Carl Rogers Approach to Psychotherapy

Framed within the so-called "third force", "Rogerian" psychotherapy It is the approach that currently exerts the greatest influence on psychotherapists and counselors Americans, even above the rational-emotional therapy of Albert Ellis and psychoanalysis Freudian. In this regard, in a study carried out in the USA. Among 800 psychologists and counselors, it was found that the psychotherapists proposed as the most influential were, first, Carl Rogers, second, Albert Ellis, and third, Sigmund Freud (Huber and Baruth, 1991). Keep reading this PsicologíaOnline article if you are still interested in this Carl Rogers Approach to Psychotherapy.

Index

1. Introduction
2. The central hypothesis of client-centered psychotherapy
3. The therapy
4. The therapist, characteristics and training
5. About training therapists
6. Applicability of the Rogerian approach

Cataloged as speculative and unscientific by its detractors, and seen as the ideal therapy by its followers,

However, despite this, there are those who think that this psychotherapy is based only on good intentions, on philanthropic desires stemming from existential philosophylista, and in the goodness of character of Rogers himself. This reasoning responds, we believe, more to ignorance than to the intrinsic characteristics of the approach.

In his books Counseling and psychotherapy, Client-centered psychotherapy Y The process of becoming a person, Rogers makes a series of approaches aimed at clarifying his position in relation to the therapeutic process, the personality and human nature.

In these texts he establishes the following hypothesis as the axis of his entire psychological conception: "That the individual has sufficient capacity to constructively manage all aspects of his life that can potentially be recognized in consciousness "(Rogers, 1972, 1978).

This hypothesis is, in our understanding, the essential approach to the approach, and, in turn, what generates more controversy.

Let's take a closer look at it. Rogers assumes - based on empirical data, according to him - that there is an innate tendency to update in every human being, this is, to progressive development and constant improvement, if the right conditions are present (Rogers and Kinget, 1971). Something similar to the self-actualization, also innate, that Maslow and May and all the other humanistic psychotherapists propose (Frick, 1973), and Perls's organistic self-regulation (Perls, 1987).

Man, says Rogers, is positive by nature, and therefore requires absolute respect, especially regarding his aspirations to improve himself (Di Caprio, 1976). From this it follows that it is contraindicated for the psychotherapist to carry out all kinds of conduction or direction on the individual; all kinds of diagnosis or interpretation, because this would constitute an attack against the possibilities of the subject and against his tendency to update. It is required, or rather, it is recommended, to place oneself in the client's point of view, assume his perceptual field and work on it as a kind of alter ego. Even the word "client" is assumed in a special way: the client is that person who responsibly seeks a service and participates in the therapeutic process in the same way; the one, aware of her unused capacity for development, who does not go "for help" but tries to help herself.

The terms patient, sick, cure, diagnosis, etc., are discarded from the Rogerian language, because they connote dependence, limitation and lack of respect for the person.

This attitude towards patient dignity, unconditional acceptance and respect that they are held are so important that they are considered factors that favor or hinder (if not missing) the acquisition of the customer-centered approach. Acceptance and respect must be rooted in the personality of the therapist, form an essential part of his being, and this happens, first of all, by accepting themselves.

In short, the central hypothesis proposes that the human being can, if the right conditions are presented to him, develop or update himself, expand his capacities and be aware of what he experiences in order to be able to control himself. "You can't effectively handle what you don't consciously perceive," Rogers proposes. Hence the need to expand the client's concept of himself, his self, and to include in it everything (or almost everything) that he experiences. But it is not intended to do so by acting on it but, as Kinget says, by "accompanying" it in the experience, providing the required conditions and giving it security (Rogers and Kinget, 1971).

At this point in the discussion, a therapist not versed in the Rogerian approach might argue that nothing new has been said so far, since all approaches seek to a greater or lesser extent to promote the capacity for growth, and that every psychotherapist who deserves such a title must begin by accepting and trying to understand their patients. However, it is not just a matter of piously taking these aspects into account, showing humanitarianism or having had a good training. These aspects ARE the basis of the approach and constitute, before gaseous notions, fully assimilated attitudes from which the techniques will emerge.

