Philosophy Of Person Centered Therapy

Person centered therapy is founded on two basic hypotheses: each person has the capacity to understand the circumstances that causes unhappiness and to reorganize his/her life accordingly. The therapist should be genuine, in touch with what he/she is experiencing and communicate these feelings to the client when they are appropriate to the encounter. The goal of person centered therapy is to help the client become more fully functioning person. On the other hand, the specific goals are client self directed and designed partly to eliminate clients’ unhealthy need to please others. The goals of person-centered therapy can be conceptualized as a two step process, first moving away from the self that one is not, and then moving toward one’s true

In terms of multicultural issues, an important goal is to help individuals identify and pursue their subjectively meaningful path toward multicultural maturity. However, some people from Latino and Asian cultures, tend to want more direct or advice that is immediate rather than gradual from therapy. It may not be appropriate for cultures that are family or group oriented as it stress individual empowerment and individual decision making rather than group decision making. Some criticisms of person centered therapy is that it is not useful for clients who are in a crisis and require directive therapeutic interventions. It’s unrealistic to expect constant unconditional positive regard, as most things in life are conditional. Moreover, placing the sole responsibility on the client makes me uneasy, as there are various circumstances out of one’s control. Not to mention, person centered therapist do not take a history, do not evaluate client’s ideas, feelings, or plans, avoid making deep interpretations of clients’ behavior. Additionally, Person centered therapy is more useful to highly verbal clients and may not be appropriate for clients who have difficulty expressing themselves. It also places too much responsibility on the client and not enough on the expertise of the therapist. (Jones-Smith, p.

It is important that the therapists discuss the client’s preference or reaction to a therapist of a different ethnic/racial or cultural background. The clinician examines the worldviews of the client and explore his or her feelings about counseling. In formulating an understanding and assessing clients it is important to take into consideration the cultural identities of the individual, the cultural explanation of the individual’s illness, the cultural factors related to psychosocial environment and levels of functioning. Cultural elements of the relationship between the individual and clinician. (Jones-Smith, p. 392,