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Aim:
the key principles of a person-centred approach : potential…
Aim:
- the key principles of a person-centred approach : potential strengths/challenges in different scenarios and settings
- core conditions
- key interpersonal skills: active listening, reflection, helpful questioning & summarising
Person Centred Approach
Carl Rogers - McLeod
'Emphasis on client being expert, counsellor as a source of relfection and encourgement'
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Carl Rogers - (a major contributor of the client-centred approach) emphasized the humanistic perspective as well as ensuring therapeutic relationships with clients to promote self-esteem, authenticity and actualisation in their life, and help them to use their strengths.
The person-centred approach was originally focused on the client being in charge of the therapy which led to the client developing a greater understanding of self, self-exploration, and improved self-concepts.
The focus then shifted to the client’s frame of reference and the core conditions required for successful therapy such as ensuring the therapist demonstrates empathic understanding in a non-judgemental way.
The Classical Approach
This adheres to the terms and guildlines set out by Rogers core conditions in person-centred therapy, detailed in his works publlished 1957/59.
Tony Merry (2004) - proposes there are 4 main principles in this classical approach -
- A sole emphasis on the theory of actualisation as the motivation for growth
- A therapists role as entirely that of a non-judgemental, empathic companion offering unconditional positive regard;
- The therapist achieving a sufficiently high level of personal congruence to enable her to be fully self-aware and thus genuine
- The therapist fully trusting the client and thus maintaining a non-directive attitude in terms of the content and process of therapy
It differs from more experiential versions of client-centred therapy, as it emphasies the non-directive.
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"Classical person-centred therapy resists any form of direction in terms of both content or process. The client is fully trusted in his or her capacity for change and the role of the therapist is thus seen entirely as one of an empathic, non-judgemental companion.
In essence, then, the six conditions discussed previously remain both necessary and sufficient for change to occur."
(An introduction to person-centred psychology. Prof. Ewan Gillon. Chap. 3 pg. 21)
Experiential approaches
This differs to ‘classical’ person-centred therapy, as in the way the goal is enacted, the difference “is to do with how a therapist tries to facilitate experiential self-exploration”.
This allows the counsellor to expand more with strategies than non-directive based approaches do. It allows them to act more directly with the client - they can adopt a position of ‘process-expert’ in identifying an aspect of the client’s experiential processing that may be assisted by a specific strategy or technique.
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David Rennie’s Experiential Approach: Person-Centred Counselling: an experiential approach (Rennie, 1998)
He describes a method that highlights the role of reflexivity in the therapeutic space. Reflexivity refers to the way that we are able to reflect on our experiences. This is something D. Rennie felt was ignored by Rogers in his emphasis on empathising with a client’s experience in here and now.
He argues reflexivity plays an important in therapy as it allows the therapist to draw the client’s attention to aspects of their experience which they may not be consciously aware of. They can then enable reflection on these as part of the therapeutic process
He uses examples such as non-verbal actions, the language and tone the client uses during the session. He argues that by directing the clients attention to certain aspects, it allows the reflection process of person-centred therapy to evoke further experiencing when non-verbal or specific language is used therefore leading to psychological change.
Core Conditions
Empathy & Congruence
Empathy: understanding from your clients frame of reference - communicating that understanding, 'containing' or 'holding' emotional responses, not mistaking and offering sympathy - not helpful in these settings.
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Carl Rogers
The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change, Rogers. Carl
For constructive personality change to occur, it is necessary that these conditions exist and continue over a period of time:
- Two persons are in psychological contact.
- The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious.
- The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated into the relationship.
- The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.
- The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference and endeavours to communicate this experience to the client.
- The communication to the client of the therapist's empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved.
Unconditional Positive Regard - This Roger expands on is about valuing and respecting your client without any condition (judgement?) This idea also emphasises that the client "is a unique individual who has a right to be accepted for what he is."
An Introduction to Helping Skills. Counselling, Coaching and Mentoring by Jane Westergaard
Mearns and Thorne (2013) suggest that those who practice unconditional positive regard value the humanity of their clients and will not be deterred from this valuing by whatever the client says or does. - In this context it means accepting their views, culture, experience, beliefs with no judgement. This way prove difficult for training counsellors who struggle or have very strong opinions. It does not mean to agree with them either, it is as Freud said to be a blank canvas to project/reflect off of.
