PERSON-CENTERED COUNSELING

Person-Centered Counseling and Its Effect on the Case of Maria

Abstract

In this assignment, I am going to analyze the case of Maria from the article “Undercurrents: Psychotherapy Networker” written by Sells Scoot. The case analysis of Maria shows that the untreatable cases can be treated through family therapy. The main issues behind the conduct disorder of Maria were power drunkenness of Maria, death of the grandmother and eating disorder. The therapist has used core psychotherapeutic conditions of empathy, Unconditional positive regard and genuineness to treat the client. The therapist has used different approaches like role, playing and movie recording during the counseling sessions. The element of humor during that process helped the family to take an interest in the therapy due to which the therapist was able to reach at a win-win situation. The final results of the therapy show that Maria was able to control her behavior and became respectful. Her eating disorder was resolved and Maria started losing weight. Apart from this, the family member took out the photos of her grandmother, so they can recall the happy memories spent with her. Moreover, they started visiting her grave regularly. On the whole, the family therapy helped to find out the root cause of the problem helped to reach at a satisfactory solution.

Table of Contents

Abstracti

Introduction3

Person Centered Counseling3

Unconditional Positive Regard4

Empathy4

Genuineness5

The Use of Core Psychotherapeutic Conditions5

Example 15

Example 27

Change in The Traditional Therapy Process8

Family Therapy8

Issues Highlighted In the Family Therapy9

Deaths of the Grand Mother9

Eating Disorder9

Drunk with Power10

How the Communication Process Helped Maria and Her Family10

Role Play Technique10

Movie Recording11

The Results of The Family Therapy11

Conclusion12

References13

Person-Centered Counseling and Its Effect on the Case of Maria

Introduction

I will begin my analysis by elaborating person centered counseling and core psychotherapeutic conditions of person centered counseling. I will also give examples in which the therapist has used the core psychotherapeutic conditions in the person-centered counseling of Maria. Apart from this, I will explain how the therapy helped the client to solve her problems and how the family has co-operated in the whole process. On the whole, I will also explain the strategy used by the therapist, to treat an “untreatable case”.

Person Centered Counseling

Carl Rogers created person-centered counseling. The purpose of person-centered counseling is to analyze the client's case according to the perspectives of the clients. In other words, the way people perceive themselves is analyzed rather than using personal thoughts or ideas and applying psychological theories (Capuzzi, 2008). The judgmental factor is controlled through this counseling process because the counselor engages in active listening and paraphrasing (Garfield, 2007). The basic assumption of this approach is that the client has answers to all of the questions. Therefore, the challenge is to uncover the undercurrents of the clients so that dysfunctional factors from the past wounds can be identified.

Through this process, the client becomes aware of his or her mental process. The conflict between the client's interpretation of reality and the actual reality is reduced through this process. Following are the core psychotherapeutic conditions of person-centered counseling (McMillian, ...