Abc_Unit_3_Counselling_Theory_Assignment

ABC Diploma in the Theory and Practice of Counselling (Therapeutic Work) Level 4 June 2008 Unit 3: Counselling Theory Word Count: 3298 UNIT 3: Counselling Theory Assignment Critically evaluate the practical use of the person-centred approach and its limitations as suggested by its critics. How does the person-centred approach differ from other models of therapy, for example psychodynamic and CBT, and also in what ways, if any, is it similar' Please do not refer to more than two other models. In this assignment I outline the historical development and basic philosophy of person-centred counselling. Evaluate its key concepts, principles and practice and critically appraise its validity, relevance and effectiveness. In relation to person-centred counselling, I illustrate various aspects of the concept of self and the development of self-concept. I compare cognitive-behavioural and psychodynamic counselling to person-centred counselling. Finally, I explore the dangers of working without adequate training. Rogers was part of the Human Potential Movement. He became dissatisfied whilst working as a psychologist with Rochester SPCC, using methods derived from Freud’s diagnosis and interpretation, coming to believe we are our own expert. Person-centred counselling then evolved in stages; non-directive phase (1940’s to 1950’s), client-centred phase (1950’s to early 1960’s) and person-centred phase (1960’s to present day). Person-centred counselling has been influenced by the work of many including: Rank, Adler, Taft, Robinson, Allen, Fiedler, Gendlin, Goldstein, Lewin, Maslow, Raskin, Combs, Snygg, Shlien and Barrett-Lennard. Person-centred counselling believes each individual is essentially good, and at some level understands where their problems lie. Possessing an internal, constructive, motivational force, to strive to become the ‘best-we-can-be’. This is promoted by my use of, and my clients’ experiencing of, the core conditions. As growth occurs when obstacles are removed, and we are held in an environment free from physical or psychological threat. When exterior forces no-longer shape us, we re-discover our internal locus of evaluation and become fully functioning individuals. This change is primarily brought about by my client. Seligman (2006) states this is a simplistic and unrealistically optimistic belief. Roger’s elucidates my point eloquently: “The individual has within himself the capacity and the tendency, latent if not evident, to move forward toward maturity. In a suitable psychological climate this tendency is released, and becomes actual rather than potential. It is evident in the capacity of the individual to understand those aspects of his life and of himself which are causing him pain and dissatisfaction, an understanding which probes beneath his conscious knowledge of himself into those experiences which he has hidden from himself because of their threatening nature. It shows itself in the tendency to reorganize his personality and his relationship to life in ways which are regarded as more mature. Whether one calls it a growth tendency, a drive toward self-actualization, or a forward-moving directional tendency, it is the mainspring of life, and is, in the last analysis, the tendency upon which all psychotherapy depends. It is the urge which is evident in all organic and human life - to expand, extend, become autonomous, develop, mature – the tendency to express and activate all the capacities of the organism, to the extent that such activation enhances the organism or the self. This tendency may become deeply buried under layer after layer of encrusted psychological defenses; it may be hidden behind elaborate facades which deny its existence; but it is my belief that it exists in every individual, and awaits only the proper conditions to be released and expressed.” I’m using a Gerbera to demonstrate my understanding of person-centred counselling. [pic] Loving my flower in its entirety, I offer unconditional positive regard as an attitude. So I don’t judge or selectively value only the bits of my client I choose to, but value them in their entirety. Whatever they are ‘being’ in that present moment, and supporting them in expressing it. Unconditionally valuing them may challenge their conditions of worth, moving them towards self-acceptance. Substantiating this Rogers delineates: “The second attitude of importance in creating a climate for change is acceptance, or caring, or prizing--what I have called 'unconditional positive regard.' When the therapist is experiencing a positive, acceptant attitude toward whatever the client is at that moment, therapeutic movement or change is more likely to occur. The therapist is willing for the client to be whatever immediate feeling is going on--confusion, resentment, fear, anger, courage, love, or pride. Such caring on the part of the therapist is nonpossessive. The therapist prizes the client in a total rather than a conditional way.” Feeling completely accepted and valued makes them more willing to honestly explore negative