Person Centred Therapy Evaluation Essay Example for Free

Person Centred Therapy Evaluation EssayIn battle array to evaluate the claim that Person-Centred Therapy offers the therapist all that he/she will need to treat thickenings, one must look at the theoretical concepts of someone-centred therapy ( portion) and its underlying philosophical influences.The pct approach was demonstrable during the 1940s and 1950s by an Ameri nooky psychologist Carl Rogers, now acidify inn as Rogerian counselling he proposed new adult maleistic ideas for counselling which moved a centering from the medical student/patient birth. PCT emphasises psyche to somebody relationship betwixt the therapist and customer and focuses on the nodes point of view through bustling listening the therapist tries to understand the customers presenting issue and emotions. In PCT the client determines the direction, course, speed and length of the treatment and the therapist helps increase the clients insight and ego understanding.Rogers and Abraham Maslow, a nonher psychologist, were the founders of the benignantistic approach to psychology. Humanistic theories of personalisedity maintain that compassionates are motivated by the uniquely human need to expand their frontiers and to construe as much of their potential as possible (Sanders 2002 p22). A humanistic approach is based on all human creations having an inbuilt business leader to grow and hand their full potential known as actualisation. If this quality can be harnessed then human cosmoss can resolve their own issues naturally, given the right conditions. Rogers and Maslow believed in a persons potential to reach self actualisation. Maslow however referred to the psychology of being and that self actualisation was an end in itself at the top of the hierarchy of needs whereas Rogers considered the psychology of becoming- the process of being able to take weight of your sprightliness and become the person you want to be a continuous process.Maslow felt that human being s are always striving for self improvement which goes beyond that of the basic needs for survival. He believed that a persons behaviour stems from the way in which people strive to bear different needs. From 1943 to 1954 he actual the 5-level Hierarchy of Needs * The first, lowest level, concerns a persons physiologicalneeds survival, food, water and shelter. * The second addresses safety protection from danger and need for security, order and predictability. * The third c overs love social behaviour for love, friendship and acceptance by peers. * The fourth addresses self obedience and esteem the need for status, independence, recognition, self confidence and respect from others. * The fifth and highest level concerns self-actualisation the need to fulfil ones personal potential.His theory states that each need must be met in turn jump with the lowest concerning the need for survival and only when the lower needs are met is a person able to move on to the higher needs. However if something should materialise and whatever lower needs are no longer satisfied then a person will concentrate on regaining them forrader attaining the higher ones.The lower four levels are known as wish needs which a person will strive to fulfil thereby consoling the deficiency. However behaviour relating to self actualisation is known as a growth need, governed by the persons inborn need to grow and realise his full potential. Maslow felt most people only ever achieved the first four needs, and he wanted to help clients to obtain Self-Actualisation in order to rattling become themselves. The higher up the hierarchy we go, the more the need becomes linked to life experience and the less biological it becomes. (Gross 1996 p.97) It is a fact that people achieve self actualisation in many different ways, related to experience in later life rather than biology. If a person has a deficiency in one of the lower levels of needs then self- actualisation cannot be achieved, resulting in anger, frustration, unhappiness and depression.Rogers trusted in people and viewed them in a dogmatic and optimistic way, believing all human beings naturally strove to achieve their potential mental health issues arose when barriers to personal growth were present. Accordingly a persons behaviour is down to self perception or interpretation of a situation and as no one else could know how something was perceived, the perceiver would be the better person to help themselves. PCT looks at how the client is currently interpreting and perceiving theirsituation, the moment to moment experience and what is being thought and felt.Rogers viewed mental outgrowth as the process of a person following the path of actualisation and so becoming oneself. A fully functioning person was someone on his way to self actualisation and he identified certain qualities that enabled that person to realise his potential. A person needs to lose- Openness to experience he can accurately perceive his o wn feelings and experiences in the world Existential living he lives in the present rather than the past Organismic trusting know what is good for one and trust thoughts and feelings as accurate, doing what comes naturally Experiential freedom the feeling of freedom when making choices and taking responsibility for personal actions Creativity a person will naturally socialise and participate in society through roleplay, social relationships or through the arts or sciences.A lead-in element of Rogers theory is the concept of self, described as being a set of self perceptions and beliefs, including self awareness or image, self esteem and worth, and rarified self. Human behaviour is driven by people attempting to maintain consistency between their self image and esteem sometimes this consistency