DRAFT

KENYA ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL COUNSELLORS

COURSE TITLE: HIGHER DIPLOMA IN COUNSELLING STUDIES

ESSAY TITLE: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF USING A SINGLE THEORY

TO COUNSELLING

FACILITATORS: MARY OTIENO

LILIAN KAMAU

STUDENT: PERIS WANJIKU WAITHAKA

YEAR: 2010/2011

NUMBER OF WORDS: 2,950

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 6TH JUNE, 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS pg

Introduction................................................................................................................ 1
Historical Background of Person Centered Theory .....................................................1
Mutua-Case Study KAPC (2010)..................................................................................1
Therapeutic process ...............................................................................................1
Person -Centered Therapy Applied To the Case of Mutua...........................................2
Strengths of Using Person-Centered Theory...............................................................3
View of human nature.............................................................................................3
Therapeutic techniques and procedures.................................................................5
Weaknesses of Using Person-Centered Theory...........................................................6
Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 7
References ..............................................................................................................9

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Introduction

This essay talks about the strengths and weaknesses of using a single theory approach
to counseling. I have used the Mutua case study to explain the strengths and
weaknesses of person-centered therapy in detail. I have walked with Mutua as my client
to where he is currently. I am familiar with his past, some of his significant events and
turning points in his ,life, the kind of a person he would want to become 5 years from
now as well as the changes he wants the most in his life. I have drawn a conclusion
inclusive of references.

Historical Background of Person Centered Theory

Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987), developed person centered theory with an assumption that
people are basically good. He firmly maintains that people are essentially trustworthy ,
with a vast potential for understanding themselves and resolving their own problems
because they have capacity to make constructive changes and able to live Another
core theme in Rogers theory is the necessity for non judgmental listening and
acceptance if the individuals are to change . Rogers in person centered theory reflects
on individuals feeling and emotions verbally and non verbally , being there , walking
and feeling with in their world .

Mutua-Case Study KAPC (2010)

Therapeutic process
When Mutua first came for counselling he looked unhappy, physically ill, and unsure
about the reception he would receive from a counsellor. According to my first
impression, for the first twenty minutes of our meeting he talked at length concerning
counselling while I listened attentively and I encouraged him to voice all the worries
which he felt. I realized that a friend had suggested counselling to Mutua. Since I chose
the person-centered approach, I gave him a conducive environment. I told him that he
had genuine concerns and afterwards went onto describe the counselling process,
stressing that I was interested in and willing to listen to whatever he wanted to tell me. I
added that I would not attempt to give him advice or any solution or try to impose my

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personal opinions or views upon him. He seemed not to believe this at first, but I noticed
that after a while he became visibly relaxed and adopted a more comfortable, open
sitting position. Along with this, he started to give me more eye contact when we spoke
and even smiled occasionally, although his overall demeanour remained sad at times
and strained.

I wanted to get inside Mutua’s frame of reference to understand what he was saying
from his point of view alone. In order to do this, I continued to listen to him attentively,
nodding even though this was sometimes difficult since his story was disjointed and
slightly confused, reflecting in many ways the state of events in his life at that particular
time. I did not want to ask him too many questions unnecessarily because I felt that it
was important that he should proceed at his own pace, not hurried by me.
Occasionally I would paraphrase and summarize what he had been saying in order to
clarify for his sake and mine- some of the issues which he raised. This seemed to
encourage him to continue and explore further many of the problems which had been
worrying him for the first time. During our first session together, Mutua talked about his
carpentry work, fear of people, career choices, parents and family and the change he
would like to make.

Person -Centered Therapy Applied To the Case of Mutua

Mutua’s life merit indicates that he has a clear picture of what he wants for his life
regardless of the short comings that he had. Mutua described himself s a carpenter at
31years old. He does not get along well with his people. This makes him drink a lot. He
would love to turn his life around but does not know where to begin. He wants to get into
a professional career and become a school teacher, so that he could work with people.
During our first session, I captured themes in Mutua’s autobiography which helped me
to counsel him. “I am a loner and I would like to have people around me but I just do not
know how to go about making friends or getting close to people. When I look at others, I
feel so stupid and I am afraid. I would like to turn my life around, but I do not know
where to begin. I want to get into some profession where I could work with people and
eventually help them because I feel I was also helped by someone. I worry a lot whether

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I am smart enough to get through all the studies I will need to do before I become a
teacher. Sometimes I feel alone, scared, and isolated and think that I will always do. I
feel overwhelmed, cold, and uptight when I am around attractive women, and think that
they are judging me and find out that I am not much of a man. I feel anxiety especially at
night and feel scared that I am dying. I sometimes think about committing suicide and
then wonder who would care. At times like these I see my family coming for my funeral,
feeling sorry that that they did not treat me better. Much of the time I feel guilty that I
have not worked to my potential, I have been a failure, wasted much time, and have let
many people down. I put myself down, feel guilty and depressed. At times like these, I
think how rotten I am, never able to change, be better off dead never to hurt anyone
because I have never loved a person, and myself being loved or wanted. Everything is
not bleak and I like my determination and I want to change and nobody is going to
change my life for me. I am tired of feeling like a loser!