feelings and experiences. It’s a quality I have to ‘be’, not just portray. Through personal-development work I learn what values and judgements I have introjected. Becoming secure in who I am, and acceptant of all things about myself, means my client’s differences won’t threaten me. When my values are threatened I may be more conditional in my valuing of my client. Understanding the effect my values have on my ability to offer UPR gives me more control over what is occurring. Seligman (2006) postulates using UPR fails to prepare the client for the outside world. Gerberas are vivid flowers, which are what they are, and couldn’t be anything else. Congruence is a state of being. When my outward experiences, and responses to my client, are a reflection of my inner experiences of my client. Not pretence or a defence. Enhancing my clients trust in me and the counselling process. Seeing me being open and honest means they will trust my responses are open and honest, allowing the therapeutic relationship to blossom. My congruence facilitates the growth of their congruence, by showing them it’s permissible and desirable to be who you really are. By showing the detail behind my responses, my client learns to express and recognise their responses in a true manner. When I’m congruent in my client-counsellor relationship, an interactive sequence is created, where our realities as we each experience them, can be compared. Any discrepancies can create new self-learning for us both. Using an infant Rogers explains congruence. When they experience hunger on an instinctive and physical level they communicate their hunger. All levels of them are united in their hunger: “Congruence is the term we have used to indicate an accurate matching of experiencing and awareness. It may be still further extended to cover a matching of experience, awareness, and communication. Perhaps the simplest example is in an infant. If he is experiencing hunger at the physiological and visceral level, then his awareness appears to match this experience, and his communication is also congruent with his experience. He is hungry and dissatisfied, and this is true of him at all levels. He is at this moment integrated or unified in being hungry.” A Gerbera appears to be a single flower; in reality it’s a composite of hundreds of individual flowers. So when a client may feel isolated in the world, I can demonstrate empathy by tracking and accurately sensing my client’s feelings, and learning their personal language and meanings. Seeing the world through their eyes, and feeling what it is to be living in their skin. It is a process, where, without loosing myself, I sensitively move around in my client’s inner world. Once able to vocalise their world with them, I can communicate this tentatively to them, increasing their self-awareness. Rogers delineates further: “The second essential condition in the relationship, as I see it, is that the counselor is experiencing an accurate empathic understanding of his client’s private world, and is able to communicate some of the significant fragments of that understanding. To sense the client’s inner world of private personal meanings as if it were your own, but without ever losing the “as if” quality, this is empathy, and this seems essential to a growth-promoting relationship. To sense his confusion or his timidity or his anger or his feeling of being treated unfairly as if it were your own, yet without your own uncertainty or fear or anger or suspicion getting bound up in it, this is the condition I am endeavoring to describe. When the client’s world is clear to the counselor and he can move about in it freely, then he can both communicate his understanding of what is vaguely known to the client, and he can also voice meaning in the client’s experience of which the client is scarcely aware. It is this kind of highly sensitive empathy which seems important in making it possible for a person to get close to himself and to learn, to change and develop.” The experience of being listened to may enable my client to start listening to themselves. Showing them they are important enough for me to struggle to understand them, increases their self-value. So if I ask my client “I get a sense that you’re feeling angry”, not only am I tentatively checking my understanding is correct. I’m also giving opportunity for further exploration, and to take responsibility for any implications occurring, whilst closely monitoring that I’m not over identifying with my client in the process. To be truly effective, these conditions need to be demonstrated as one, to aid communication and build a relationship with my client. Corey (2005) believes there’s a danger I may just support my client and not challenge them e.g. if I’m too passive and don’t feed back what is on their ‘edge of awareness’. Believing also that I may struggle to let my clients find their own way e.g. over identifying with them. Seligman (2006) feels listening and caring may not be enough. I feel this is a simplistic view, where the potentiality of the core conditions hasn’t been fully