Carl Rogers
(1902 - 1987)
About Counselling
BACP Definition
(British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy)
"Counselling takes place when a counsellor sees a client in a private and confidential setting to explore a difficulty the client is having, distress they may be experiencing or perhaps their dissatisfaction with life, or loss of a sense of direction and purpose. It is always at the request of the client as no one can properly be ’sent’ for counselling."
The Person-Centred approach
...was developed by the psychologist Dr Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987), who proposed new humanistic ideas for counselling. These moved away from the old doctor/patient model of the counsellor as an expert/authority figure who knew everything about the client.
Rogers trusted in people and believed that:
- if a safe psychological environment existed then all people would naturally move towards greater awareness and a better fulfilment of their potentials.
The following potentials, he believed, are within all of us:
- sociability: the need to be with other human beings and a desire to know and be known by other people,
- being trusting and trustworthy,
- being curious about the world, and open to experience,
- being creative and compassionate.
The psychological setting which helps us realise these potentials is one where we feel free from threat, both physically and psychologically.
Rogers said counsellors could create this safe setting with clients and therefore help to bring about change.
Much of his work was in understanding and defining the disciplines and conditions to be followed by counsellors so that they can create a safe therapeutic relationship with people who came to see them.
(from The British Association for the Person-Centred Approach, and The Person-Centred Approach South West.)