Paraphrasing Claudio Naranjo (1991) when he talks about Gestalt therapy, client-centered psychotherapy is not conformed basically by techniques but, essentially, by attitudes of the therapist, the same ones that can be instrumentalized in different ways. way.

Two factors are thus considered: 1) The attitude of the therapist, his basic operational philosophy versus the dignity and significance of the individual (basic hypothesis), and 2) Its instrumentalization through appropriate methods.

The therapist's attitudes must be transmitted indirectly, impregnated in the communications but not openly formulated in any of them. Sometimes this is not fully understood and for this reason some assume that the customer-centered attitude consists of being passive and indifferent, in "not intruding." But this is flatly incorrect and, even more so, it is harmful, because in fact passivity is assumed as rejection; in addition, he usually ends up boring the subject when he sees that he does not receive anything.

Rather, the approach states that the therapist must help clarify the client's emotions, be a facilitator in the process of making them aware, and therefore manageable and not pathological. But not assuming an omniscient and all-powerful role, that he leads the client by the hand saying "I accept you" and giving him "chewed" back the material that he provides.

If there is sincere and absolute respect, he will rather try to have the client direct the process. In this case, the therapist's interventions will be presented as possibilities, almost as echoes of the exposed material, and not as value judgments, statements or interpretations.

The image of the echo can be used to understand the phenomenon: an echo is an amplified and modulated reproduction (which implies a adequate perception and a good dose of empathy for what is reproduced), something that sounds the same and different at the same time, and that allows the sender a new and more complete recapture of the broadcast message (now he is both sender and receiver of himself, and no longer issuer only). Furthermore, the echo supposes a "something" in community with us, another person (an alter-ego) who listens to us and reproduces and / or reformulates our messages in an atmosphere of acceptance.

In this dialogue with the therapist (which is essentially a dialogue with myself) I begin to feel accepted, since whatever I say, Whatever I do, I only receive empathy and warmth as an echo, rather than advice, diagnoses or interpretations; thus, I gradually realize that I am not as bad, as weird or different as I thought, and I begin to allow my ability to grow to make its way.

Similar to the Gestalt figure-ground dichotomy, in this psychotherapy it is pursued that the ground (the field non-conscious experiential, the hidden, the feared) becomes a figure (consciousness, part of the self, of the self same). The I "gets fat", it becomes more effective in managing internal reality, consuming less energy in the construction of defenses that protect it against anguish.

Regarding the details of the psychotherapeutic process, Rogers posed the following: "Let's say, at the outset, that there is no precise distinction between the process and the results of therapy. The characteristics of the process correspond, in fact, to differentiated elements of the results "(Rogers and Kinget, 1971).

According to Rogers, when therapeutic conditions are present and maintained, that is:

• There is a relationship of contact between client and therapist;
• A situation of anguish and internal disagreement in the client;
• A situation of internal agreement at the therapist;
• Feelings of respect, understanding, unconditional acceptance and empathy in the therapist; then, motivated by the innate tendency to update, a certain process that we can classify as therapeutic begins, which would consist of the following characteristics:
• Increase in the client's ability to express their feelings verbally and non-verbally.
• These expressed feelings refer more to the Self.
• The ability to distinguish objects from their feelings and their perceptions also increases.
• The feelings he expresses increasingly refer to the state of disagreement that exists between certain elements of his experience and his notion of the Self.
• Arrives consciously feel the threat that this state of internal disagreement carries with it. The experience of threat is made possible by the unconditional acceptance of the therapist.
• Thanks to this, the client comes to fully experience (by turning the background into a figure) certain feelings that until then he had distorted or not confessed.
• The image of the I (itself, self) changes, expands, to allow the integration of elements of the experience that were not made conscious or were deformed.
• As the reorganization of the ego structure continues, the agreement between this structure and the total experience is constantly increasing. The ego becomes capable of assimilating elements of experience that were previously too threatening for consciousness to admit. The behavior becomes less defensive.
• The client is increasingly able to feel and admit the therapist's acceptance without feeling threatened by this experience.
• The client feels an attitude of unconditional acceptance of oneself.
• He is realizing that the center of assessment of his experience is himself.
• The valuation of his experience becomes less and less conditional, and it is carried out on the basis of lived experiences. The client evolves towards a state of internal agreement, of acceptance of his experiences.

