Person-Centered Counseling

Person-centered counseling is an existential-humanistic approach to counseling and psychotherapy that has influenced the manner in which most counselors and psychotherapists conduct clinical work. Developed by Carl Rogers during the mid-20th century, this approach was originally called client-centered counseling and stood in stark contrast to the then popular psychoanalytical approach of Sigmund Freud and the behavioral approach of B. F. Skinner. Using the word client instead of patient, the approach was novel for its time, as it stressed the individual’s potential to understand his or her predicament and change if he or she is placed in an environment that provided psychological safety and facilitated self-understanding. Continuing to be popular today, this nondirective approach helps the client recognize how he or she has been incongruent or ...