considered. I believe the limitations of person-centred counselling are more about my limitations, in my ability or lack of, to offer my client the necessary conditions for therapeutic movement. I feel this approach better suits clients motivated to change, committed to examining their feelings, and willing to share in the responsibility for our work together. Our actualising tendency, present in each individual, is a positive, inherent drive, motivating us towards autonomy and fulfilling our potential. Casemore corroborates by stating: “Rogers’ belief in that fundamental formative tendency of the universe and everything within it, led him to his second fundamental belief that there is a positive, formative, developmental tendency inherent in all organisms including human beings. He took the view that the basic driving force in all human beings is a positive drive to achieve their potential, to self-actualise and to become a fully functioning person.” It accounts for all behaviours satisfying our physical and psychological needs. It may be suppressed or distorted, but never destroyed; always striving to do the best in the circumstances. For example, my Gerbera, in its entirety, has an innate tendency to grow into the most beautiful flower it can, unsuitable conditions only hampering its development, not necessarily killing it. If my clients grew up with punitive conditions of worth, their need for positive regard can become stronger than their actualising tendency. Using the core conditions will give the actualising tendency chance to flourish. Our locus of evaluation is internal when we can choose what we want, like or need, solely from within ourselves and our own experiencing, free from the influence of others, e.g. my flower knows what conditions he needs to prosper, the soil he likes etc and this is where he grows. Rogers explains our locus of evaluation is internal when our own senses and experiences determine our value choices: “Another aspect of the infant’s approach to value is that the source or locus of the evaluating process is clearly within himself. Unlike many of us, he knows what he likes and dislikes, and the origin of these value choices lies strictly within himself. He is the centre of the valuing process, the evidence for his choices being supplied by his own senses. He is not at this point being influenced by what his parents think he should prefer, or by what the church says, or by the opinion of the latest ‘expert’ in the field, or by the persuasive talents of an advertising firm. It is from within his own experiencing that his own organism is saying in non-verbal terms. “This is good for me.” “That is bad for me.” “I like this.” “I strongly dislike that.” He would laugh at our concern over values, if he could understand it. How could anyone fail to know what he liked and disliked, what was good for him and what was not'” With many conditions of worth our locus of evaluation becomes external. We relinquish our authority over ourselves and become defined by others. Our self-esteem and acceptance now based on others opinions. Merry explicates further: “By this, he means the tendency of some people to rely on the evaluations of others for their feelings of acceptance and self-esteem – an external locus of evaluation.” No longer believing we are sagacious etc, inhibiting our actualising tendency. For example, if I grow my flower in the conditions that I feel are suitable for him, I may not be right. He may grow, but possibly not into the most beautiful flower he can. If my client’s locus of evaluation is external, their belief that they aren’t an authority on themselves makes them vulnerable to the slightest evaluation I make, possibly introjecting it without discernment. A client with an internal locus of evaluation trusts their determining and wouldn’t automatically introject these evaluations. Organismic valuing is a fluid, evolving process. Instinctively determining, moment by moment, what we need to actualise. Enabling us to like and dislike, need and not need the same things. Rogers explicates further: “It is first of all a flexible, changing, valuing process, not a fixed system. He likes food and dislikes the same food. He values security and rest and rejects it for new experience. What is going on seems best described as an organismic valuing process, in which each element, each moment of what he is experiencing is somehow weighed, and selected or rejected, depending on whether, at this moment, it tends to actualize the organism or not. This complex weighing of experiencing is clearly an organismic, not a conscious or symbolic function.” For example, my flower knows what he needs to enable him to grow into the most beautiful Gerbera he can, and at any given time he selects what he needs and rejects what he doesn’t. Self-actualisation is an expression of the actualising tendency. It is an instinctive tendency, unique and individual in its expression. But throughout our life is always working towards us becoming more fully ourselves e.g. self-directed and fulfilled. Godim corroborates by stating: “People have the tendency to work towards self-actualisation. Self-actualisation refers to developing in a complete way. It occurs throughout the lifespan as the individual works towards "intrinsic goals, self-realization and fulfilment, involving autonomy and self-regulation." For example, my Gerbera has self-actualised when he grows into the most beautiful flower that he can be. Personal-development work and counselling increases our potential for self-actualisation, by enabling us to examine and restructure our self-concept. Our organismic self inherently wants, and knows how to, achieve its fullest potential e.g. my Gerbera instinctively knows what he needs to be the most beautiful flower he can be. Gordon explains how our true self has an intrinsic desire to self-actualise: “The self may be viewed as the real underlying "organismic self" (Rogers, 1961), with its inherent tendencies to grow and develop.” As a person-centred counsellor-in-training, I act in ways that acknowledge and reinforce my client’s organismic self. So they can free this self from the negative conditions of worth obscuring its true nature. Our self-concept is learned, organised, and dynamic. We define ourselves from how we experience ourselves and our surroundings. Our self-concept forms whilst we’re being guided by our organismic valuing process. Our perception of ourselves isn’t always congruent with our organismic self. Substantiating this Gordon postulates: “The self-concept on the other hand is a person's perception of himself which does not always correspond with his organismic self.” For example, my Gerbera’s self-concept is uncontaminated. With no-one telling it that it’s a petunia etc, it grows into what it knows it is, rather than something it ‘ought’. My aim is to help my client understand what’s theirs and what’s conditioning. When significant others provide conditional, rather than unconditional positive regard, we introject the desired values, acquiring conditions of worth. Our sense of worth becomes based on significant others opinions. We spend our lives ‘being’ and ‘doing’ what gains us positive regard and avoid what doesn’t. Trying to live by these conditions to keep receiving positive regard closes us off to parts of our experiences. Merry explicates: “As infants we begin to acquire conditions of worth. We learn from experience that we are only acceptable as long as we think, feel and behave in ways that are positively valued by others. As a result, we tend to seek certain kinds of experiences, and avoid others, according to how far they fit these conditions of worth.” For example, because my Gerbera is given what he needs unconditionally e.g. the rain waters him etc, because he exists and needs it, not, only if he grows tall enough etc, he keeps being himself. My use of unconditional positive regard threatens my clients’ conditions of worth, showing them their needs can be met without conforming to conditions. As infants we believe we are loved unconditionally. Until significant others imply it’s only when we act in approved ways, threatening our self-concept. To continue receiving positive regard, while maintaining our self-concept, we suppress our organismic valuing process. Introjecting these conditions of worth into our self-concept, we no-longer recognise them as values external to ourselves. We distort them, believing they are based on our own experiencing. Supporting this Rogers’ postulates: “Certain results then follow in the development of the ordinary child. One result is a denial in awareness of the satisfactions that were experienced. The other is to distort the symbolization of the experience of the parents. The accurate symbolization would be: ‘I perceive my parents as experiencing this behaviour as unsatisfying to them.’ The distorted symbolization, distorted to preserve the threatened concept of self, is: ‘I perceive this behaviour as unsatisfying.’ It is in this way, it would seem, that parental attitudes are not only introjected, but what is much more important, are experienced not as the attitude of another, but in distorted fashion, as if based on the evidence of one’s own sensory and visceral equipment.” Our potential to self-actualise is inhibited and our self-concept fixes. Anything inconsistent with our self-concept is perceived as a threat, distorted or denied until it fits. Our sense of worth becomes conditional on the approval of others. Our positive self-regard conditional also, only liking ourselves when we meet these enforced standards. Instead of our organismic self our ideal self actualises. Incongruence is when these selves are inconsistent. The more we feel we have to appear what we are not, in order to gain acceptance, the greater the incongruency. As a child I was taught that all I had to do was ‘try my hardest’. This condition of worth became internalised and I became the sort of person who always ‘tried hard’ to keep receiving positive regard. This ‘ideal self’ actualised. At times it conflicted with my organismic valuing process e.g. staying in destructive relationships longer than I should. But