The GOAT of Psychotherapy: Carl Rogers and Person-Centered Therapy

Ok fine I'll say it. Carl Rogers is the most influential therapist of all time. He's the GOAT. If I was training a new clinician from the ground up and I could instill only one therapeutic modality, it would be his Person-Centered therapy.

Person-centered therapy is instilled into many of the modern experiential therapies that are being used today. But these ideas were radical and fundamentally changed the field of psychotherapy when it was created in the 1940s.

During this time, Psychoanalysis and Behaviorism were the two primary traditions being practiced. Psychoanalysis posits that the therapist is the expert in the room pointing out and delivering insight about the client's unconscious conflicts rooted in childhood. And then on the other end, Behaviorism is only worried about external behavior that can be observed, and views people as almost machines.

Carl comes in a flips all of this on its head. He looks at psychoanalysis and says... "Actually, our clients are the experts of their experience, and it's not our job to look down on them and instill wisdom from above." He looks at Behaviorism and says... "No, humans aren't machines. They have endless and rich subjective experience that is incredibly valuable to the process of change." He was optimistic, and believed that every person has an inherent capacity to grow and change if given the right environment.

When a therapist is practicing from a person centered approach, they are less concerned about being a master of a specific technical skill set, and are more concerned about being masters at artfully creating an environment that is conducive to change and exploration. From Carl Roger's perspective, the main key ingredients to this type of environment are empathy, authenticity, and unconditional positive regard.

When a person-centered therapist is creating an environment rich with empathy, they are attuned the client's subjective experience moment to moment. And not only are they attuned to the client's experience, they are letting the client know that they are there with them by usage of mirroring and reflections. It is not enough for you as the therapist to feel like you are fully "getting" the richness of the client's experience, the client needs to feel that as well.

Authenticity (or congruence in the language of person-centered therapy) allows the therapist to tune in to their own experience, and express that experience when it might be useful to the client. We are not blank-faced therapists in the person-centered world. We are not AI. We are humans with conscious experiences of the world and of our clients, and are not afraid to express our authenticity when it is useful for the client. Now, this does not mean that we tell stories about our lives and take up space that the client could benefit from having, but it gives us the freedom to say things like "I'm feeling touched by what you're saying right now," or even "in this moment, I'm not sure if I'm feeling fully connected with you." These interpersonal comments can open doors for incredibly rich explorations.

When Carl talks about unconditional positive regard, he's interested in the stance the therapist takes when viewing and interacting with their client. There is a way of viewing a client as a human being worthy of prizing, appreciating, and knowing instead of pathologizing a client and viewing them as a problem to be fixed. We emphasize the dignity and worth of the person sitting in front of us, and recognize their inherent strengths. We sink into and encourage their ability to make their own decisions in their life, their fundamental right of self-determination. And we have a deep recognition that the person suffering in front of us is doing their absolute best that they can with the tools that they have, or have been given.

Person Centered therapy gives you a foundation to explore other more "exiting" techniques and modalities.. It's something to fall back on in every moment in a session when you're thinking "where am I, and where do I go next?" It's a type of therapy that doesn't preach about technical interventions, but preaches the importance of taking a certain stance towards our work and interacting with clients. It is respectful, empowering, and I think should be the foundation of a therapists approach.