PERSON-CENTERED APPROACH & ITS EFFECTS

THE THERAPIST’S ATTITUDE

Within the Person-Centered Approach, the therapist’s primary focus is to offer a safe space in which the client is genuinely valued as a unique individual. The therapist seeks to empathically enter into the client’s personal frame of reference, understanding and accepting the client’s unique perceptions and perspective. In this approach, the therapist is not the expert on the content of the conversation, but rather on providing a particular therapeutic climate that creates the conditions for growth. This approach emerged not merely from an ideal (although it may certainly be regarded as one), but from the observation that when people are not evaluated, analyzed, or categorised from the outside, but are understood from within their own perspective, they naturally develop the capacity to explore, understand, integrate, and make sense of their experiences, and to discover solutions that are personally meaningful to them. Rather than attempting to guide the client towards a predetermined outcome, the therapist places trust in the individual’s own capacities. Through their attitude towards the client, the therapist provides a distinctive relational climate in which the client experiences unconditional acceptance and genuine valuing. Within this climate, the client is able to develop greater self-acceptance, embrace change, and continue their personal growth.

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EFFECTS & THE CLIENT’S EXPERIENCE

During the person-centered therapeutic process, internal experiences typically become less tense and more flexible, allowing them to be explored more openly and experienced more fully on an emotional level. Experiences that were previously outside of awareness may also gradually come into consciousness within this atmosphere of psychological safety, without becoming overwhelming. Another frequently observed development is that clients increasingly connect experiences that once seemed unrelated to one another. Over time, multiple, seemingly separate, concerns become integrated into fewer and broader, more meaningful core concerns. Clients also tend to develop greater trust in themselves and in their own experiencing, gain deeper understanding and acceptance of themselves as a whole person, and generally feel more at ease with who they are. This process is rarely linear. New ways of experiencing oneself may be accompanied by uncertainty. Nevertheless, despite these phases of uncertainty, clients tend to experience the overall process as valuable, enriching, and contributing greatly to personal growth and development. Over the course of therapy, clients typically find that they gradually internalize the therapist’s growth-promoting attitude towards them, developing a similar attitude towards themselves. Change often becomes initially apparent in small aspects of everyday life and tends to emerge from within rather than through deliberate effort. Experiences within the therapeutic relationship — particularly the client’s emotional experiencing of themselves — usually continue to unfold between sessions, often almost unnoticed at the time, yet becoming increasingly evident in retrospect and generally proving to be enduring over time.

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DURATION OF THERAPY AND COUNSELING

The duration of counseling or therapy depends on the client’s own sense of what they need. A counseling process typically ranges from just a few sessions to approximately ten or fifteen sessions. A process of person-centered psychotherapy generally involves at least twenty-five sessions. In the end, it is the client who decides when the therapeutic process has reached its conclusion. Following psychotherapy, ongoing support may also continue over a longer period, with sessions taking place at lower frequencies according to the client’s individual needs and preferences.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE, QUALIFICATIONS & FURTHER EDUCATION

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

I have several years of experience as a therapist working with challenging and complex cases. Throughout my work, the therapeutic relationship and careful, empathic understanding of each client’s individual perspective have been at the core of my professional practice.

I regularly attend certified professional seminars in psychotherapy research and therapeutic approaches. In my most recent position, I served as Director of a therapeutic residential care facility with a multidisciplinary team of 18 professionals, including educators, social workers, and psychotherapists.

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As part of my psychology studies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, I devoted my Master’s thesis to research on respect, genuineness, and person-centeredness. Following a pilot study, I conducted a research study involving more than 200 participants. Statistical analyses revealed effects suggesting that, in interpersonal feedback, the qualities of genuineness and person-centeredness have a meaningful influence on how respect is perceived.

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Since 2016, I have been licensed under the German Heilpraktikergesetz (German Practitioner Act) to practice psychotherapy independently.

In 2023, I completed the advanced professional training in Person-Centered Counseling at the 'Gesellschaft für Personzentrierte Psychotherapie und Beratung', GwG (German Association for Person-Centered Therapy and Counseling). This multi-year programme focused on the person-centered approach developed by Carl Rogers and is grounded in the core conditions of genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathy.

Since 2025, I have been undertaking advanced training in Person-centered Psychotherapy with the Person-Centered Counseling at the 'Gesellschaft für Personzentrierte Psychotherapie und Beratung', GwG (German Association for Person-Centered Therapy and Counseling). As part of this programme, supervised therapy slots are available at a reduced rate in return for audio recording for supervision purposes. Further information can be found in the section “FEES & APPOINTMENTS”, under “SUPERVISED THERAPY FOR REDUCED RATE”.

In addition to the person-centered approach, I have knowledge in a range of other scientifically recognized therapeutic approaches, including psychodynamic therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Strukturbezogene Psychotherapie (SP) (psychotherapy focusing on structural capacities), Motivational Interviewing (MI), Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT), Klärungsorientierte Psychotherapie (KOP) (therapy focusing on relationship patterns), and other evidence-based approaches.

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RELEVANCE FOR THERAPEUTIC PRACTICE​​

Within person-centered practice, professional knowledge is not intended to serve as a basis for evaluating or categorizing clients. Rather, it enables the therapist to better appreciate and understand the virtually limitless range and complexity of unique individual experiencing.

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Person-centered understanding does not involve interpreting or judging the client from an external perspective. Instead, it is an ongoing effort to understand the client’s world as they themselves experience it and to empathically enter this unique frame of reference. This does not mean that the therapist is absent as a person – on the contrary, the therapist’s authentic presence is regarded as an essential element of an effective therapeutic relationship within the Person-Centered Approach.

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The client’s own perceptions, lived experience, and personal perspective always remain at the center of the therapeutic process. This is why Carl Rogers referred to his approach as 'Client-Centered' and later (after expanding it to 'Student-Centered', 'Group-Centered') more broadly as 'Person-Centered'.