my conditioning meant I had to ‘try hard’ to make it work, or be unlovable. Merry explicates that our interactions help or hinder our development. An ‘ideal’ self actualises when conditions of worth are internalised, formed from receiving conditional positive regard: “Our social world, through the interactions we have with others, can be either constraining or facilitative of our development as persons. When the need we have as infants for positive regard from those on whom we depend becomes frustrated, the result is the internalisation of negative conditions of worth, and we actualise a self that reflects this conditioning process.” Growing up I felt my mother withdraw when I expressed my emotional needs, causing me to believe that having emotional needs made me unlovable. So I grew up the sort of person who didn’t have any emotional needs (or was unaware of them, as being aware would’ve challenged my self-concept). I believe I distorted my emotional needs when they appeared, by always taking care of other peoples needs. Where satisfying them satisfied my own needs. As my sense of worth was based on others opinions I spent my life ‘being’ and ‘doing’ in ways that gained me positive regard, avoiding what didn’t. Experiences that fitted my conditions of worth I perceived accurately and accepted, but denied or distorted what didn’t. The gap between self and experience is called incongruence. Corroborating this Merry elucidates: “As infants we begin to acquire conditions of worth. We learn from experience that we are only acceptable as long as we think, feel and behave in ways that are positively valued by others. As a result, we tend to seek certain kinds of experiences, and avoid others, according to how far they fit these conditions of worth. Experiences and feelings that match these conditions of worth are perceived accurately and are accepted, but those that are contrary to them are distorted or denied completely. This process can be thought of as the beginnings of psychological maladjustment, when there is a state of incongruence existing between ‘self’ and experience.” The gap between the ‘me’ who had needs and didn’t want to try hard all the time and the ‘me’ who always tried hard and didn’t have needs grew enormous. I became deeply unhappy and unable to function effectively. My locus of evaluation was external, as I looked to certain significant others rather than trust my own experiencing. Boeree’s diagram below shows how our ‘ideal self’ and ‘real self’ evolve, incongruence being the gap in between. [pic] During psychotherapy I felt accepted, no longer needing to defend my self-concept, my conditions of worth started dissolving. My locus of evaluation is now internal as I trust more in my own experiencing. I am becoming aware of my own self-value, and the many facets of my nature, and am more aware and accepting of my strengths and weaknesses. I am beginning to recognise and voice my needs but still ‘try hard’ sometimes, whilst understanding that not doing so doesn’t make me unlovable. Merry’s diagram shows the development of our organismic self and the effects of our internalised conditions of worth, highlighting the impact of counselling intervention. [pic] Psychodynamic counselling uses the client-counsellor relationship to gain insight into unconscious relationship patterns evolving from childhood. Primarily through transference, counter-transference, and repeated behaviour patterns replayed with the counsellor. Fantasies and dreams etc are also explored. Helping the client to understand and change conflictual and self-defeating ways of relating. Change occurs as clients become aware of the power the unconscious has to influence behaviour and gain control over their actions and responses. For free expression the client needs a safe, consistent space. McLeod expounds: “Psychodynamic counselling places great emphasis on the counsellor’s ability to use what happens in the immediate, unfolding relationship between client and counsellor to explore the types of feelings and relationship dilemmas that have caused difficulties for the client in his or her everyday life. The aim of psychodynamic counselling is to help clients to achieve insight and understanding around the reasons for their problems, and translate this insight into a mature capacity to cope with any future difficulties. To enable this process to take place, the counsellor needs to be able to offer the client an environment that is sufficiently secure and consistent to permit safe expression of painful or shameful fantasies and impulses.” CBT combines behavioural and cognitive therapy. It is based on the belief that our thoughts, feelings and behaviour are interrelated, and influence one another. Changing one probably means we will change at least one other. Through exploration unwanted thoughts and behaviour are modified or eliminated. Reducing problematic behaviour and regaining control of our lives. Dryden and Feltham delineate further: “An umbrella term for those approaches based on, related to or developing from Behaviour Therapy and Cognitive