Person Centered Therapy. Psychology Research Paper (Research Paper Sample)

Person Centered Therapy
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Person Centered Therapy
Introduction
Personal centered therapy is a form of humanistic therapy that evolved in the United States of America in the mid 1950’s. Personal centered therapy involves interpersonal interaction between a psychotherapist and a client. Note that, a patient, in this case, is referred to as the ‘client’ unlike other therapies such as the psychodynamic and behavioral therapies, which involves an expert treating a patient. According to Carl Rodgers, (1957), client centered therapy should involve interactions that are simple and more confident than those carried out in other therapies. Rodgers by then was compelled enough to apply the person centered approach in order to achieve change of how clients were treated by the therapists. He thought that clients’ problems could be solved better, if therapists focused on the clients’ understanding rather than on their own interpretations and motives of the situation. In client centered therapy therapists and clients are viewed as equal partners. The client, in this form of therapy, makes decisions of solving his or her situation, but, not the therapist, as in other therapies.
Later, studies and research were conducted to find out whether the client centered therapy delivered the expected results. Researchers were concerned about the processes involved in this form of therapy, as well as, effectiveness of client centered therapy as compared to other therapies. A major concern in the investigations was to identify the factors that cause personality change and the procedures/methodologies used in assessing that change in person-therapist interactions. The journal, ‘Dimensions of Therapist Response as Causal Factors in Therapeutic Change’ by Barrett-Lenard, 1962, focuses on the study of how client-therapist interactions contributes to personality change, as well as, the application of the Relationship Inventory approach in determining the causal factors of personality change (Barrett-Lenard, 1962).
Before the invention of the methodologies used in evaluating therapeutic change, investigators before had tried find out ‘why’ and ‘how’ personality change occurs in therapy. Researchers such as Quinn (1950) and Fielder (1950) found out that the client centered therapies involved effective communication and understanding, which brought therapeutic change in clients. In 1956, Carl Rodgers came up with the conditions necessary for therapeutic change to be achieved in a client centered therapy. According to Rodgers, therapeutic change in client centered therapy is determined by the therapist’s level of empathic understanding, his/her congruence and his/her degree of unconditional positive regard. In his journal, Barrett-Lenard has developed his methodologies in assessing causal factors of therapeutic change through following the stated variables that determine personality change in a client. Barrett-Lenard has developed an instrument known as the Relationship Inventory, which he used to gather data and provide the scales for the following variables (Barrett-Lenard, 1962).