Rogers states in no uncertain terms that the counsellor’s attitude of unconditional positive regard for the person, validating his or her worth and significance, is the most critical element in therapy. Change, he believed, is more likely in the presence of this acceptance. (Rogers 1965, p. 20). Rogers repeatedly note the importance of maintaining unconditional positive regard, accepting the person, wherever he or she may be at any moment (Rogers 1961, pp. 53-54). If infants receive conditional positive regard, they will behave incongruently in order to please their parents.
The need for positive regard is so strong that “children chose love over self, the positive regard of others over their own experience. ” Rogers believed this choice was responsible for the “basic estrangement” in human beings (Pearson 1974, p. 142). Person-centred therapy creates a climate in which the supportive, accepting atmosphere allows persons to feel safe enough to bring previously unknown or shunned aspects of self to the surface, so the self boundaries relax (Rogers 1965, p. 193). Unconditional positive regard is implicit in this process.
Rogers says real communication occurs only when there is no evaluation (Rogers 1961, pp.330-331), as with unconditional positive regard. Rogers thought of all communication, including psychotherapy, as a process built on a relationship, engendered by communication (p. 331). Grief therapists are urged to maintain “radical respect” for the person and maintain an attitude of respect and acceptance (Korb, Gorrell, & Van De Riet 1989, pp. 112, 117). The therapist does not respond with advice or problem-solving suggestions (p. 72). Yalom, speaking for existential psychotherapy, says the person’s self-love and self-regard increase in response to the therapist’s “concern and unconditional regard” (Yalom 2002, p.339).
Congruence Rogers was adamant about the importance of the therapist’s congruence or genuineness. Person-centred therapists agree with Rogers that it is essential for therapists not to present a “facade” to grieved persons, but simply be themselves (Hart & Tomlinson 1970, p. 25), because grieved persons are more likely to change in the presence of a genuine therapist (Rogers 1980, p. 115). The therapist’s experiencing should always be “available to awareness,” so it may be lived in the relationship and expressed, if appropriate.
There must be congruence between “gut level” experience, what is available to awareness and what is expressed to the person (Rogers 1980, pp. 115-116). In person-centred grief therapy, there is also a shift toward autonomy, moving away from concerns about external approval, what others or the culture expect of us (Rogers 1961, pp. 168-171). Persons develop a close, friendly relationship to their own experiences and a more open and accepting relationship with others (pp. 173-174). “Acceptance,” says Rogers (1965), “is an emotional phenomenon, not an intellectual one” (p. 165).
Maslow simply says that the person recovers and knows himself or herself (Maslow 1993, p. 50), but does not elaborate. Person-centred therapy wants to help grieved persons experience and then embrace their own experiencing process to guide behaviour, and to help them assume responsibility for their behaviour. (Tomlinson & Whitney 1970, pp. 30, 459). Therefore, therapists should vigorously assist grieved persons toward a deeper exploration of self (Maslow 1993, p. 50). In so doing, persons break away from society’s stated preferences and learn to rely on their own experiencing process and their interpretation of it.
Thus, experience and cognition are congruent, and the individual is not in conflict about his or her own feelings (Tomlinson & Whitney 1970, p. 459). As a result, grieved persons increase their awareness of inner experience, enabling them to rely on themselves for the meaning of their experience, and to create meaning and life goals. In so doing, persons become less susceptible to external influence. This self-reliance on inner experience is one of the goals of person-centred therapy of bereavement (p. 466).