Unconditional positive regard came about in 1956 while Carl Rogers was working as a clinical psychologist. His clients were mental health clinic patients, and to be specific, children.When I realized that these were the subjects Rogers was working with, the concept of unconditional positive regard suddenly made a lot more sense to me. Jessie Taft was a social worker who worked alongside Rogers, and she believed that relationships between patients and their therapists were where there was the most potential for positive influence. Developing client-centered therapy (also called Rogerian psychotherapy and person-centered therapy, among other terms) from this viewpoint led Rogers to develop four characteristics that were most important in treatment. I'm going to touch on each briefly.
1. Empathy
Okay, we've talked about this one. You can listen to Audrey Hepburn talk about it too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=yOjL6baOwu0
2. Unconditional positive regard
We've also talked about this, but not in the context of the client - "A caring for the client, but not in a possessive way or in such a way as simply to satisfy the therapist's own needs. It means caring for the client as a separate person, with permission to have his [or her] own feelings, his [or her] own experiences" (Rogers, 1957). In the context of the development of this condition, I got to thinking that a child will usually have this regard for other human beings up until a certain point (where a giver becomes a taker, where a care giver stops caring..). When speaking about this condition to others within the phase, we decided that it was the most difficult to achieve. It may simply be because we have reached a point in our lives where our experiences do not lend themselves to regarding others positively with a sense of ease.
3. Congruence
The most important attribute, according to Rogers. This is essentially genuineness. We look at it again in terms of Rogers' actual definition of it within therapy:
"Since therapists are also human, they cannot be expected to be fully authentic. Instead, the person-centered model assumes that,if therapists are congruent in the relationship with the client, then the process of therapy will get under way...Congruence exists on a continuum rather than on an all-or-nothing basis (Corey, 1986)."
Here's a video explaining that terminology a bit simpler than Rogers' did in this particular instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=FYMSHjm3mqI
To put it more simply:
4. Attitude versus technique
This may not necessarily be a core condition itself, but rather how they can be achieved within the framework of client-based therapy.
"But the core conditions become established not because of what the therapist does but as a result of the attitudes the therapist holds towards his or her client. In short, the therapist is concerned not with the perfecting of techniques but with the expression of attitudes within a given relationship" (Thorne 45).
Think about this in terms of a recreation professional. If each one of us is the 'therapist' in our interactions, don't each of these attitudes and conditions need to be upheld in order to have a positive experience with the client?
I stumbled across the Johari Window while looking for more information about Rogers. If you imagine for each section of this quadrant that its size was in direct relation to the information contained within it, that it might have different sized quadrants. When one gets larger, the others get smaller. The more open you are and known to others and yourself, the less blind spots you have, the less unknown you are to others. The more unknown to self and unknown to others you are, the more hidden and blind you tend to be. A lot of this ties into what Rogers was expressing.
In the case of the therapist, they need to be aware of each person's four quadrants, how theirs tie into it, and what can affect these ties. It's the same with each and every one of us in our classroom. The point at which we begin to understand each other's behavioral type, the more we see where our strengths and weaknesses lie along the Johari Window, and how those can influence what core conditions we are able to easily express.
Citations:
Corey, G. (1986). Manual for theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. Monterey, Calif: Brooks/Cole Pub. Co.
McGregor, T. (2016, June 13). Defining Empathy Skills in Practice: Carl Rogers and Unconditional Regard. Retrieved from https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Empathy-in-practice
Rogers, Carl (1957). "The necessary and sufficient of therapeutic personality change". Journal of Consulting Psychology (21): 95–103.
Rogers Three Characteristics/Attributes Needed for Client-Therapist Relationship. (n.d.). Retrieved February 07, 2018, from http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/ROGERS/char-a.html
1. Empathy
Okay, we've talked about this one. You can listen to Audrey Hepburn talk about it too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=yOjL6baOwu0
2. Unconditional positive regard
We've also talked about this, but not in the context of the client - "A caring for the client, but not in a possessive way or in such a way as simply to satisfy the therapist's own needs. It means caring for the client as a separate person, with permission to have his [or her] own feelings, his [or her] own experiences" (Rogers, 1957). In the context of the development of this condition, I got to thinking that a child will usually have this regard for other human beings up until a certain point (where a giver becomes a taker, where a care giver stops caring..). When speaking about this condition to others within the phase, we decided that it was the most difficult to achieve. It may simply be because we have reached a point in our lives where our experiences do not lend themselves to regarding others positively with a sense of ease.
3. Congruence
The most important attribute, according to Rogers. This is essentially genuineness. We look at it again in terms of Rogers' actual definition of it within therapy:
"Since therapists are also human, they cannot be expected to be fully authentic. Instead, the person-centered model assumes that,if therapists are congruent in the relationship with the client, then the process of therapy will get under way...Congruence exists on a continuum rather than on an all-or-nothing basis (Corey, 1986)."
Here's a video explaining that terminology a bit simpler than Rogers' did in this particular instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=FYMSHjm3mqI
To put it more simply:
4. Attitude versus technique
This may not necessarily be a core condition itself, but rather how they can be achieved within the framework of client-based therapy.
"But the core conditions become established not because of what the therapist does but as a result of the attitudes the therapist holds towards his or her client. In short, the therapist is concerned not with the perfecting of techniques but with the expression of attitudes within a given relationship" (Thorne 45).
Think about this in terms of a recreation professional. If each one of us is the 'therapist' in our interactions, don't each of these attitudes and conditions need to be upheld in order to have a positive experience with the client?
I stumbled across the Johari Window while looking for more information about Rogers. If you imagine for each section of this quadrant that its size was in direct relation to the information contained within it, that it might have different sized quadrants. When one gets larger, the others get smaller. The more open you are and known to others and yourself, the less blind spots you have, the less unknown you are to others. The more unknown to self and unknown to others you are, the more hidden and blind you tend to be. A lot of this ties into what Rogers was expressing.
In the case of the therapist, they need to be aware of each person's four quadrants, how theirs tie into it, and what can affect these ties. It's the same with each and every one of us in our classroom. The point at which we begin to understand each other's behavioral type, the more we see where our strengths and weaknesses lie along the Johari Window, and how those can influence what core conditions we are able to easily express.
Citations:
Corey, G. (1986). Manual for theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. Monterey, Calif: Brooks/Cole Pub. Co.
McGregor, T. (2016, June 13). Defining Empathy Skills in Practice: Carl Rogers and Unconditional Regard. Retrieved from https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Empathy-in-practice
Rogers, Carl (1957). "The necessary and sufficient of therapeutic personality change". Journal of Consulting Psychology (21): 95–103.
Rogers Three Characteristics/Attributes Needed for Client-Therapist Relationship. (n.d.). Retrieved February 07, 2018, from http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/ROGERS/char-a.html
Thorne, B., & Sanders, P. (2013). Carl Rogers. Los Angeles: Sage.
Comments
Post a Comment