Rosemberg brilliantly synthesizes the participation and role of the therapist in the aforementioned process: "The therapist is the true person who truly understands the client's hesitations and weaknesses and accepts them, without trying to deny or correct them. He accepts, appreciates and values ​​the whole individual, giving him, unconditionally, security and stability in the relationships he needs to risk exploring new feelings, attitudes and behaviors.

The therapist respects the person as he is, with her anxieties and fears of him, so he does not impose any criteria on how it should be. He accompanies her on the path that she herself traces, and participates as a present and active element in this process of self-creation, facilitating in everything moment the perception of personal resources, and of the directions followed along the way, as the person experiences them "(Rogers and Rosemberg, 1981; P. 75-76).

The personal characteristics that Rogers considers necessary in any good therapist who tries to instrumentalize his approach are the following: a) Empathic capacity; b) Authenticity; c) Unconditional positive consideration.

This suggests that the client-centered therapist cannot be an ordinary person, but someone special, who has the internal tranquility and coherence of the self-actualized person, self-actualization that will try to infect the client. However, the therapist should not be seen as a superior person; he is someone who has simply managed to give free passage to his ability to update himself, and who for the same he can more effectively and productively manage his experiential field and help others to do so as well. do.

The traits mentioned are not innate or impossible to learn. Rogers and Kinget (1971) consider that even an authoritarian person can develop non-directive attitudes; the main thing, let's say the beginning, is the real desire to want to adopt them. The remaining process comes alone and is acquired in therapeutic practice, although it can be catalyzed through training.

Rogers (1972) sets four phases in the training of therapists customer-centric.

1. The first phase It emphasizes clarifying the attitudes of the would-be therapist, before focusing on the technical aspects. The desire to want to be a Rogerian therapist must be the result of a process of personal discovery that cannot be fostered from the outside in any way.
2. The second phase emphasizes techniques once student attitudes have been clarified.
3. The third phase considers it fair to provide the student with his own experience of therapy, if possible by having him submit to it as a client.
4. The fourth phase points out that the student must exercise psychotherapeutic practice from the moment it is practicable.

Therapeutic experiences, counseling and guidance, from the Rogerian perspective, cover a wide range from the treatment of people normal, in pedagogical or vocational conditions, to psychotherapy in schizophrenic psychotics (Rogers et al., 1980).

There are applications of this conception in various areas such as clinic, education, relationships, ludo therapy, group dynamics (the famous meeting groups), etc. Covers a wide spectrum of ages, from two-year-olds to the elderly. And this is possible, we believe, because the non-directive or client-centered approach constitutes in addition to a technique, applicable to this or that problem, a conception of the human being and of relationships interpersonal. For this reason, it transcends the boundaries of the office to form a theory about "good living", that is, about living fully, constantly improving, open to all experiences, without fear, with the ability to choose and take responsibility for what chosen one.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Carl Rogers Approach to Psychotherapy, we recommend that you enter our category of Personality.

• Di CAPRIO, N. (1976) Personality theory. Mexico: New Interamerican Editorial.
• FRICK, W. (1973) Humanistic psychology. Buenos Aires: Guadalupe.
• HUBER, Ch. And L. BARUTH (1991) Rational-emotional family therapy. Barcelona: Herder.
• NARANJO, C. (1991) The old and new gestalt. Santiago: Four Winds.
• PERLS, F. (1987) The Gestalt Approach and Therapy Testimonials. Santiago: Four Winds.
• ROGERS, C. and Mariam KINGET (1971) Psychotherapy and human relations (two volumes). Madrid: Alfaguara.
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