Analysis of Person-Centred Approaches to Counselling Techniques

This report delves into the integration of person-centred approaches to counselling, emphasizing the core conditions essential for effective therapeutic practice. It begins by defining person-centred theory (PCT) and its focus on ethical values, client dignity, and respect, highlighting the importance of understanding the client's life experiences and relationships. The main body of the report examines key concepts such as therapist-client psychological contact, incongruent clients, and congruent therapists. It explores the significance of core conditions like empathy, unconditional positive regard, and the therapist's congruence in fostering client growth and self-actualization. The report provides a detailed analysis of the differentiation between working at different levels of relational depth within PCT, illustrating how the counsellor's responsibilities and techniques vary across these levels to promote a safe, secure, and empathetic therapeutic environment. The report provides examples to support the theory, making it a comprehensive guide to the application of person-centered counselling.

INTEGRATING PERSON
CENTRED APPROACHES TO
COUNSELLING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
Books and Journals..........................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Integrating person centric approaches to counselling is an aspect which assists the
counsellor in setting appropriate inclusion measures during session. Approaches act as a helping
hand to the individual who is focused on understanding issues of specific client. Counselling is
the profession where it is important for the assessor to implement use of Person Centred Theories
(PCT), models and methods. The report will outline core conditions which can assist in relating
to PCT. Thus, focus on study will be on identifying differentiation in between different levels of
competencies which assist the counsellor in sessions.
MAIN BODY
Person centred theory
Person centred theory plays a crucial role in counselling and therapy session that was
developed in the 1940s. The focus of theory is on ethical values where counsellor aims at
valuing people in order to enable dignity and respect to individual. It is the basic practice of
session in which the assessor aims at supporting individual beliefs, preferences and cultural
values (Person-Centered Theory, 2010). However, it is essential for the counsellor to analyse
client’s life experience before starting session. The prior discussion about different situation of
life helps person in developing understanding over present situation of individual. Further,
understanding relationships of person is another crucial aspect of discussion which aims at
evaluating initiatives which are needed to be planned for the client (Cooper, O'Hara and Bohart,
2013)
The understanding over relationship is focused on core conditions of case which needs to
be addressed for serving client satisfaction. In addition, environment of client plays an important
role in counselling session as it helps in analysing the situation from which the person comes.
Implementing PCT model helps the supervisor in developing understanding over situations and
environment of person (Person-centred therapy, 2018). The theory emphasizes on health
condition, self-actualization and living condition of client.
The client who visits counsellor is in dilemma of surrounding which represent his or her
core conditions. There are numerous reasons which require counselling and therapy to deal with
certain circumstances. Skills are crucial aspects of counselling which assist the supervisor in
understanding as per t requirement and status of mind in different conditions. It is important for
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the counsellor to be a good listener for analysing situation of person (Dwamena and et.al., 2012).
Further, it is essential for the adviser to hold knowledge over problem solving and summarizing
because it is the core part of counselling job. Apart from this, integrating effective
communication is a mandatory part of session as it helps in connecting with client for further
discussion.
Person centred theory is effective for counselling therapy because in this, focus of
advisers is on problems and not on the actual situation. This helps the person in easily
connecting with client. Further, it helps in easily resolving issue as with the help of this model,
problem is concerned with person’s requirement in accordance with circumstances. There are
numerous types of situations for which counselling has been an effective approach such as
marriage and family, career and guidance, rehabilitation as well as mental health, substance
abuse, education counselling etc. (Tolan and Cameron, 2016.). The therapy offers problem
solving approach as per the demand of counselling situation and that is why it is the most
effective method which is implemented by supervisor.
However, Roger PCT concept is based on self-actualisation in which the adviser is
focused on developing session in accordance with the situation and problem of client. As per the
views of Duke, Frankel and Reis, 2013, it is important for the counsellor to focus on
empowering client in order to boost their moral to overcome certain situation. In addition,
empowering client is the basic practice of therapy which aims at setting problem solving
intervention to problems of visitor. Apparently, core conditions of PCT are based on skills and
techniques of supervisor which derives their attitude and attribute at time of communication
with client.
Core Conditions
Therapist-client psychological contact
Therapist-client psychological contact is the core condition of PCT approach which
therapist focuses on analysing condition of visitor. It is based on the perception of supervisor on
discussion. This relationship among two persons cannot be assumed and therefore, it is important
for the person to communication with others on the problems and different situations. The core
aspects of relationship are respect and dignity offered by therapist to client. Valuing of one's
beliefs and values is the part of discussion which helps in enabling comfortable environment for
supervisor and visitor (Holmström and Röing, 2010). However, in this, focus of counsellor in on
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discovering different aspects of client problems in order to convince them for growth and change
for their person development.
In accordance with this theory, there are six conditions which help in deriving necessity
and sufficiecy of personality changes of client that is:
 Psychological contact and interaction of two persons that is counsellor and client
 State of visitors while discussion such as anxious, vulnerable, panic, etc.
 Effectiveness of communication skill of therapist with second person
 Positivity by advisor at the time of discussion with visitor (Person-Centered Theory,
2010)
 Empathy towards understanding of client situations and state of mind on the basis of
normal communication.
 Encouraging positivity in discussion in order to motivate client to share every possible
thing which can assist in understanding whole scenario which needs to be addressed.
For example, during practice session I came across the case of 35 years old woman who
visited for session against marriage and personal life counselling. However, in first session I
focused on implementing my skills of therapist- client psychological relationship, where I
focused on basic communication with her. This helped me in developing understanding over her
behavioural and situational issues. Apparently, the session assisted me in analysing the core of
problems and her way of handling different hazardous circumstances.
Thus, in accordance to this situation, it can be said that discussion and relationship of
client and therapist helps in analysing needs of personality changes which are required to address
problem statement of person (McMahon, 2016). It is an approach which helps in promoting
constructive personal transformation of two people’s relationship.
Incongruent Client
It is the condition which is person centred that is related to individual’s state of mind at
the time of therapy session. This can be anxiety, panic, vulnerability, etc. which needs to be
addressed. In accordance with this theory, change is important in order to encourage client to
come out of certain situation. Further, in this theory, it is important for the second person to
understand the importance of intervention which will be implemented by counsellor to make
individuals confront their problems (King, Delfabbro and Gradisar, 2012). It is an practical
situation where the focus on counsellor is on analysing client self worth and love as per
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experience. The stage of discussion where the focus of therapist is to make services user
understand his or her situation. Apparently, it can be said that it focuses on self-actualisation of
own problems for promoting change. It is the second step of session after development of
therapeutic relationship in between clients and counsellors.
This condition is based on promoting self-image and ideal of person on the basis of his or
experience. It plays an important role in managing personality change during session. There are
various circumstances where the client losses self-efficacy to change and own condition. The
losing interest and self-worth drags the person into the world where individual restrict
themselves from inclusion (Miller and Moyers, 2017). Thus, this stage of discussion helps
therapist in boosting confidence of client on own conditions.
For example, the case of woman which is discussed on first condition of client and
counsellor relationship, I analysed that there is something which is disturbing her,due to which
she is restricting herself from social inclusion, personality changes. Therefore, to promote self-
love and worth in this situation, I aimed at personal life discussion from where I identified that
she has been through sexual and physical violence from past 4 years. However, to protect image
in society and family, she was restricting herself to complain and separate. Further the discussion
over issues made her anxious and vulnerable due to which she wanted to end the session.
Therefore, I did not force her to discuss more on this instead I asked to share her views on
married life as per her family and past life. She was excited and shared exciting things which
motivated her (Duke, Frankel and Reis, 2013). Thus, this was the point which helped me in
boosting self-love and worth in her for further upcoming sessions.
Congruent Therapist
This is the final condition in patient centred theory in which adviser aims at creating
inner awareness in client on his or her own feelings, strength, reality etc. It is focused on
empowering person regardless of the experience and situation. The encouragement to visitor in
session is giving own self beliefs, inner peace, distress, anger over own experience. Apparently,
this condition helps in establishing congruence of session making client understanding their own
situation (Campbell, 2018). It is related to exposing reality to second person in order to make
them realize the wrong of certain situation. Exposing the situation in précised manner helps the
adviser in setting personality change management.
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For instance, the case of woman which is discussed in above two core conditions, is dragged
further to third condition which is, incongruence therapy. In this therapist focused on making her
realize the wrong of the situation where sexual and physical violence is an unethical activity. In
this session I wanted to encourage her for her inner beliefs and feelings which will assist her in
standing for the wrong she has been experiencing since 4 years.
Thus, PCT assist in extracting maximum information which is required for conducting
further session for client importance All theses condition helps in summarizing different aspect
of client and conditions (Schmid, 2018). Hence, it can be said that core condition are based on
unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding and valuing people.
Differentiation between working at different level of relational depth of PCT
The approach offers different way of managing each step, like the core condition in PCT
are related to each other but the counsellor shares different responsibility in every step.
Relational depth is the base of counselling where the focus of individual is on humanity of
second person who is experiencing session. In this it is important for the therapist to promote
humanity in client for his or her own life experience. This concept of relational depth helps the
adviser in encouraging understanding in visitor (Holmström and Röing, 2010). Like in therapist
and client relationship level, it is the responsibility of counsellor is to promote sense of safety
and security in client. However, this stage of PCT is unique because in this the focus of assessor
is on analysing sensitivity of client to different situations.
In Therapist-client psychological contact the counsellor focuses on normal
communication where the counsellor aims at analysing situation of client. In this the focus on
individual is on positive communication which demonstrate their thinking ability and
understanding ability. It is effective for making session familiar to one another. The
communication between client and visitor is based on encouraging positivity and empathy
towards understanding of client situations. Apparently, in-congurence therapy is the complete
different condition because in this adviser focuses on determining self efficacy and motivation of
person to his or her circumstances. This helps in developing knowledge abut individual anxious
panic to own condition. Analysis of these factors helps in planing changes in personality
development (Skills for Person-Centred Counselling, 2018). It is different relational depth of
counselling session because it aims at booting client self worth and love regardless of experience
and pressure of stressed situation. Nevertheless, congruence therapy in counselling session is to
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make client ware about right and wrong of own situation. This is too to make individuals
understand the negatives of situation in order to derive safety measures. This therapy is based in
discussion and taking out things where both the individual share their view point ion similar
situation (Dwamena and et.al., 2012). The final discussion is conducted by therapist to analyse
the situation of client and his or willingness to come out.
Thus, in accordance to skills based learning and person centric approach it has been
derived that level of competence is different and offers unique communication and management
style for session but it is important for the counsellor to go step wise when practising person
centric theory.
Person Centred counselling skills
Person centred counselling skills plays an important role for the adviser because it helps
in framing reasonable outcomes for the client. It helps in keeping individuals values and beliefs a
s based which help in maintaining ethnicity and empathy of counselling sessions. In my opinion I
feel counselling is the job where it is important for the adviser to have understanding over
different situation and behavioural changes of people (Client Centered or Rogerian Counseling,
2017). Further, the ability to understand one feeling sand emotion jut with one discussion is the
approach which helps in protecting interest of client at the time of discussion.
Further, I feel it is important for the supervisor to be genuine and equal in every situation.
These are the traits which helps the person in dealing with different types of situation with the
helps of patients centric approach. However, according to my experience I can state that patient
centric theories are best for counselling therapy because it helps the person in developing
different understanding to problems as per different clients. In addition, practising person
centred skills made me learn about empathy where it is the responsibility of counsellor to
develop accurate understanding over the client's thoughts and feelings as per their perspective.
This understanding helps the adviser in evaluating thinking and understanding ability of person
to own situation. This characteristic of counsellor demonstrate relational depth of core conditions
in person centric approach.
In addition, practising helped me to analyse that it is important for me to accept different
conditions of client without making judgement. Genuineness is the practice which will help me
in understanding the situation in better and positive ways. My level of analysing is the critical
aspect of approach because client response will be useless if I would not be able to synthesize
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shared information. Practising is the best strategy for improvement as it helps in self assessment
and disclosure. In accordance to exerting different session and clients situation I feel I have
developed skills such as reading body language, active listening, paraphrasing and summarizing.
In addition, I concluded by deriving that it is important for the counsellor to interact in a good
tone in order to boost the environment for discussion (King, Delfabbro and Gradisar, 2012).
Tone of therapist plays an important role in encouraging integrated communication with client.
Thus, it is important for me to boost learning over open and close ended questions which will
assist me in increasing effectiveness in person centred counselling skills.
