Page 158 - DEDU502_GUIDANCE_AND_COUNSELING_ENGLISH

Guidance and Counseling

Notes 9. The helping person must have a sense of security. An insecure person obviously cannot be of
much help to the individual who is in need of help.
10. The goal or object of the helping relationship is to change the client positively.
A helping relationship is essentially an attitude which exudes a feeling of acceptance and a democratic
value of life. It implies that the helping relationship does not in any way make a person feel superior
to the one he helps. It also implies that the helping individual does not impose his values upon the
person being helped.
Such an approach is called the client-centred approach. Understood in this sense, the client-centred
therapy is patently American. It has grown out of the American democratic way of life and the
American values of freedom, individual responsibility, personal accountability and the right to
choose for oneself what one deems appropriate. With this background of the American democratic
tradition, the client-centered therapy evolved more as a reaction to the existing models of therapy
which tended to underplay the client, his ability and his potentiality for a positive life. Rogers
(1942), by this contention, does not subscribe to the view that biological urges and trappings determine
all our activities.
However, sometimes the term client-centred’ is somewhat misleading. All therapies-the orthodox
psychonalytic and the more recent approaches-are basically client-centered. The goal of all therapy
is to help the client. So the object of every system of therapy is the betterment and well-being fo the
client. It is not as if the other therapists are disinterested in the well-being of clients. Rogers uses the
term ‘client-centred therapy’ to emphasize the role the client has to play. In psychoanalytic therapy,
for example, the client has a passive role. The therapist is at the centre of the stage. It is he who
directs the course of the therapy, interprets the client’s communications and terminates the sessions.
In the context of the client-centred therapy, the therapist is not supposed to play the ‘big brother’
role.
Self Assessment

1. State whether the following statements are ‘true’ or ‘false’.
(i) The basic theme of psychotherapy is helping relationship.
(ii) The counselor provides an atmosphere in which the client can fully explore his/her own
thoughts and feeling freely.
(iii) Non directive counseling is also called counselor-centered approach.
(iv) Non directive counseling communication and interaction is not necessary.

14.3 Central Hypothesis of Non-Directive Counseling

Carl Rogers, the chief proponent of the client centred approach has formulated a central hypothesis
as follows :
(a) The individual has within him/herself capacity latent if not evident to understand those aspects
of him/herself and of his/her life which are causing him/her dissatisfaction anxiety or pain
and the capacity and the tendency to reorganise him/herself and his/her relationship to life in
the direction of self-actualization and maturity in such a way as to bring a greater degree of
internal comfort.
(b) This capacity will be realised when the therapist can create a psychological climate characterised
by genuine acceptance of the client as a person of unconditional worth, a continuing sensitive
attempt to understand the existing feelings and communications of the client as a person of
unconditional worth, a continuing sensitive attempt to understand the existing feelings and
communications of the client and a continuing attempt to convey this empathetic understanding
to the client.

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