Carl Rogers, a psychologist, founded person-centred counselling in the 1940’s. He believed that given the right conditions, a person could reach their full potential and become their true self. He termed this ‘self-actualisation’ and this is an innate part of every human being.
Rogers proposed that the focus of therapy was on the client’s experience of themselves, as opposed to the therapists being an expert on the client. In this way the therapist doesn’t tell them what to do, how to be or what they feel is ‘wrong’ with the client. Person-centred counselling relies on the quality of relationship between the counsellor and client. This co-created relationship is the foundation of therapy and opportunity for client growth.
My aim as a person centred counsellor is to facilitate you as the client to reach your full potential, feel at peace with yourself and more confident to work through those things which are affecting your life.
Person-centred counselling provides a therapeutic environment based on the three core conditions of:
Empathy – my ability to understand your experiences, feelings and perspectives and to walk alongside you without judgement.
Unconditional Positive Regard – my ability to accept you and all that you are, without any judgement or expertise.
Congruence – my ability to be genuine and authentic as your therapist, I also bring myself and all that I am to our relationship.
Part of the discipline of the person-centred approach is not to make assumptions about the client’s appropriate process, but to follow the process laid out by the client.
Dave Mearns
As a non-directive therapy, you as the client are encouraged to bring your own issues, thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviours to the therapy sessions. I am not directive of you or what we work through together. If this feels too daunting for you, and you would prefer some structure to the therapy, we can discuss this and work in that way.
Person-centred therapy helps clients to know themselves better, see themselves in a truer light and become comfortable within themselves. In this way they discover what inner strengths and resources they have to aid in self-actualisation and autonomy.