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Person Centred Theory

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By poppy68
Words 880
Pages 4
text-book examples, and even the most experienced counsellor must be unable to preventhis or her own self from affecting a relationship with a client in some way. As the theory isintended to be applied to real people, I feel that this should have been taken into account to agreater degree.It is also paradoxical that a theory based on core ‘conditions’ requires an ‘unconditional’attitude on the part of the therapist. We could explain that Rogers specifically defines thisunconditionality as an attempt on the therapist’s part to counter existing conditions of worth,but even so, there seems to be a grey area of interpretation here. By making it a condition of his ‘certain type of relationship’, I feel Rogers has undermined the intended unconditionalityto some degree.There is another way in which Rogers’ theory is confusing. Ultimately, both the ‘self asperceived and the ‘real self’ are part of the same reality of experience. While we could viewthe ‘self as perceived’ as an abstract construct of the mind developed from experiences over time, those experiences are as much a part of the physical world that is actually experiencedby the ‘real self’. On this level, we could argue that while there may be incongruence betweenperception and actual experience in a person, they still belong to the same reality, rather thanexisting as distinct worlds, real or imagined. This argument may be too philosophical toexplore properly here, but I feel it is worth mentioning as a weak point in the theory.Likewise, Rogers’ theory does not seem to include any explanation for why different peoplefeel differently about different experiences. Using the example of the young boy attracted toothers boys in Sanders (Sanders, 2006, p18), Rogers might explain how the negative regardof his parents in relation to this lead to certain conditions of worth. What he does not explainhowever, is where the

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