Core Conditions and Their Use

The roots of the Person Centred approach, now considered a founding work in the Humanistic school of psychotherapies, began formally with Carl Rogers in the 1950's.

In counselling there is a focus on the client's ability to move in positive directions and towards a single 'force of life' called the 'actualizing tendency'. This can be defined as the built-in motivation present in every individual to develop its potentials to the fullest extent possible. Connected to this is the belief in the confidence that individuals also have the inner resources to move themselves in such positive directions.

In Person centred counselling in order to satisfy the 'actualising tendency', the client needs to learn first what is of value to that growth. This ability to weigh up and to value experiences positively/negatively is the 'organismic valuing process,' and if clients listen to their 'organismic valuing process' they will know what will help move them towards their potential. Difficulties can occur in both the ability to weigh up and to value experiences and also in efforts to fulfil creative potential. This is because we value positive self-regard: that is, self-esteem, self-worth and a positive self-image. When society in general and significant others in the client's world such as parents provide positive regard that is conditional, they may begin to lose touch with what their own experience means for them, and their innate tendency to grow in a direction consistent with that meaning may be stifled.

The first of the core conditions is that the client and counsellor must be in psychological contact. This was somewhat overlooked by Rogers who felt that this was an obvious assumption and that it was either present or not, so did not put much emphasis on it. The second condition is that the client is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious, third is the therapist, is congruent in the relationship, forth is that the therapist demonstrates unconditional positive regard (UPR) for the client, fifth is the therapist demonstrates an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference and endeavours to communicate this experience to the client and the sixth is the communication to the client of the therapist's empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard (UPR) is achieved.

This is because we value positive self-regard: that is, self-esteem, self-worth and a positive self-image.

These include: counsellor and client psychological contact: a relationship between client and counsellor must exist, and it must be a relationship in which each person's perception of the other is important.

Client incongruence or vulnerability: that incongruence exists between the client's experience and awareness. Furthermore, the client is vulnerable to anxiety which motivates them to stay