Today I'll be talking about Carl Rogers'three core conditions that he believed were necessary and sufficient for clinical change in counseling. Now actually there are six conditions. but three conditions we refer to as the core conditions. So I'll start with those three conditions and then briefly cover the other three. So the first core condition is congruence.
Carl Rogers believed that it was important for a counselor to be genuine in the counseling relationship, to communicate, and to form a relationship authentically. And this is a benefit for both the client and the counselor. So...
So communication in the session and the counselor would be authentic. Both would be authentic and genuine. The next core condition is accurate empathy.
So notice we have use of the word here, accurate. So not just empathy, but here the counselor needs to work to try to be accurate, as accurate as possible, being empathetic. And what Rogers meant by empathy was understanding the perspective of the client, understanding the world from the client's point of view, their emotions, their thoughts, their behaviors, and accurately communicating that back to the client. So the client would understand that the counselor understands.
The client would be able to see the result of the empathy. The third core condition is referred to as unconditional positive regard. And with unconditional positive regard, the counselor takes a non-judgmental stance. This allows the client to discuss all types of issues without being concerned about being judged.
So we stay away from judgment, and this is one of those core conditions that I also feel like helps the counselor and the client. Now I mentioned there's actually six conditions listed by Rogers. Again, he believed those were necessary and sufficient for change. I reviewed the three, the other three.
The first one is psychological contact. So the client has to be psychologically connected to the counselor. They have to be aware of what's going on and able to participate in counseling.
The next condition is the client needs to be incongruent. Rogers would say vulnerable or anxious. So this illustrates that the client is at a place where they are open to counseling. There's something amiss, there's incongruence. and that allows that issue to be worked on.
The last of the conditions is the client has to understand the empathy, the genuineness, and the unconditional positive regard. So they need to be able to understand the core conditions. So the counselor has to work to help the client to gain knowledge to understand that these conditions are present.
Now it's interesting about personal person-centered therapy, and what Carl Rogers believed, was that these six conditions, and of course, more specifically the three core conditions, were necessary and sufficient for change. And a lot of counselors today, of course, believe that person-centered therapy gives us valuable tools to use in sessions, but the theory itself isn't necessary and sufficient for change. Counselors today. typically add other counseling skills to the skills that we see in person-centered therapy, to the core conditions.
For example, existential counseling skills, psychodynamic counseling skills, cognitive behavioral therapy counseling skills are also popular. So we take the three core conditions from person-centered and we use them across a variety of counseling theories. I hope you found this description of Carl Rogers'three core conditions to be helpful.
Thanks for watching.