Research on psychotherapy denotes that there is a great degree of influence that therapeutic relationship has upon the outcome of counselling, although the mechanism that is used in the relationship that eventually brings in the change is unidentified.
The desire to comprehend the way in which psychotherapy could help people change has been an inspiring aspect for researches and practitioners in the field of counselling psychology for several decades now. This inspiration has resulted in the accumulation of vast amount of literature, both theoretical as well as empirical, with respect to the various mechanisms that facilitate change in the process of counseling and eventually helping the patient or the client.
There is a great degree of variability with respect to the methods that these studies employed, including various theoretical approaches, strategies for intervention, and lastly the outcome measures that were used. Regardless of the vast degree of variability amongst such studies, most of them have acknowledged a plethora of common elements as the influencing factors of the counselling outcome. One of the most customary of such factors is the therapeutic relationship.
The counselling relationship is essentially portrayed as being one of the crucial ingredients of the therapeutic process, and it has also been suggested of having greater degree of influence on the outcome of the counselling than the specific methods of treatment. Yet, with the presence of so much of coherence and uniformity of this finding, the precise role or the specific mechanism of the counselling relationship in fostering or facilitating client change remains a mystery even today.
Conventionally, most of the research related to the clients’ experiences in therapy has been heavily dependent upon either the therapist’s or the researcher’s experiences and examination rather than from the perception of the client. In the recent decades though, subjective data obtained from the perception of the client has started playing a more crucial role in the field of psychotherapy research. This might actually be a result of the numerous challenges that a few researchers have offered to the field of psychotherapy in their pursuit to depart from a conventionally objective outcome approach and move towards an increasingly “discovery-oriented” approach to psychotherapy.
The school of humanistic psychology lays intense emphasis on the client-centered approach, wherein people or the clients are viewed “as capable and autonomous, with the ability to resolve their difficulties, realize their potential, and change their lives in positive ways.”
One of the major contributors and the founding fathers of the client-centered approach to counselling is Carl Rogers who promoted this humanistic approach while also making sure that therapeutic associations with clients’ fostered “self-esteem, authenticity and actualization in their life, and help them to use their strengths.”
Rogers actually was known to have pioneered this non-directive method of counselling, whose focuses is more upon the ‘here and now’ principle, and which motivates the clients in counselling to discover and construct positive change for themselves. The primary focus of person-centered counselling is upon the personal relationship existing amidst a counsellor and the client.
The creation and improvement of the trust as well as the understanding within this relationship between the counsellor and the client essentially fosters self-realization, while also enabling the client to recognize the issues they are revealing, and to look for solutions, with kind encouragement as well as guidance offered by the counsellor.
The Systems theory was developed by Dr. Murray Bowen, a professor at the Georgetown University. He was a psychiatrists who primarily deal with patients suffering from schizophrenic during the late 1940s and early 1950s. This system of family system, which Bowen developed became a major challenge to the field of psychiatric thinking during those days. Dr. Bowen diverged from the traditional thinking of the field of psychiatry and came up with the following:
“Systems theory was developed on the assumption that an understanding of a person’s emotional functioning must extend beyond psychological constructs to recognize his/her relatedness to all life.”
According to Bowen, an exhaustive consideration of human behavior should essentially rely on those grounds which is much beyond the study of a person and has extended to the overall system of human relationship. To be precise, he suggested that the human family worked in ways that were extremely reliable, and that the operational principles of the family system had their roots in nature.
Essentially, a Family system Therapy is a process of understanding current situations in terms of earlier relationships or family backgrounds. This therapy considers family to be a single emotional unit that is comprised of interlocking relationships of several generations. This theory also suggests that an individual’s behavior all thorough the entire life is very closely related to the working of one’s original family than is understood by many in common. It also specifies that people are able to amend their reactions to the involuntary emotional input by undertaking a study of their own individual behavioral patterns and their connection to those in their multigenerational family.
This is exactly the same approach that Virginia Satir had explained in the video transcript. Virginia Satir is popularly known as ‘the pioneer of family therapy’ and she is also a social activist and psychotherapist. The unique approach to family therapy that Satir developed was a different approach of her own, called the conjoint family therapy. This therapy became so popular that even business organizations started using it as a change model and was started being referred to as “the human validation process or the Satir Change Model.”
Apart from the above, Satir also introduced several other topics into the field of counselling and psychotherapy where love was a pivotal component in the therapeutic process; “the human need for personal space and validation; the difference between what people intend to say and what they actually say; and the importance of healthy relationships and self-esteem in mental and emotional health and wellbeing.”
According to Satir, every individual is unique and hence should be empowered to connect with their inner self and source of wisdom present within every individual. She was a strong believer of the fact that the cause of mental imbalance had their roots in the restricting identities of various cultural belief systems that were formed by people because of the feeling that is forced to lead their lives to meet the rigid expectations, societal standards and various judgments that are present within the social, cultural and family structures.
The model of family therapy proposed by Satir essentially starts with the highest level of value and reverence for the distinctiveness and marvel of each individual. Quite often, she remarked that even though the human body has several identical parts, the whole world does not have two people who are similarly to each other. “Each fingerprint, iris, and voice tone is unique. She often began her workshops or community meetings with a meditation to “center” each individual through appreciation of distinct experiences and attributes.”
One of the strongest beliefs that Satir held was regarding the elevation of the consciousness, both internal and external, that is the most important ingredient for the development of healthy individuals, families, as well as communities. “Knowing contact with our internal self-facilitates “I-Thou” connections with one another.”