I remember my parents comparing me unfavaurably with my older siblings Mueni and

Kilonzo because they were successful academic students. My parents would say that I
would never amount to anything. This is making me feel unloved and unwanted by my
parents. I recall crying myself to sleep many nights, feeling so terribly alone, filled with
anger and hate, feeling so disgusted with myself with no talk of religion in my house. I
would like to feel better about myself and my existence and get rid of my self-destructive
tendencies and also learn to get along with people.”

Strengths of Using Person-Centered Theory

View of human nature

As a Person-Centered Therapist, I accepted Mutua the way he was. In the view of
human nature, (Rogers, 1977), emphasizes on human beings as basically good and
maintains that people are trustworthy, resourceful, capable of self-understanding and
self-direction able to make constructive changes and able to live effective and
productive lives.

In Mutua’s case, I regarded him as trustworthy because his autobiography indicates that
he has a clear picture of what he wants with his life. Another strength that I see in

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Mutua’s case is the three attributes that created a growth. Promoting climate in which
he could move forward and become what he was capable of becoming. These attributes
are: Congruence ( genuineness or realness), unconditional positive regard (acceptance
and caring), accurate empathic understanding ( an ability to deeply grasp the subjective
world of another person). KAPC (2011). I communicated these attitudes towards Mutua
and he became less defensive and more open to himself and his world and he started
behaving in a pro-social and constructive way, (KAPC, 2011).Like when he became
visibly relaxed and adopted a more comfortable, sitting in an open posture, gave me an
eye contact and when we spoke, he even smiled occasionally. I realized that I had
raised his self esteem. Self esteem is the set of statements regarding the value
individuals put upon themselves in the sense of respect, admiration, pride and
enjoyment. It is a statement of personal worth, and it is an individual assessment. In this
case, Mutua was not influenced by others. He was scared of mixing with people. Mutua
had skills of a carpenter, a teacher who could work well with young people and one
primary school principal had seen it and valued it, but Mutua placed a little personal
value upon himself. Self esteem is uniquely individual and this case of Mutua portrays a
good example of how his self esteem was hurt as a developing child, maturing into
adulthood. He placed no value upon himself when he fantasized committing suicide,
wondered who would care especially when his mother wished she had not had him. He
felt himself a failure to many people, a comparison to his own siblings and a person who
could not amount to anything according to his parents. He also felt that he was
worthless around strong and attractive women in the sense of performing sexually and
so he was afraid they would swallow him up.

According to Combs (1989), when people are free, they will be able to find their own
way. Person -Centered therapy is applicable to a wide range of human problems. I
totally agree with this statement because in Mutua’s case he had so many problems
(issues) which he wanted to tackle such as: furthering his career, family life, relationship
with people especially women.

This positive view of human nature, the strength is that, I as a Person - Centered
Therapist, I was able to lead Mutua to understand his feelings and emotions towards

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other people and his world. The emphases is on how Mutua acted in his world with
others, and how he could move forward in constructive directions and how he could
successfully encounter obstacles (both within and without himself) that was blocking his
growth.

Therapeutic techniques and procedures

Rogers original emphasis was on the methods of reflecting, feeling, listening accepting,
respecting, understanding and responding.

Because I trusted Mutua, I avoided planning and structuring the sessions. My main
focus was on being real, on accepting his feelings and thoughts, on demonstrating my
unconditional positive regard for him, and on respecting him as a person. This now was
my last session with Mutua. I emphasized with his life situation and I found that he was
able to clarify his struggles and worked out his own solutions to his problems. Person
centered counseling was certainly not the answer to all of Mutua’s problems. My main
aim was to create a climate of openness, trust caring, understanding and acceptance.

My role was not to use techniques designed to get Mutua “to do something.” My
attitudes facilitated personality change in my client. I created a helping relationship in
which Mutua experienced the necessary freedom to explore arrears of his life that were
then denied to awareness or distorted. My attitudes were able to lessen Mutua’s
defenses and rigid perceptions and moved to a higher level of personal functioning. This
encouraged him to explore threatening aspects of his self-concept. Mutua had a low of
self-worth although he found it difficult to believe that others really liked him. He wanted
to feel equal with others and have to apologise for his existence, yet most of the time he
was aware that he felt of the time he was aware that he felt inferior. By creating a
supportive, trusting and encouraging atmosphere. I helped Mutua learn to be more
accepting of himself with both his strengths and limitations. He had an opportunity to
openly express his fears of women of not being able to work with people, and of feeling
inadequate and stupid. He was able to explore how he felt judged by his parents and by
authorities. He had an opportunity to express his guilt that his, feelings that he had lived
up to his parent’s expectations and that he had let them, others and himself down. He
was able to relate his feelings of hurt over not having ever felt loved and wanted. He

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could also express the loneliness and isolation that he often felt as well as the need to
dull these feelings with alcohol or drugs.