is not achieved and a persons self image may differ from their actual behaviour and how it is perceived by others. A highly successful and respected person, may see themself as a complete failure as their actual experience is not consistent with their ideal self, an incongruent condition.People experiencing incongruent feelings, because of interlocking with their self image, feel threatened and may block or deny these feelings. It is these defence mechanisms which encumber the self from growing and changing widening the gap between reality and the self-image until the latter becomes more unrealistic when the incongruent person will start to feel vulnerable, conf utilize and suffer psychological disturbances. A congruent persons self image is flexible and changes with new experiences, the self image matches the thoughts and actions allowing for the opportunity to self-actualise.A persons self concept rails through childhood. Rogers believed that existence developed conditions of worth the conditions where compulsive regard would be given. In order to maintain this conditional positive regard a person will moderate or deny actions and feelings which are unacceptab le to people who are important, instead of using those thoughts, feelings and perceptions as a guide to behaviour. It is this denial that causes the difference between the being and the self, the organism being e precisething a person does, feels and thinks, and the self being the part that is real liked and respected by others positive regard.As people have an inherent need to be loved and accepted and therefore a need for positive self regard, they behave and act in ways that meet approval so in turn think of themselves as good, lovable and worthy. In order to experience positive self regard a persons behaviour and condition of worth must match sometimes conditions can force one to behave and act in ways that prevent self actualisation, thus living life by someone elses standards. This can cause conflict between experience and self concept, leading to the development of psychological disorders.Congruence and self actualisation can only be reached if a person is functioning as a whole organism so conditions of worth need to be substituted with organismic value. Rogers maintains that the human organism has an underlying actualising tendency which drives a person to develop and become independent. When a person is performing under conditional positive regard which prevents realisation of full potential, these conditions need to be removed. The difference between the self and organism then becomes minimal and the person more closely aligned with his natural values more relaxed and happy with life.PCT aims to provide the right surround to enable the client to grow and develop, and work through any problems by utilising the ability for personal growth. Rogers believed that the therapy should take place in a supportive environment created by a close personal relationship between the client and the therapist. It allows insight into the clients feelings and behaviour whilst the therapists function is to offer warmth and empathy, congruence and unconditional positi ve regard toward the client, accepting what is said in a non judgmental way.Rogers felt that the most important factor insuccessful therapy was the therapists attitude. A key element of the PCT is to reflect the clients feelings without judgement and by doing this the client will relax and express inner feelings. It also lets the client know that the therapist is listening, trying to understand, as well as clarifying what the client is communicating. Clarification arises when the therapist picks out the key points, uses the clients own words to develop an atmosphere of trust, enabling rapport to develop leading the client to feel able to appreciate current feelings and past experiences.Rogers believed that in order to create this environment for growth and change three sum of money conditions need to be provided for a therapeutic relationship to be formed. Empathy. The therapist must try to enter the clients inner world and understand how the client is feeling through sensitively l istening and reflecting back what the client is saying. Carl Rogers described empathy as the ability to smell the clients world as if it were your own without losing the as if quality (Sanders 2002 p68). Congruence. This involves the therapist being real open to the expressed feelings and being genuine with the client. on that point should be no air of authority, enabling the client to feel the therapist is being honest and responding as a real person not analysing what is being said and trying to fit it to a therapeutic model.Unconditional positive regard (UPR). The therapist must provide non judgmental warmth and acceptance of the client, heedless of past behaviour, as a worthwhile person free to explore and discuss all thoughts, feelings and behaviour positive and negative without fear of rejection or judgement. The client must not feel the need to earn positive regard many people seek help because of disturbances cause by unreasonable harsh judgements. It is very important to ensure that experience is not repeated during therapy. If the client feels an evaluation is being undertaken, a false front may be put up or the therapy stopped altogether.It is these three core conditions that form the foundation of the therapeutic relationship. However, Rogers also believed that fundamental to providing the right conditions for change the helper must make psychological contact with the client. Client and therapist need to be simultaneously aware ofeach other before anything therapeutic can happen (Sanders, Franklin Wilkins 2009 p 39.) psychological contact, the relationship between therapist and client