he self-actualizing process that leads to fully functioning people is that children are not brought up with unconditional positive regard. Instead, they are offered conditional positive regard, or love, which means that they must suppress certain parts of themselves to gain acceptance and approval. As children seek to gain the approval and love of others, their self-concept changes and they lose track of who they really are. They begin to think that they are the people who others have told them they should be. They may rebel against that, but still they tend to lose connection with their real capacities and potentialities. They become less and less congruent. This leads to dysfunction, rather than full functioning. They tend to live lives that lack meaning for them, and they may be scattered, directionless, rigid, constricted, defensive, and anxious. They may eventually lose total touch with their real identities and be unable to formulate what they want and need. Person-centered therapy helps them recover their knowledge of their capacities, potentialities, and interests and move toward actualizing them.
The person-centered psychotherapist respects the inner world of the client, having faith that in that inner world is the giftedness of the client, along with the capacity to actualize that giftedness in the world. Thus, the focus is on going inward with the client, not on imposing any specific framework or structure that is guaranteed to heal the client. It is assumed that the client essentially heals himself or herself, with the assistance of the psychotherapist.
Person-centered psychotherapy is particularly non-directive. It is not oriented toward solution-focused approaches or problem-solving. Instead, it is oriented toward providing a welcoming, caring presence to the client which allows the client to thrive. There are several qualities that Rogers (1951, 1961) emphasizes as essential in creating an environmen...