Person-Centered therapy

• To at least one peer, reflect a critical understanding of his/her post and advance the discussion with thoughtful statements surrounding to what degree you agree with him/her and why. Include at least one reference to course material.
• When you begin, type the name of the person you are replying to.
• Make an analysis of the other person’s work/thinking.
• Support your comment with a reason, an example, or –preferably– by a reference from the material you’ve read in this course.
  • Respond to 1 peer
  • The expectation is that response posts will add factual information to the discussion, whether in agreement or disagreement with the peer’s original post. 
  • 75-100 words

Reply to this Post: By Joelle

The differences that can be observed between Rodgers Person-Centered therapy and Perl’s Gestalt style of therapy are clearly demonstrated in the role of the therapist. In Gestalt therapy it is “the therapists job to invite clients into an active partnership where they can learn about themselves by adopting an experimental attitude toward life in which they try out new behaviors and notice what happens” (Corey, 2017) and Perl did exactly that. He continuously invited Gloria to be very active and engaged in the session while also making notice of her body language throughout their time together. He was also clearly leading her to the point of realization that she is responsible for her actions.

During Gloria’s session that was focused on Person-Centered therapy the therapist took a much more laid back role and only contributed slight observations and repeated them back to her. It was clear that he was not interested in “techniques designed to get [her] to “do something”” (Corey, 2017) but rather his intentions were focused on raising her self-awareness. This is essential in Person-Centered therapy because they believe that from this awareness will arise changes that the client wants to make.

While watching Gestalt centered therapy I was very uncomfortable because in my opinion the therapist came off as very forceful and too involved. However, while watching Person-Centered therapy I felt as if the therapist could have participated slightly more because he was completely anonymous in terms of guidance. I would prefer to use Person-centered therapy as both a client and therapist because it seems to be more gentle and the client gets to lead more.

Similarities between both Person-Centered therapy videos is that the client alone is encouraged to come to a conclusion with the therapist acting as a sounds board. However, Dr. Corey is slightly less anonymous in his role as a therapist. Similarities in the Gestalt videos is that both therapists invited the client to be fully present in the moment. Differences were quite obvious as Dr. Corey was not nearly as forceful and bold in his role as the therapist.

Reference:

Corey, G. (2017). Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy. Cengage Learning.

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