the client is vulnerable or anxious and receives empathy, UPR and congruence. All of these conditions are necessary and the core conditions must be used sufficiently for helpful change. These core conditions are believed to enable to the client to grow and develop in his own way to become the desired person. PCT focuses on the clients own thoughts and feelings, no t those of the therapist and provides an environment where the client can explore personal experiences to strengthen self structure which in turn helps to reach actualisation.The two primary goals of PCT are to increase a clients self esteem and openness to experience. The therapy also helps to bring the clients self image and ideal self closer together and allows the client to have a better self understanding. The clients levels of defensiveness, guilt and insecurity are lowered resulting in more positive and comfortable relationships with others and an improving ability to experience feelings and emotions when they occur. The results of studies carried out using this approach show that clients maintain stable changes over long periods of time, and that the changes are comparable with changes achieved using other types of therapy.It is a very effective way to treat people pitiable from depression or relationship issues but PCT does appear to be less effective than other humanistic therapies where the therapist offers more advice. Rogers originally developed his PCT in a childrens clinic as play therapy and his theory has been used to help people suffering from depression, anxiety, alcohol disorders, cognitive dysfunction and personality disorders and has been proved successful when used on an individual basis as well as in group and family therapy. In the later part of his career he worked with people suffering from schizophrenia.Although PCT is popular and does achieve a level of success, a key criticism in this approach is that the core conditions should always be provided by a good therapist before moving onto different theories and strategies to help make the client better. This criticism shows there is a degree of misunderstanding of the real problems of everlastingly providing UPR, empathy and congruence in the therapeutic setting, as these can clash and causeconflict. Purely being able to maintain these core conditions requires much work on the part of the therapist, given that everyone has values and beliefs which are hard to suppress and ignore, so it may be more real for the therapist to own their own values and beliefs whilst not judging others.PCT does not require the counsellor to undergo any specific training or self development in any particular way through personal experience, other than to provide the core conditions. Rogers believed it is the relationship between the therapist and the client that brings about the therapeutic change. Further criticism, of therapists demonstrating the core conditions, is that it can lead the client to believe that the therapist is supportive of the situation and viewpoint to such an extent that the client no longer feels the need to change. This is repayable to the therapist offering no alternatives as there is no position of authority in the PCT to guide the client to make constructive changes.PCT has also been criticised for its lack of structure and insufficient direction to help p eople in real crisis. Some therapists would argue that this type of approach is not desirable or effective for clients who are inarticulate or poorly educated, whereas other feel that this approach can be applied to anyone. Although this approach is positive is it equal to solely create a good relationship between client and therapist and provide the clients with a safe space to feel valued and support in order for change to take place? If a client is experiencing real difficulty and is unable to see a way forward and has woolly all hope then it is important for the help to come from the therapist. Clients who have experienced this type of therapy often feel that is does not provide the desired solutions they are looking for and have become bored, frustrated and annoyed with the Rogerian style.In summary, although the person-centred approach is clearly a highly effective method of helping and is widely accepted and used by clinical psychologists today, I do not feel that it offer s the therapist all that he/she needs to treat clients. I believe that no one therapy can claim an absolute success rate in treating clients, as human beings are inherently different due to differing cultural backgrounds and life experience andhence each therapist and client relationship will be unique, producing differing results. I feel that one theory that suits everyone is not the approach a good therapist should adopt. Some people may find it easy to talk about their feelings and be able to help themselves in a PCT environment whereas to another this type of approach would be completely bewildering and unproductive.I believe PCT is an effective therapy for treating self esteem and relationship issues however it does not go nearly far enough to help those with deep rooted psychological disorders. A client in crisis may not have the ability to self-help and the nondirective approach can be unhelpful and ineffective when a client is seeking clear guidance from a counsellor. Theref ore I believe it is the job of the therapist to determine which theory would help the client best to resolve their issues and be prepared to be flexible in approach. The skill set of a good therapist would have a variety of different strategies and therapeutic approaches to offer the client and although a person-centred approach is a good place to start, the therapist should be prepared to progress to more structured approaches as appropriate.