When Carl Rogers created and began applying his person-centered approach, he realized that not only was it useful for consultations with people with a type of mental illness, but could also be used to improve the quality of life of people who did not have one, suffering from them.
Rogers’ theory is based on three pillars to ensure that we and the people we are connected to can expand and develop our full human potential. The first is empathy; having the ability to put yourself in each other’s place and feel what you feel makes our social relationships better, also increasing the quantity and quality of social support.
- Rogers called the second pillar “unconditional positive acceptance.
- ” which is harder to achieve than empathy because he intends to accept the other as it is.
- This does not necessarily mean agreeing with the person.
- But respecting them in a warm and welcoming way.
- Acceptance also means abandoning the judgments we tend to make from the beginning.
- Because they often prevent us from knowing ourselves as we really are.
- This attitude motivates the other to accept himself by promoting sequences of thoughts such as: “If you don’t judge me.
- Why am I punishing myself?.
The third pillar is congruence: being authentic and showing yourself as one really is, that is, not keeping what we feel or hiding what the behaviors and words of others cause us, if I am authentic, the other can afford to be authentic too .
How do we implement these attitudes in daily life?Some techniques can be used by therapists, but they are not particularly relevant outside the clinical context, so what matters in these cases is disposition and practice.
As I mentioned earlier, Rogers’ evolution has a lot to do with social relationships, it is in them that the greatest benefits appear, because this new approach facilitates the connection with others, opens channels of communication and gives us freedom.