than previous therapists, but I guess I'm missing something?
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Hi guillotine,
Not a silly question at all! I've been eating, sleeping and breathing 'person-centred therapy' for the last three years which is why I feel so passionately about it. From my understanding the crux of what Rogers originally called 'client-centred' therapy, and what seems to separate it from the other big therapeutic approaches (like CBT and psychodynamic), is the belief that the 'client' is the 'expert' of their own subjective experiences and process, not the doctor/therapist. So a PC therapist won't necessarily 'diagnose' a mental health problem and then offer a 'treatment'. They don't claim to have the answers (at least, not in my experience) and generally won't offer advice or interpretation of their client's thoughts and feelings.
Instead the PC therapist should be aiming to provide the optimal conditions (an empathic and accepting environment) for the client to work through things and grow themselves. The analogy that I love is of the PC therapist as a gardener providing the best conditions for plants to grow in. A gardener cannot make a flower grow by pulling it out the ground, but it can provide a rich soil for it to take root and patiently nurture it while it develops to maturity. The hope a PC therapist has for their client reminds me of the Maya Angelou quote, 'The nature of this flower is to blossom'. Rogers believed people to be motivated to make sense of their world and to always be striving to grow and develop. Through the experience of the therapist's (hopefully) unconditional acceptance, the client can learn greater self-acceptance, that they are valuable and trustworthy beings, therefore learning to trust themselves and listen to their own instincts and inner voice, to be open and accepting of new experiences, to move, flow, create... The PC therapist should aim to see the whole person and their experiences, framed in the context of the client's own subjective world, including their childhood.
The idea of focusing on the client's experience may seem somewhat obvious today, but that's in large part because Rogers work helped shape a new generation of thinking in psychology and psychotherapy. In the 1940s and 50s the very idea was totally radical and went against the grain of Rogers' own psychodynamic training.
The term 'person-centred' is used more in a general sense in mental health and social care services these days to denote a service which claims to welcome and value the views and wishes of the 'service user' (I hate that expression but it's commonly used here in the UK).
Because of this new and often confusing use of the term 'person-centred', some PC therapists are suggesting a return to the use of the term 'client-centred'...
Not sure if that helps at all, but I hope so!
Phx