Facilitative Conditions

Unconditional Positive Regard

Unconditional positive regard is the therapist's unqualified attitude of acceptance and a nonpossessive caring toward the client and toward the client's feelings and experiences. This involves a valuing of the client as a worthy human being regardless of his or her past choices, problems, or issues and a warm acceptance of each aspect of the client's present experience as it unfolds in the here-and-now of the counseling context. The client's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are not evaluated by the counselor as good or bad. This facilitative condition, in which clients are unconditionally accepted, provides clients with a therapeutic context in which they are given the freedom to be themselves and experience their own being, thoughts, and feelings without any outside conditions or demands. This freedom gives the clients a safe, accepting context in which to express and explore the many deeper hidden dimensions of themselves and the freedom to self-reflect and consider new choices and options.

Having unconditional positive regard for the client does not mean condoning all the client's actions. For example, a counselor working with a mass murderer would have unconditional positive regard for the client. The counselor would have an acceptance of the anger the client is expressing at being charged with murder. The counselor does not necessarily agree with the client's choice to have committed murder, but does have unconditional positive regard for the client as a person and the client's experience of the emotion of anger. The counselor accepts the client as a fellow human and values the client as such, regardless of the client's choices. A second example is a counselor working with a person who has issues surrounding addiction. The counselor would have unconditional positive regard for the client and his or her experience of addiction. The counselor's liking the client would not be conditionally based on the client's stopping use of drugs or alcohol. The counselor would value the client as another person. However, Rogers understood that not all counselors could have unconditional [Page 602]positive regard for all clients. In these instances, referral to another counselor is the best option.

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