Reid and Westergaard: At the heart of integrative counselling practice...lies the counsellor's adherence to the core conditions of a person-centred approach. Person to Person: The problem of being human.
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Interpersonal Skills
What is meant by a skill? the specific interventions that helpers make as part of everyday helping interaction - Westergaard 2017
Skills: active listening, helpful questioning, summarising, silence, challenge and reflection.
Geldard and Geldard point out that a counsellor is a primary listener...by becoming this the counsellor is able to help them sort through their confusion, identify dilemmas and explore options and being an active listener in a helping setting requires a lot more than just a normal conversation.
Its more than just about what the client is saying, being an ctive listener requires you to be aware of their tone, body language, facial expressions, demeour and what they are choosing not to say.
Note: rule of thumb or basic guildelines for talking helpers should realistically not talk any more than 20% of the time - Westergaard
How we demomstrate this:
- Eye contact - this is important as present eye contact ensures that your clients recieves indicators that you are actively listening. If there is a lack of eye contact it can make the client feel, unimportant, not worthy of your time, or that you dont care. Which is the opposite of how you want to make them feel in this setting.
- Body Posture - keeping an open body posture also ensure that your client feels comfortable in their setting. Crossed arms or being at a far distance from your client can be percieved as defensive and could cause barriers.
- Facial Expressions - being sensitive about your clients expressions and being aware of your own is another important aspect of active listeing. Overreacting or ignoring the emotions being presented can be inapporiate.
- Verbal and Non-verbal responses - although we will read and interpret the responses made by the clients we should be aware that the clients are also picking up on how we respond to their responses as well.
Why do we question? Reid and Westergaard explain - The primary purpose of questioning is to invite clients to think in detail about their lives. It encourages reflection, analysis and evaluation, invites clients to 'think through' their ideas and feelings, and establishes the nature and depth of the issues which they are facing (2011:55)
Types of questioning:
- Open questions - require more than a yes or no e.g. how did you feel when that happened?
- Hypothetical questions - invite clients to think about the scenario and how they would respond e.g. if they said that to you what would you say back?
- Closed questions - yes or no response e.g. did you feel sad about that?
- Multiple questions - questions connected to each other e.g. When did it happen? How did you feel? What was said?
- Leading questions - helper 'suggests' a response e.g. You probably wouldn't want to do that would you?
Generally in a helping setting mutiple and leading questions are best avoided. Closed questions are more informative if you are asking about specfifc details of an event or situation. Open and hypothetical questions are used most in a counselling setting as it allows a less directive role and empahsies the clients control.
This skill is very closely allied with active listening. Picking up on certain words, phrases or guestures to help the client reflect back their own thoughts and feelings.
Example from Westegaards (2017): Susannah and her client. S: How are you feeling today? C: Bloody terrible S: what does 'bloody terrible'? C: I feel worse than last week S: How worse that last week C: Well not worse in me but just so lonely S: Lonely. Thats tough, and whats been making you feel so lonely
This example above demonstrates the reflection of words and phrases used to pin point what the client is actually feeling. By asking more open ended questions Susannah discovered it was loniness that the client was actually feeling.
The only issue with practicing too much reflection is that it can come across as parroting. This can be percieved by the client as unhelpful or patronising.
However, using the tool of reflection, allowing the client to hear back their own words, espeically when ladened with powerful emotions is not to be underestimated
Mearns & Cooper suggest "invitations to the client to explore thier experiences more deeply can take many forms. At the most basic level, it may simply involve reflecting back to clients a word or phrase they have used"
Culley and Bond "restating involves repeating back to clients either single words or short phrases which they have used...effiecent way to prompt futher discussion"
Summarising and Paraphrasing are crucial in the helping practice but are often under-used. It is not natural conversational skills, like reflecting.
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What this really means is the conversational and interpersonal skills counsellors use to interact and have an effective impact on the client.
What is counselling?
McLeod - An Introduction to Counselling - (Burks and Stefflre 1979:14) 'Counselling denotes a professional relationship between trained counsellor and client. Usually one-on-one but can involve more than one i.e. group therapy.
When Helpers used the interpersonal skills in conjunction to the core conditions the term Theruptic Alliance is used.
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