Applying a Theoretical Model

In general, I use a person-centered approach which is a type of humanistic psychotherapy with existential influences. The person-centered approach was developed by Carl Rogers (1951, 1961, 1980) over a period of several decades, and it represented a substantial break from both psychoanalysis and behavioral psychologies.

The essence of person-centered psychotherapy is an assumption that each person has an inherent impulse toward growth and that each person has the capacity for self-direction. There is a focus on the inherent worth and dignity of each person; this is not a deficit model, but a model that emphasizes that people have great giftedness that they are not always in touch with.

For Rogers (1951) every human being is born with innate capacities and potentialities that can be fulfilled if the environment is conducive to that. The goal of life, then, is for the individual to self-actualize, to become that person they were meant to be, or created to be. Rogers believed that actualizing tendency c

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he focus in person-centered psychotherapy is on assisting the person to discover their innate capacities and potentialities and to self-actualize those. There is a de-emphasis on shoulds, norms, and conditions, with an emphasis on finding out the person's real identity and enabling them to become congruent. Intervention Strategies According to Rogers (1977), the person-centered approach assumes that the human being, when placed in a constructive environment, is able to evaluate both the outer and inner situation, understand the self-in-context, make appropriate choices for the next steps in life, and continue on to act on those steps. This does not sound like a promising philosophy for developing a number of intervention strategies and, indeed, this is accurate. Increasingly through his life and the development of his philosophy, Rogers de-emphasized intervention strategies, and reemphasized the importance of the therapist's being and ability to create the facilitative therapeutic environment and relationship. The focus was on the qualities of the therapist - essentially the therapist's own growth and maturity - rather than on any technique that the therapist could call upon to work with the situation. As he put it: The
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Approximate Word count = 3765
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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