Therapy. The core concept of CBT is that beliefs about events in our lives are open to examination and change, and that changing beliefs results in greater control of our lives and reduction in dysfunctional behaviour. A hallmark of all approaches is their clinical insistence on changing behaviour through the interrelationship of cognition and behaviour.” Psychodynamic counsellors believe client’s current relationship difficulties are repeating patterns from childhood relationships with significant others. They use their perceptions of the client, and the client’s perceptions of them, as a way to understand the client’s relationship with themselves and with others. As well as how they wish it to be. This is linked to perceptions of past relationships and client-counsellor interactions. Jacobs further states: “From this wealth of material a psychodynamic counsellor attempts to form a picture, representing not just the way in which the clients relates, or wishes to relate to others, but also the way the client relates to herself or himself. This may be linked to ways in which the client describes past relationships, and often will be linked to the way the client and counsellor themselves relate.” To change future interactions the client must understand the connection between past and present. Their role is to interpret unconscious mental content e.g. dreams, fantasies etc, enabling the client to achieve insight. Though each client is recognised as unique and individual, they draw on previous experiences (theirs and of other client’s), adapting this knowledge for that particular client. A cognitive-behavioural counsellor concentrates solely on new patterns of behaviour. I see my client as a unique individual, fostering no preconceived idea or belief, from my own or other’s experiences. Being client led and only working in the ‘here and now’, repeating behaviour patterns and interpretations are only examined if my client instigates it, and only at the level they determine. Making these interpretations myself removes them from their frame of reference. Their conditions of worth may hint at unresolved childhood processes. I won’t seek them out, only facilitating further exploration if my client chooses to. Cognitive-behavioural counsellors only concentrate on the therapeutic relationship in the initial stages of counselling. Once the client is familiar with what the sessions entail they focus on the more significant task-related work e.g. assessment, intervention and planning they believe promotes behaviour change. To concur Trower et al postulate: “The counsellor should be able to spend less time establishing a therapeutic relationship with the client. As the routine becomes familiar, the client should feel more secure, and know what to expect and what to do. There is some less risk of losing the client, and the building of rapport with the client can begin to take less of the centre ground. The counsellor can spend less time in exploration and more in in-depth cognitive assessment and intervention. More time is spent in eliciting and challenging unhelpful client beliefs, planning of ‘experiments’, and engaging the client in tasks designed to improve insight, motivation and behaviour change.” A psychodynamic counsellor believes techniques and the therapeutic relationship are equally important, but the therapeutic relationship has more depth e.g. transference and counter-transference. They also use theories on development and personality structure to help them understand their client. I believe the client-counsellor relationship is of primary importance. The core conditions both necessary and sufficient for therapeutic movement to occur. Techniques are secondary to my attitudes, minimising the use of directive techniques, interpretation, homework etc, whilst maximising active listening, reflection and clarification etc. Seligman (2006) believes my overall understanding of my client is limited by not drawing on developmental theories, as psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural counsellors do. Also believing I lack techniques to help my clients solve their problems. CBT is active, directed, focused and usually time limited. The sessions structured and goal-orientated, with emphasis placed on negotiating and setting an agenda. Goals are mutually agreed on, based on a shared understanding of the client’s problems. Frameworks etc are used to explore emotions and the link to events and beliefs. Their role is ‘educational’, teaching ways to manage behaviour using specific techniques e.g. homework assignments and self-help techniques etc. The cognitive-behavioural aspect of the problem is taught, believing clients can only react differently in problematic situations by learning and understanding this. A psychodynamic counsellor is non-directive. They believe that focussing client on goals, especially in the early stages, detracts from exploring their problems. In contrast I am a source of reflection and encouragement. Being client led and working from my client’s frame of reference means I’m non-directive and my