Person-Centered Therapy

Date: February 12, 2007

February 12, 2007 - Today we're going to talk about Carl Rogers and his revolutionary approach to psychotherapy - Person-Centered Therapy. Next to Freud, no other therapist has influenced the practice of therapy more than Carl Rogers. The humanistic assumptions at the core of Person-Centered therapy stand in stark contrast to the problem-centered, expert-oriented approach of what was then the dominant model of psychotherapy - Freudian Psychoanalysis.

Rogers gave us an equation that would change the concept of therapy forever: Empathy + Genuineness + Unconditional Positive Regard = Necessary and sufficient conditions for change. Although the last part - that these conditions are sufficient for change - has not enjoyed empirical support, the first part - that these conditions are necessary for change - has been confirmed in thousands of research studies over the last 50 years. In today's lecture I will look at the major assumptions of Person-centered therapy, the goals of treatment, the role and attributes of the therapist, and discuss the one technique attributed to Rogers - reflective listening. I'll end with a discussion of the contributions and limitations of Person-centered therapy.

Listen to the Podcast [21:44]

References

Brink, D. C. & Farber, B. A. (1996). A scheme of Rogers' clinical responses. In B. A. Farber, D. C. Brink, & P. M. Raskin (Eds.), The psychotherapy of Carl Rogers: Cases and commentary (pp. 15-24). New York: Guilford Press.

Burke, J. F. (1989). Contemporary approaches to psychotherapy & counseling: The self-regulation and maturity model. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Press.

Corey, G. (2005). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson.

Rogers, C. L. (1961). On becoming a person. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.