Question

Carl Rogers ‘person centred therapy’ approach is used in counselling and social care today. Outline the strengths of ‘person centred therapy’ his concepts of the core conditions and critically evaluate Rogers’s contributions to social care practice today?

Humanistic therapies evolved in the USA during the 1950s.  Carl Rogers proposed that therapy could be simpler, warmer and more optimistic than that carried out by behavioral or psychodynamic psychologists.

His view differs sharply from the psychodynamic and behavioral approaches in that he suggested that clients would be better helped if they were encouraged to focus on their current subjective understanding rather than on some unconscious motive or someone else’s interpretation of the situation.

Rogers strongly believed that in order for a client’s condition to improve therapists should be warm, genuine and understanding.  The starting point of the Rogerian approach to counseling and psychotherapy is best stated by Rogers himself: