This summary includes the Person-centered Approach lecture, which took place at the University of Twente on 09-05-2023. The lecture covered Chapter 6 of The Individual Book (de Bruin, E., 1st Edition)

Person-centred approach:

The humanistic approach – third force

• 1^st Force -- Psychoanalysis: “Say whatever comes to mind”
• 2^nd Force -- Behaviourism
• 3^rd Force -- Humanistic psychology: Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow
  
  • “The human capacity for creativity, growth and choice”
  • Six basic postulates (Bugental, 1964):
    1. Human beings are the sum of its parts
    2. Human beings exist in a uniquely human context, as well as in a cosmic ecology
    3. Human beings are conscious
    4. Human beings aware of oneself in the context of other people
    5. Human beings have choice and responsibility
    6. Human beings are intentional

Basic therapeutic principles of person-centred approach

1. Create a relationship client (Authenticity/Equality/Respect)

2. Make clients more aware of their here-and-now experiences

Assumptions:

• Need to be loved/valued/positive regard
• Need self-actualisation
• Incongruence in self-concept caused by exposure to conditions of worth
• Phenomenological stance: respond to world with moment-by-moment experiencing
• Fully functioning = Internal locus of evaluation, based on own values instead of conforming to dictates of others

Core conditions model for therapeutic change:

• Empathy or empathic understanding
• Congruence or genuineness
• Acceptance or unconditional positive regard

Person-centred counselling

• Listening levels:
  • Level One: What does this have to do with me?
  • Level Two: What is it like to be the person I am listening to?
  • Level Three: What does the feeling that I am having have to do with my client?
• The therapeutic relationship
• Unconditional positive regard
• Genuineness / congruence:
• Congruence / ‘presence’: “When I am at my best, as a group facilitator or as a therapist, I discover another characteristic. I find that when I am closest to my inner, intuitive self, when I am somehow in touch with the unknown in me, when perhaps I am in a slightly altered state of consciousness, then whatever I do seems to be full of healing. Then, simply my presence is releasing and helpful to the other.”
• Empathy

Emotion focused therapy (EFT):

“EFT provides a distinctive perspective on emotion as a source of meaning, direction and growth”

• Leslie Greenberg, Laura Rice and Robert Elliott
• Facilitate emotional processing
• Emphasis on significant events within counselling sessions

Positive psychology

• Two continua model:

• The GROW model:
  • Goal: What do you want to achieve?
  • Reality: Describe the current situation
  • Options: What are your options?
  • Will: What action will you take?