Aaron Ball is the Mountain Man!

Person Centered Therapy

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:58:19 -0500

In studying the different approaches to biblical counseling I have found person centered therapy to speak to me the most. I am not claiming that I will only use this approach or that this is the best approach. I am saying that this approach grabbed my heart and I have a fervent need in practicing this approach in my life and in the lives of others. In my personal life, this type of therapy work best in dealing with my needs. Person centered therapy gives the client the opportunity to let the Holy Spirit speak to them and guide them in sorting out the issues in their life. I have found that I personally use person centered therapy in my own life and I didn’t even know it until recently. Through talking my head off to a close friend or by writing a blog on the internet I would “clear my head” and always feel so much better about my situation. I just thought that is what worked for me but I had no idea that it was an accepted professional counseling approach.

Carl Rogers, the founder of person centered therapy, was born in 1902 in Oak Park, Illinois. His father was a civil engineer and his mother was a housewife and devoted Christian. He was the middle child and had two older brothers, an older sister, and two younger brothers.

Faith was a big part of his childhood. From a young child his mother would read to him and his siblings stories from the bible. When he was older he became an altar boy and was very disciplined in living the standard of a born again believer. His first career choice was agriculture. After that he went to study history and then religion. At age 20, after spending two years at Union Theological Seminary, he felt that he was entering the ministry for the wrong reasons so he left to pursue a career in psychology. He lived a very successful career in this field and made significant discoveries advancing the science of psychology. In The Carl Rogers Reader it was said about Carl Rogers that “more than any individual, he was responsible for the spread of professional counseling and psychotherapy beyond psychiatry and psychoanalysis to all the helping professions - psychology, social work, education, ministry, lay therapy, and others.”
He was an instrumental American psychologist who didn’t see his clients as his colleagues did. It is my personal opinion that his faith and belief in God is what enabled him to receive a profound discovery in the field of counseling. One of the several remarkable things that Rogers did was change the term “patient” to “client”. He didn’t refer to the people he saw as patients because he didn’t see them as sick in a medical sense. Instead he referred to them as clients because they were people simply seeking help with problems of life.

Rogers made a profound discovery as a result of his failure, in a sense, and honesty with one of his clients. He was counseling a woman and he came to a point when he realized that he was incapable of helping her. He decided that the best thing to do was to be honest with her. In doing so, as you can imagine, the woman’s emotions overtook her and she started to cry uncontrollably. She began to pour out to him all her cares and troubles. He realized that if he could provide a specific atmosphere then the client could help themselves.

This type of counseling was originally called Client Centered Therapy and was later renamed to what we know it as today, Person Centered Therapy. It doesn’t require a lot of academic training, instead, it simply requests the therapist to have an open heart and a non-judgmental spirit. Rogers often told his clients, “I can’t solve any of your problems for you, but I can help you to solve your own problems, and doing that will make you better.”

Person Centered Therapy views the client as their own best authority on their own experiences. It views the client as being fully capable of fulfilling their own potential for growth. A lot of times people don’t go to counseling because the society portrays it as being weak and unable to live life on your own. The beauty of the person centered approach is that they enable you to do the opposite of what our society is telling us about the counseling industry. A couple of the goals in person centered therapy is to increase the independence of the client and allow them to trust in themselves.

Person centered therapy has three core conditions. The first condition is unconditional positive regard. This means that the therapist accepts the client unconditionally and non-judgmentally. Achieving potential requires favorable conditions. Under adverse conditions individuals may not develop in the ways that they otherwise would. The atmosphere needs to allow the client to freely explore all thoughts and emotions, positive or negative, without endangerment of rejection or condemnation. Trust is the problem a lot of times when talking about common life issues and it is also key in person centered therapy.

Individuals often cope with the conditional acceptance offered to them by others by gradually coming to incorporate these conditions into their own views about themselves. They will soon be someone completely different from who they really are just because people create conditions. They say I will love you and accept you if you meet my criteria. They might say I will let you be part of the group if you do this and that. Acceptance is what everyone wants so we adjust who we are to satisfy their need of who they need us to be and to satisfy our need to be loved and accepted. When individuals are denied acceptance and unconditional positive regard from others they may begin to lose touch with who they really are and what God has truly called them to be.

The second core condition is empathetic understanding. This means that the therapist needs to accurately understand the client’s thoughts, feelings, and meanings from the client’s perspective. Rogers was quoted in the Carl Rogers Reader as saying, “I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to understand another person.” He later said, “I have found it enriching to open channels where by others can communicate their feelings, their private perceptual worlds, to me.” When the therapist enters into the mind of the client, not only does that give values to their point of view but it also shows the client that they are accepted without condition.

Congruence is the last of the three core conditions in person centered therapy. Congruence means that the therapist is authentic and genuine. The therapist doesn’t need to put on a show on how professional they are or how holier they are than the client because that might hinder the client from opening up. Instead the therapist needs be unpretentious yet stay professional in a transparent manner to the client.

The person centered approach takes clients as their own best authorities. The focus is always on the client’s own feelings and thoughts, not on those of the therapist and certainly not on diagnosis or categorization. This is one common critique of this approach. Some clients may prefer a more structured atmosphere where the therapist takes more control and does more teaching and analyzing.

Another negative observation of this approach is that person centered therapy is unbiblical. I have found one article stating that person centered therapy is completely the anti christ because they don’t use the bible. It may not use the physical bible in its structure but its structure is based on the teaching of the bible. Jesus gives the new commandment in the gospel of John.

John 13:34-35 says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” You will not know the disciples of Christ by their wardrobe and by how they dress. You will not know the disciples of Christ by the amount of college degrees on their office wall. You will not know the disciples of Christ by how much of the bible they know. The Son of God says in the Word that you will know His disciples by their love. How much more can you love someone than by creating an non-judgmental atmosphere as Christ did that will bring healing to their soul.

