Carl Rogers and connection: what helps us connect in therapy?

American counsellor Carl Rogers came from an agricultural background. He brought this influence with him into his psychological work. As such, he was interested in what makes people grow.

He asked, what are the conditions for psychological growth? What does loosen one’s grip? What throws new light on familiar shadows? And what ultimately gives permission for change, at a deep level, in the individual who is cared for in this way?

He explored this through listening deeply, patiently, and honestly to himself and his clients. He was one of the first to listen not for technique, but for change. He wrote that the concepts of empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard were the "core conditions" for psychological growth.

Perhaps you are new to the world of therapy and wonder what these terms might mean, in practice, in the therapy room. One way to think about the core conditions is to consider them a meditation. A meditation on connection. A particular kind of therapeutic connection between two people. Carl Rogers thought of this as simply a certain climate, an atmosphere in which change can proceed. 

When people come into therapy, they often bring with them all their wishes, pains, and desires. Everything comes wrapped tightly in their chest. Asking for help from this tightly wrapped place with something so intimate requires courage. When we meet with someone who is trained to respond with authenticity, emotional understanding, and heart – the core conditions – it is often unnerving, beautiful, and sacred, all at the same time.

We can begin to trust that we can open ourselves to the parts of our lives we have sought to protect or hide from. Our courage gives us the conviction to speak what is in our hearts; often in spite of the collusion between possible feelings of shame, uncertainty and doubt.

Congruence 

Congruence refers to the part of the self where there is no need to distort or deny. The inner place of just being. This area of self can be available in an open, non-defensive way.

When the therapist you are with is congruent, it may well feel like you can trust them. This trust is what the therapeutic relationship draws on when, inevitably, there is a call to speak about the parts of the soul that are delicate and tender.

Building up towards taking a seat in the therapy room is a process that starts as soon as our internal conflicts are accepted as ours to unravel. In our expectation of finding someone we feel safe to unravel our woes with is where a congruent therapist can really hold us.

Empathy 

It is not sympathy. It is not problem-solving. It is not reassurance. Empathy is both the most recognisable and the most frequently misunderstood of the core conditions.

At its simplest, it is a restatement of another person's words. At its richest, it’s a fearless exploration of another's inner world – a sensing of meanings unspoken, a compassionate naming of pain, suffering, humiliation, mischievousness, and joy. This often feels like a deep permission to be. To let go. Let go of thinking. We are just being. We feel connection, we feel with the other, who is feeling with us.

This is an essential ingredient in meaningful therapy. When a therapist is empathetic, it offers a real and tangible sense of presence in the relationship.  

Unconditional positive regard 

Coming back to Carl Rogers, therapy is a process, not a single moment of insight that can be easily packaged. It is a series of small adjustments – minor ripples that spread gradually to affect our whole way of being.

In his stance of unconditional positive regard, Rogers was speaking about a willingness to encounter the whole of the person he was listening to. Rage. Shame. Hot. Cold. The most hidden wounds. The most guilty pleasures. He believed that what is often the most difficult to accept bears the greatest reward for growth.

Unconditional positive regard means accepting the person's need for safety in staying as they are, even when they are expressing a desperate wish to change. Rogers saw the task as not to make change happen, but to create the conditions in which it can proceed.

What change could look like

In therapy, change might look like:

• gradual loosening – becoming less certain that they have the only view of truth
• greater availability of experience to awareness – the ability to acknowledge what was previously denied or distorted
• increasingly basing judgments on one's own experience rather than on what others think
• more flexible, present-moment relating – less governed by past patterns
• greater self-acceptance – and consequently greater acceptance of others

This aspirational list of changes is what might be hoped for in a process of therapy. However, there is often a salvational tone in many modern therapies. If you could just be assertive, angry, loving, expressive, or thoughtful, etc., all your issues, they suggest, would be resolved. However, to be ourselves. To feel accepted. These experiences are sometimes missed.

The core conditions are a meditation on what it means to be in contact with each other, and in the moments that contact is alive, perhaps we can experience that rare and sacred feeling of deep connection – to be received and understood by another and to hold them in kind. To be ourselves. To be accepted.