Rogers's Three Core Therapeutic Conditions

"The first element could be called genuineness, realness, or congruence. The more the therapist is himself or herself in the relationship, putting up no professional front or personal facade, the greater is the likelihood that the client will change and grow in a constructive manner. This means that the therapist is openly being the feelings and attitudes that are flowing within at the moment. The term "transparent" catches the flavor of this condition: the therapist makes himself or herself transparent to the client; the client can see right through what the therapist is in the relationship; the client experiences no holding back on the part of the therapist. As for the therapist, what he or she is experiencing is available to awareness, can be lived in the relationship, and can be communicated, if appropriate. Thus, there is a close matching, or congruence, between what is being experienced at the gut level, what is present in awareness, and what is expressed to the client.

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.

The third facilitative aspect of the relationship is empathic understanding. This means that the therapist senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that the client is experiencing and communicates this understanding to the client. When functioning best, the therapist is so much inside the private world of the other that he or she can clarify not only the meanings of which the client is aware but even those just below the level of awareness. This kind of sensitive, active listening is exceedingly rare in our lives. We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know."

from Carl R. Rogers (1980). A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, pp.115-116.

Client Centered Therapy Terms

Accurate empathic understanding: The act of perceiving the internal frame of reference of another, of grasping the person's subjective world, without losing one's own identity.

Congruence: The state in which self-experiences are accurately symbolized in the self-concept. As applied to the therapist, congruence is a matching of one's inner experiencing with external expressions.

Humanistic psychology: A movement, often referred to as the "third force," that emphasizes freedom, choice, values, growth, self-actualization, becoming, spontaneity, creativity, play, humor, peak experiences, and psychological health.

Self-actualizing tendency: A growth force within us; an actualizing tendency leading to the full development of one's potential the basis on which people can be trusted to identify and resolve their own problems in a therapeutic relationship. .

Therapeutic conditions: The necessary and sufficient characteristics of the therapeutic relationship for client change to occur. These core conditions include therapist congruence (or genuineness), unconditional positive regard (acceptance and respect), and accurate empathic understanding.

Unconditional positive regard: The nonjudgmental expression of a fundamental respect for the person as a human; acceptance of a person's right to his or her feelings.