This girl gets me going!

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:07:24 -0500

This girl gets me going!

my returning struggle

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:55:05 -0500

I know God is who He says He is but am I who I say I am? I am not saying that I am not saved but there is alot I am wondering about. There are some things from my past that affects who I am today. I am struggling with some things from my past but it’s all different. Its old struggles but they feel like new ones at the same time. Somethings just seem out of control. It seems like the only time that these things were under control were when I was in Master’s Commission in California. It’s weird cause so much in my life has changed and now I feel like I am right back where I started. Did I even change? Or did I just take a break for a while? Will I always struggle? What do the struggles mean?

gym annoyances

Sun, 24 May 2009 06:03:51 -0500

I just wanted to write a post since I haven’t in a while. Since I have been in the gym for a while now I have noticed some annoying behaviors from some of the people in the gym. One of the things that I have noticed is people talking on the phone while “working out”. I mean how can you really push yourself physically if your yapping away on the cell phone. Not only does it limit your physical ability but it makes you look stupid and it creates an annoyance to others in the gym. If it’s an important call then step outside to make or take the call or wait till you get home. The gym is not the place answer all of your voicemails. Another thing that I have noticed is people who get too much into their tv shows. You know how you can plug in some head phones and watch tv while on your cardio equipment, well, just be careful and be respectful to your surroundings. I was at the gym the other day when I heard this loud laughing. At first I had no idea what it was but after a while I realized where it was coming from. I guess the guy on the stepper machine was really enjoying his Seinfield or whatever it was that he was watching. He kept doing it and it become real annoying and it distracted me from my workout as I’m sure it did others as well. The other day I was working out and their was a perculiar creature there that I noticed. In fact, everyone noticed him and were pointing and making fun of him. He was trying to do boxing around the whole gym. I was trying to get on one of the chest machines but he was squating and punching around blocking the whole area off. Before that I was trying to do some pull ups but he had that blocked off too. Everywhere he went he carried this big gym bag and gallon container filled with some brown substance. It looked like urine to be honest but I am sure it was something else. The gym staff were pointing at him but they should have asked him to cool down. To me he was just in the way and an annoyance. These are just some of the more annoying annoyances that I have noticed recently in the gym. I have noticed some slimmer annoyances like how immature the high schoolers act in the late afternoons but I won’t get into that in the post. Hope you enjoyed the read. Drop by my other posts if you would like and don’t forget to keep Jesus in control of your body and life.

I am an addict of CROSSFIT. It’s what I do at the gym. ...

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 03:11:11 -0500

I am an addict of CROSSFIT. It’s what I do at the gym. Here is a pic of a dude preforming a push jerk. I will radomly post other crossfit pics for you all to enjoy.

The Cultural Church

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:39:07 -0500

I am sorry for not blogging lately but I have been having some internet connection problems. I woulld love to update you on my life but I have an importnat issue to address. The Lord has impressed on my heart about the cultural church. What is wrong with the church? I have been listening to a certain “pastor” and to be honest it is so annoying. I start looking at other churches in the area and I am still getting the same feeling. If I hear of another church referred to as a campus I am going to scream. What is with all these blue lights in the sanctuary and these cute little metal tables that are used for a pulpit? It’s like they are turning the church into a talk show studio. I am not against changes in the church building. I am not against a certain look but something is wrong when your reason behind this is to appear to be something besides the house of God. Something is wrong when the pastor sits back in a chair and delievers a feel good message to the crowd. Where is the meat? Where is the Word? What happened to the challenge? What happened to the push? What happened to the Spirit? I am so tired of looking at church doctrines and unable to tell what they actually believe. They don’t make it clear where they stand cause they are afraid of stepping on toes. They make it where all people are welcomed and that is good but when they customize the Word of God to comfort the people something is wrong with that. When it comes to the inspired Word of God you need to be bold in stance. Taking one verse and speaking on that is not God’s intention. He didn’t create it to be picked apart. It was created to be whole. The entire Word is for the entire world. When you pick and choose the inspired Word of God you are creating a me-ology. It is time for the Church to arise. It is time to be able to tell the difference between the world and the Church.

My new friend, Jerome. I found him inside my home yesterday. I...

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:03:32 -0500

My new friend, Jerome. I found him inside my home yesterday. I freaked out. He has to go. GROSS!

Tomorrow God is gonna rock the house. Tomorrow I am going to...

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:52 -0500

Tomorrow God is gonna rock the house. Tomorrow I am going to see Rick Pino @ Convergence Church in Fort Worth. I am super excited!

Rick Pino and Jerome

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500

So, I just joined Tumblr and I think I am going to like it. I am planning on posting twice a day. Hopefully some random thoughts of mine will be one post. The other post will be a video or pic of something that I like. Should be fun times here on Tumblr.

Yesterday was interesting. I went to my cousins to do some yard work and got a little sun. Then we went to through like 30 bags of work in dumpsters all across Little Rock. Illegal I know. Atleast my cousin is a lawyer. And my car got trashed. So feel free to donate air freshners to my account. My car needs them bad.

So then my cousin wanted to see my place so I took them inside. She was saying how I need to organize better and I was opening doors and showing them stuff. I opened the doot to the water heater which is right next to my bed and I really wish I did not do that. I opened the door and something was looking back at me. Was not cool at all.

Well, guess I better go for tonight. I will post up a vid of Rick Pino cause I am going to Dallas to see him in the morning. I will also post a pic of my dead friend whom I named Jerome. So tomorrow is Dallas with Rick Pino. I am super excited. God is gonna rock that place. Saturday is baking and getting ready for First Fruits. Sunday I will be celebrating First Fruits with my family. It’s going to be a great weekend!