Reapproaching Rogers: looking to the source to show us where we are going wrong

Abstract

What would Carl Rogers make of person-centred counselling and psychotherapy today? In this article, I draw upon my own initiation in the approach, and quite extensively upon the writings of Rogers, to suggest that mainstream person-centred therapy in 2016 may be not only a pale derivative but a serious betrayal of Rogers’ vision. I frame my argument in terms of six key points concerning the dogmatism which exists in person-centred discourse regarding Rogers’ therapeutic conditions; our confused understanding of those conditions; our losing touch with mystery; our misguided expectations as beginning therapists; our appropriation and branding of person-centredness; and our losing touch with Rogers’ radicality. In summing up, I adumbrate a way that person-centred therapists might reorient ourselves in light of this reacquaintance with what I see as essential Rogers. The broader context in which person-centred therapy occurs is kept in view, and to some extent my question is not simply what would Rogers make of person-centred therapy today, but what would Rogers make of counselling and psychotherapy – and our current social and political landscape – as a whole?

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