Satir is known for her creation of a magical climate in the groups that she trained. Her merriment of the individual nurtured a sense of empowerment as well as closeness and affection. Her work consistently compared the interactions between one’s self, the others, as well as the context. Most of her early works adopted the qualities of self-esteem and the harmonious communication. She always encouraged people “to become more fully human” by acknowledging and captivating responsibility for all their parts.
Today, the person-centered therapeutic process essentially focuses on developing the client’s ability for developing an enhanced understanding of their self in an atmosphere that empowers the client to solve their own issues without the therapist having to get involved in the process.
The therapist is required to continue with numerous questions that foster openness to change while also exhibiting courage to deal with the unknown. Rogers, in his person-centered approach, also highlights the approaches and personal traits of the therapist as well as the quality of the relationship that exists between the client and therapist being the factors for a successful therapeutic practice.
As already noted, the humanistic approach has been one of the most influencing factors of the person-centered therapy. The therapists who follow this form of therapy strongly believe that clients are adept and reliable enough and they focus on those abilities that are inherently present in the clients for making the required changes within themselves.
Even though counselling in a person-centered method lacks a standard structure, similar to a few other counselling methods used for offering support, it is a very effective method of inspiring personal development in a client. It is primarily a “non-judgmental, non-directive approach to assisting the client to find personal solutions, and avoids analysis.”
The benefits that the counselor offers a client through the use of person-centered therapy, comprise of unconditional positive concern, empathy and authenticity. All these offerings together result in a highly optimistic and strong foundation for a credulous and highly trustworthy relationship between the client and the counsellor.
The primary objective of any form of counselling is to predominantly offer a relief to the client from all and any form of emotional agony or misery, mental misperception and/or restricting belief systems. The person-centered counselling provides an opportunity to the client for becoming increasingly aware of the self, and also gain increased control for creating a kind of optimistic transformation that they wish to bring about in their lives.
The positive attitude of a counsellor is of pivotal significance for enabling a open-minded relationship between the client and the therapist/counsellor, and it is their responsibility to foster, experiment and support the client throughout the process. Displaying empathy, analogy and boundless positive concern, throughout the entire interaction of counselling with a client will offer the client with the required understanding, precision and support, for making a constant progress in terms of self-realization.
The primary advantages of a patient-centered therapy are:
This form of therapy focuses more on the present, and motivates the client for thinking about the current rather than delving in the past or to look into the future.
It empathizes with the client completely while also bestowing utmost value to the client(s) and their issues.
It fosters things like self-expression, awareness, and development and also nurtures an increased understanding of the self.
Working with clients in a person-centered approach permits the client to delve their thoughts, mental state and sensations in an environment that offers high levels of confidentiality. It offers clients with the opportunity to communicate all the various issues and concerns they might have and ultimately help them in reaching a clear state of mind in terms of their thoughts.
The counselling/therapy that follows a person-centered approach is a non-directive practice that offers therapeutic support, while also enabling the client to make use of the free-association and thinking in the process of disclosure. It essentially relies on the humanistic philosophy which strongly believes in the fact that every individual has the ability to develop a highly positive and satisfying life style and standard of living.
Adopting a humanistic approach to counselling offers them with an opportunity to discover their creativity and personal development, while also becoming capable of recognizing a wide range of choices in life. The basic underpinning of this approach to counselling is to offer the clients with a profound understanding of their own self, their inherent feelings in life as well as the opportunity to investigate the potential of making personal choices. This approach essentially nurtures and builds self-awareness and realization.
This approach also offers a unique method of counselling and essentially concentrates on the unique, personal potential of every individual for exploring creativity, self-development, love and emotional understanding of the self and their lives.
Counsellors working with clients by adopting a humanistic method have the ability to offer support that is required by the client so that they can freely discover their entire life experience, instead of focusing primarily on singular aspects of their life. Specific attention is offered to merging the past, the present and also the future, rather than focusing primarily on any one particular issue or area.
Many researchers and practitioners in the field of psychotherapy have remarked that the cognitive-behavioral therapy relies heavily on the collaboration that happens between the therapist and the client which ultimately focuses upon channeled exploration of the self. Both the client as well as the therapist work in union in determining the goals, on the various homework tasks, standards for achieving success, and also the means for sustaining the success, which is finally accomplished. The therapist adopts a highly open and candid approach while interacting with the client, communicates in a clear and explicit manner with the client, and also offers honest advice and opinions.
Motivation has also started garnering high degree of attention across various approaches of counseling, supposedly due to the fact that motivating the client serves as the key element for the treatment to be effective.
According to Rogers, the primary effectiveness of the therapist is made possible by way of the therapeutic relationship. The therapist should always display high degree of empathy towards the client, be as truthful and honest as possible during the interaction process, and also maintain a boundless amount of positive concern towards the client.
Displaying empathy calls for recognizing and acknowledging the feelings of the client and reflecting the same to the client again so that the client would also identify such feelings. Being honest and candid needs genuineness and frankness on part of the counsellor/therapist while interacting with the client and often also calls for self-disclosing so that the client would recognize the empathy that is being displayed by the therapist/counsellor. Having absolute and unrestricted positive concern for clients essentially denotes regarding them as people, without any conditions of value.
Finally, as Mearns and Thorne denote, it is not possible to construe the true meaning of the person-centered approach to counselling through any form of techniques alone. The counselor who adopts such an approach in the therapeutic process possess a highly optimistic outlooks towards human nature.
The very notion that are intrinsically good natured, and that finally the individual is aware of what is right for them and what is not, is the key component of a successful therapy that adopts a person-centered approach as “all about loving,” which will surely bring about the much required client change.
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