Person-Centered Approach:
people in the center
"Freedom to be oneself is a frighteningly responsible freedom"
(C.R.Rogers, 1961)
"Freedom to be oneself is a frighteningly responsible freedom"
(C.R.Rogers, 1961)
At first sight the Person-Centred Approach looks like just another way to view the way humans behave in relationship. Actually, it carries a deep regard for “relationship” as being the therapeutic place in which change, or changing, takes place. In his scientific studies over many decades, Carl R. Rogers, an American psychologist of the C20th demonstrated that it was the psychotherapist’s attitude, more than any of theirtechniques, which can facilitate the client to manifest their own potentials.
How to help this ? In therapy, each individual is accompanied in their exploration by the therapist having thebest regard for this human being in increasing their own awareness, without any directive external limitation.
To experiment oneself in a free way in a facilitated relationship is less simple than we could imagine. The absence of any direction or limitation to this self-emerging process allows the emergence of potential but, at the same time, we could be worried by the wide number of opportunities in front of us.
Because “Freedom to be oneself is a frighteningly responsible freedom” (Carl R. Rogers, 1961).
The Approach applies its principles in several fields: counseling, psychotherapy and education.
Rogers, C. R. (1951). Client-Centered Therapy. London, UK: Constable & Company Ltd, original ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company
Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company
