rapy. This kind of therapy is best illustrated in the goals it hopes to achieve.
[It involves] the increase in insightful statements, in maturity of reported behavior, in positive attitudes, as therapy progresses; the changes in perception of, and acceptance of, the self; the incorporation of previously denied experience into the self-structure; the shift in the locus of evaluation from outside to inside the self; the changes in the therapeutic relationship; and characteristic changes in personality structure, in behavior, and in physiological condition. . . . as revealed in clinical experience (Rogers, 1961, p. 75).
This process clearly demands nothing of the patient except honesty and willingness to be persuaded into mental health; and why else does a patient seek psychotherapeutic assistance? Perls (1969), of course would say that patients seek therapy in order to manipulate the therapist (p. 39), whereas Walt Anderson (1973) would say that the sicknesses in society stem from the sickness of the society itself (101-102).
Rogers, on the other hand, insists that if the so-called neurosis is to be dealt with, and if it is to be dealt with by a psychotherapist, then the solution to the patient's problem, real or imagined though it be, has to be handled with the tools of a method which takes itself seriously enough to depend on itself alone.
[W]e endeavor to describe, study, and understand the basic process which underlies therapy, rather than attempting to warp that process to fit our clinical needs, or our preconceived dogma, or the evidence from other field. Let us patiently examine it for what it is in itself (Rogers, 1961, p.75).
The concept of client-centered therapy is an important departure from Freudian therapy, which to the detriment of both patient and therapist, places the therapist into a position of demi-god. When and if that god fails to produce the correct answers to the patient's dilemma, then the...