Mutua was no longer totally alone for he took the risk of letting me into his private world
of feelings. Mutua gradually got a sharper focus on his experiencing and was able to
clarify his own feelings and attitudes. He found that he had the capacity to make his
own decisions. The therapeutic relationship freed him from his self-defeating ways.
Because of the caring and faith he experienced from counseling. Mutua was able to
increase his own faith and confidence in himself.

As a practitioner with a humanistic orientation, I aimed at challenging my client Mutua to

make changes that would lead to living fully and authentically, with the realization that
this kind of existence demands a continuing struggle. I made him understand that he
could never arrive at a final or a static state of being self-actualized rather he would be
continually involved in the process of actualizing himself. KAPC, (2011)

Weaknesses of Using Person-Centered Theory

Person centered therapy lacks concreteness. Person - Centered therapy was certainly
not the answer to all of Mutua’s problems. What it did , however, was to give him
enough confidence to make plans for the future which were based largely on his own
needs and not on those of other people. Person-centered therapists have a tendency to
be very supportive of clients without being challenging. Some practitioners become
“Client- Centered” to the extent that they diminish the value of their own power as a
person and thus lose the impact of their personality on the client (KAPC, 2011). Person-
Centered therapy works best with verbal. During our counselling sessions with Mutua,
he verbalized a lot and along with that I was able to paraphrase and summarize what he
was telling me. I also find person-centered working well with professionals and
paraprofessionals and Mutua was not yet a professional. He came to me to seek help
with an idea of becoming a professional. Another weakness found in person-centered
therapy is ignorance for unconscious and innate drives. I agree with this statement
because Mutua had his past struggles with his parents comparing him unfavorably with
his siblings. He also had a problem with the fighting of his parents. His mother was very

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dominant while his father was weak and passive next to her. Person -centered therapy
did not work on his unconscious. I could not dig deep to his early childhood because to
me, past is insignificant as a person- centered. I dealt with Mutua’s here and now
reflecting on his feelings. I could also not dig and go back to his structure of personality.

Ellis view of human nature assumes that human are born with a potential for both
rational (straight) thinking and irrational (crooked) thinking. the irrational patterns of
thinking which people steadfastly adhere to are reign forced by their internal language
or self –scolding . This self scolding is a direct result of childhood experience and is
derived from largely negative information passed on from parents and from the society
in general. This tendency to be irrational or illogical is threw root cause of most human
unhappiness and suffering a central aim if REBT is to help the client indentify the ways
in which his irrational thinking causes his unhappiness and to further encourage him to
establish and maintain more rational thinking. Ellis has concluded that humans are self
–taking , self –evaluating and self –sustain .he also affirms that humans have an inborn
tendency towards growth and actualization , yet they often sabotage their movement
toward growth due to their inborn tendency towards crooked thinking and self –
defeating patterns they have learned (Ellis1998,1999). I knew very well in Mutua’s case
that he needed a REB Therapist to help him through his irrational thinking towards other
people. He thought that women were judging him that he was not a man, he felt
anxious, scared and also thought of committing suicide. He also thought that he was a
failure and nobody cared or loved him. He had these negative automatic thought but I
was limited.

According to Combs (1988), the Person-Centered approach has been somewhat

resistant of the idea that the counsellor should function as a teacher, seeing such a role
as indicating that the counsellor knows what is best for the client.

Conclusion

Person –Centered Theory is based on philosophy of human nature that postulates an

innate striving for self-actualization. Further, Roger’s view of human nature is

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phenomenological; that is, we structure ourselves according to our perceptions of
reality. Person-Centered theory rests on the assumption that clients can understand the
factors in their lives that are causing them to be unhappy. They also have the capacity
for self-direction and constructive personal change (KAPC, 2011). Through the
relationship with Mutua, I was able to lead him gradually to get a sharper focus on his
experiencing and was able to clarify his own feelings and attitude. In short, the
therapeutic relationship freed Mutua from his self- defeating ways. He soon discovered
that there was someone in his life whom he could depend on-himself. (KAPC, 2011).

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References
Combs, A.W. (1988). Some current issues for person centered Review, 3(3), 263-276.

Combs, A.W. (1989). A theory of therapy: Guidelines for counselling practice. Newbury
Park, CA. Sage.

Ellis, A., and MacLaren, C. (1998). Rational emotive behavior therapy: A therapist’s
guide. Atascadero, CA: Impact.

Ellis, A. (1999). Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Diminishes Much of the

Human Ego. New York: Albert Ellis Institute.

KAPC 2011. Higher diploma in counselling psychology manual. Unpublished paper.

Rogers, Carl. (1977). On Personal Power: Inner Strength and Its Revolutionary Impact.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.