Person-Centred Therapy

Person Centred Therapy (PCT) essentially is all about the person and how they deal with life and its little problems.

PCT basically focuses on the person and accommodates both individual and group work. Group work can be very instrumental in giving a better insight into the individual and how they function in a group type situation. However, in group therapy everyone is taken into consideration not just one person, so I often recommend individual counselling to compliment group counselling.

This type of therapy is often used in crisis-intervention work and has been known to be very effective in helping people come to terms with their crisis and teaching them to function on an everyday basis while in a crisis situation. It also teaches mechanisms for coping with stress and crisis situations and employs techniques that can be applied to future circumstances.

In Person-Centred Therapy the client takes an active role in therapy and basically controls the direction in which they wish to proceed. They take the lead and take the counsellor where they want to go, simply by their conversation and their actions.

This type of counselling is a very open style of counselling and helps the client to learn to develop and build a trusting relationship inside therapy which can be later transferred to everyday life. PCT helps to teach the client the value of trust and opening up and accepting their situation and how to better deal with it.

Purely through conversation the client learns to become aware of their problems and develops the means to resolve them. Faith is placed entirely in the clients ability to learn self-direction. Through objective listening, the therapist allows the client to open up and honestly express themselves without judgement or criticism.

Clients learn that there are often discrepancies between what one wants to be and what one is. They learn that this maladjustment is often the result of their negative thoughts and behaviours and in turn can effect their outlook and their approach to life.

Person-Centred Therapy focuses on the present moment and on experiencing and expressing feelings.

The client actualises potential and moves toward increased awareness, spontaneity, trust in self and inner directedness. Clients learn to recognize blocks to growth and can experience aspects of self that were formerly denied or distorted. To enable them to move toward openness, greater trust in self, willingness to be a process.