Feedback from other to asses development
In accordance to practising in collected feedback from my head counsellor, per
colleagues and client to evaluate improvement measures which will assist me in my future
practices. Collecting feedback is the best method which assist the person in evaluating own
strengths and weakness with the help of different view points. However, with the discussion with
supervisor I got to know that it is important for me to improve my communication at the level of
therapist and client relationship because it is the stage where its is essential for assessor to
analyse condition and inner peace of mind of visitors. It is the phase which helps in other two
core conditions.
Further, I thought client feedback is the best way to analyse the shortcomings of
discussion from where I discovered that I was good at encouraging humanity and sense of
security and safety but it is important for me to cross question client again and again to every
answer. Genuine questioning is the practice which needs to improved in order to set
improvement in further counselling sessions. Genuine reasoning helps in creating discussion and
integrating effective communication which is the core characteristics of counsellor therapies in
order to deal with clients problems statement.
Discussion and feedback from colleagues helped me in analysing that in lack discussion
over client situation due to active listening where I only focuses on understanding person
experience and different situation. I am good motivator and encourage but on the other hand it is
important for me to develop understanding over problem statement of visitors in order to resolve
their concern (Campbell, 2018). Motivating is the concern of counselling but with this it is also
the responsibility of therapist to make visitor to understand about the circumstance for which
they are taking counselling. For instance, of in case a student of medical science is visiting me
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for counselling on his condition where he is feeling pressure studies from school, family and
classmates. It was the stage where the learner was depressed and wanted to quit his career. Thus,
in this practice session I focused on motivating him and which at the end helped him but I was
lacking with solution of practical life which requires to made for his personality development
after counselling session.
CONCLUSION
The report summarized about integration of person centred approaches to counselling
session from where it has been analysed that it is important for the therapist to implement used of
PCT theory when dealing with different clients. It is the approach which helps in promoting
humanity in client by developing understanding among them for their own experience. Further,
the report outlined core condition of PCT theory that is Therapist-client psychological contact,
in-congruent client and congruent therapist. Besides, in this researcher identified about own
Person centred counselling skills after practising in different situations. Thus, it concluded by
outlining Feedback from peer colleagues, supervisors and client which helped me in analysing
improvement measures which required to made in order to develop my skills over person centred
approaches to counselling.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Campbell, J.A., 2018. Person Centered Theory and Considerations for Counseling Practice and
Teaching. Journal of Global Engagement and Transformation. 1(2).
Cooper, M., O'Hara, M. and Bohart, A. 2013. The handbook of person-centred psychotherapy
and counselling. Palgrave Macmillan.
Duke, P., Frankel, R.M. and Reis, S., 2013. How to integrate the electronic health record and
patient-centered communication into the medical visit: a skills-based approach.
Teaching and learning in medicine. 25(4). pp.358-365.
Dwamena, F. and et.al., 2012. Interventions for providers to promote a patient‐centred approach
in clinical consultations. The Cochrane Library.
Holmström, I. and Röing, M., 2010. The relation between patient-centeredness and patient
empowerment: a discussion on concepts. Patient education and counseling, 79(2),
pp.167-172.
King, D.L., Delfabbro, P.H. and Gradisar, M., 2012. Cognitive‐behavioral approaches to
outpatient treatment of Internet addiction in children and adolescents. Journal of
clinical psychology. 68(11). pp.1185-1195.
McMahon, M. ed., 2016. Career counselling: Constructivist approaches. Routledge.
Miller, W.R. and Moyers, T.B., 2017. Motivational interviewing and the clinical science of Carl
Rogers. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 85(8), p.757.
Schmid, P.F., 2018. Going beyond orthodoxy in an orthodox way? Remarks to Jobst Finke’s plea
to extend person-centered therapy by pre-Rogerian means. Person-Centered &
Experiential Psychotherapies. pp.1-7.
Tolan, J. and Cameron, R., 2016. Skills in person-centred counselling & psychotherapy. Sage.
Online
Client Centered or Rogerian Counseling. 2017. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.basic-
counseling-skills.com/client-centered.html>.
Person-Centered Theory. 2010. [Online]. Available through:
<http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_capuzzi_counseling_3/4/1171/299857.cw/index.html>.
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Person-centred therapy. 2018. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.counselling-
directory.org.uk/person-centred-therapy.html>.
Skills for Person-Centred Counselling. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.saap.za.net/resources/26-counsellingskills/92-skillsforperson-
centredcounselling->.
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