sessions aren’t structured. As I’m not an expert in my client’s world, they are, I don’t attempt to ‘teach’ my client anything. Only discussing goals if addressed by my client, and then only at the pace they dictate. Regarding relational styles Dryden states: “Indeed, the major therapeutic approaches recommend different counsellor relational styles, some advocating that the counsellor is active and directive in style (for example, CBT), with others proposing an active, non-directive style (for example, person-centred counselling). Yet others favour a more passive, non-directive counselling style (psychodynamic counselling).” Corey (2005) believes if I am non-directive and passive instead of active I’ll be ineffective at facilitating the counselling, e.g. if I failed to challenge my clients. If not adequately trained I won’t fully understand my role as a person-centred counselling-in-training and the underpinning theory. Including the responsibilities and implications involved. E.g. personal counselling, which increases my self-awareness by identifying and exploring my personal issues, to understand their affects on my client-counsellor relationship. Ongoing supervision enhances my learning and development, identifying training needs and examining my practice. A recognised qualification provides confidence in my ability. Membership to an affiliated organisation ensures I work within an ethical framework. A contract and adequate insurance provides boundaries and safety. Without training the core conditions may not be fully understood, including the depths to which they should be used. Without which therapeutic movement may not be facilitated, inhibiting my client’s growth. This all ensures I work to the best of my ability understand and work within my strengths and limitations and safeguards both myself and my client. Rogers’ believed everything has an innate desire to be the ‘best-it-can-be’. His theoretical model embodies this, as it too is evolving. There is a consistent theme concerning the human capacity to strive for fulfilment and greater integration of self. Individuals experiencing the freedom to truly be themselves are freer to experience this growth. If our positive regard was always unconditional, we wouldn’t develop conditions of worth. Our organismic self would always actualise and we’d become fully functioning individuals, making the most of the world we live in. All counselling models examined have the same end goal. For the client to take ownership and make shifts to change. Other theories or tools from each model may benefit clients at different times. Adequate and ongoing training and self-development safeguards the client and enhances my practice. Bibliography Rogers, C (2004) On Becoming a Person, London: Constable Rogers, C (1980) Way of Being, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Rogers, C (2004) On Becoming a Person, London: Constable & Robinson LTD Rogers, C & Stevens, B (2007) Person to Person – The Problem of Being Human, London: Souvenir Press LTD Casemore, R (2006) Person-Centred Counselling in a Nutshell, London: Sage Publications Rogers, C & Stevens, B (2007) Person to Person – The Problem with Being Human, London: Real People Press Merry, T. (2002) Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling, Herefordshire: PCCS Books Rogers, C & Stevens, B (2007) Person to Person – The Problem with Being Human, London: Real People Press Gondim, Pedro T Ezinearticles.com (2008), ‘Person-Centred Therapy - Concepts and Techniques’ at http://ezinearticles.com/'Person-Centred-Therapy---Concepts-and-Techniques&id=737482 (accessed: 10 June 2008) Gordon, Neil Scott (March 2004) http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR4-3/gordon.html at ‘Researching Psychotherapy, the Importance of the Client's View: A Methodological Challenge’ (accessed: 11 June 2008) Gordon, Neil Scott (March 2004) http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR4-3/gordon.html at ‘Researching Psychotherapy, the Importance of the Client's View: A Methodological Challenge’ (accessed: 11 June 2008) Merry, T (2002) Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling, Herefordshire: PCCS Books Rogers, C, (1979) Client-Centred Therapy, London: Constable & Company LTD Merry, T (2002) Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling, Herefordshire: PCCS Books Merry, T (2002) Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling, Herefordshire: PCCS Books Boeree, Dr. C. George (2006) http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/rogers.html ‘Carl Rogers’ (accessed: 10 June 2008) Merry, T (2002) Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling, Herefordshire: PCCS Books McLeod, J (2003) An Introduction to Counselling, Berkshire: Open University Press Fletham, C & Dryden, W (1993) Dictionary of Counselling, London: Whurr Publishers Jacobs, Michael (2007) Psychodynamic Counselling in Action, London: Sage Trower, P, Casey, A, Dryden W (2007) Cognitive-Behavioural Counselling in Action, London: Sage Dryden, W (2006) Counselling in a nutshell, London: Sage Publications.