Client-Centered Therapy

1947

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987)

As part of the “third force” of Humanistic Psychology that arose in American psychology in the twenty-five years after the end of World War II, Carl Rogers’s client-centered (or, later, person-centered) therapy was influential in developing modern psychotherapy. Rogers grew up quite religious and was a theology student before switching to psychology. Early in his career, his therapeutic work with children led him to posit that a nurturing and positive environment was critical for healthy psychological development. Rogers meticulously studied the therapeutic process and detected what he said were the critical therapist variables: the provision of empathy, congruence, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard. He argued that each of us has an inner capacity to know what positively helps us, but this inner capacity can become obscured by obstacles in daily life. For example, when significant others make their love and acceptance conditional upon living and acting in certain ways, these terms of worth can block our psychological growth. The job of the therapist is to create a therapeutic relationship in which such conditions of worth are eliminated and the person can recover this innate capacity toward growth.

Rogers articulated the basic principles of client-centered therapy in 1947 and then spent many years investigating the application of the principles in actual clinical cases. The influence of client-centered therapy has been considerable, even though it is rarely practiced in its original form today. Psychotherapy research has revealed that there are common factors that must be present for any type of therapy to work. Not surprisingly, perhaps, these factors are very much like what Rogers described: almost all therapists today are trained to be active listeners, provide appropriate reflections of the client’s words, and show empathy as the basis for successful psychotherapy, no matter what other specific techniques may be involved.

Rogers’s commitment to helping people become fully functioning and his belief in personhood, self-determination, and human strengths endure in contemporary movements such as positive psychology.

SEE ALSO Hierarchy of Needs (1943), Logotherapy (1946), Cognitive Therapy (1955), Humanistic Psychology (1961)

Photograph of Carl Ransom Rogers, 1902.