Carl Rogers and the development of person-centered counseling psychology

The Past, Present, and Future of Counseling
The purpose of the paper is to bring to light the ever-expanding significance of counseling psychology. It discusses the past and present of counseling as well as the likely future possibilities in the field.
The Present
Historically, counseling psychology has been the link between professional counseling and psychology (Moore & Rae, 2009; Strawbridge & Woolfe, 2010). It is now positioned to be the intersection that links several relevant professions. This is a positive as has been seen in the strengthening of various health services where counseling psychology and the practice of counseling are closely linked. The strengthening of relevant professions is leading to the improvement in the provision of vital alternatives to the established healthcare and psychology models (Brady-Amoon & Keefe Cooperman, 2017). As professionals, counselors are viewed as nurturers of wellness, social justice, and relationships given the fact that they contribute to the fundamental aspects of a society’s existence and to the core of humanity (Vereen, Hill, Sosa & Kress, 2014).
With the appreciation of the value of humanism, and its contextualization of the existence of humans within complex socioeconomic and sociopolitical environments (Hansen, 2006), counseling, at its core, appreciates that the self is very complicated. The fundamental characteristics that make counseling different from various other mental health practices are grounded on its principle beliefs that are grounded on the concept of humanism. When compared with the other practices, the definition of counseling differs based on its focus on relationality, empowerment, wellness, social justice, and development. These fundamental concepts cannot be extricated from humanism. Therefore, a counselor is intrinsically a humanist (Vereen et al, 2014).
The foundational philosophies of counseling are the main factors that make it different from other related professions. From the standpoint of wellness, besides the goal of alleviating symptoms, counseling also aims at giving the client an ability to achieve an optimal state in health and functioning. It has a focus on positive life aspects such as health, leisure, friendship, love, meditation, creativity, humor, and self-care (Erford & Bardhosi, 2018).
Past
The historical figure chosen for this paper is Carl Rogers who was the founder of person-centered counseling approach. The approach was humanistic and is closely related to the school of thought that viewed counseling as intrinsically humanistic. Carl Rogers would agree with the definition given to counseling in the previous section.
Rogers’ development of the person-centered approach was influenced by his experience as a client and as a counselor. The approach would lead to various views on Psychoanalytic and Behaviorist approaches to counseling he would later develop. It was Rogers’ belief that, generally, Behaviorists tended to subscribe to the belief that humans are organisms that react only to stimuli and develop habits based on their experience and their interaction with the environment; and that people are generally not responsible for how they behave and are, therefore, helpless. The view Behaviorists hold is that people are taught to behave and think in unproductive ways and that it is the job of the counselor to teach them how to act and think productively. Rogers also had the view that Psychoanalysts, especially Freud, seemed to hold the belief that humans are not free from primitive inclinations that originate as a result of their fixations during their childhood years and are therefore byproducts of their biological drives and inclinations. Psychoanalysts focused a lot on the human nature’s dark side and its unproductive impulses that humans tend not to have any control over (Sage Publications, 2010).
Client-centered therapy is informed by the belief that individuals will do things that lead to development and growth if given the free will and a chance to do so. This point of view is in line with the PsyR that believes that every person has the ability to learn, recover, and better themselves. Client-centered therapy emphasizes that growth within relationships take place when there is genuineness and empathy. As stressed by PsyR, for a client’s rehabilitation and recovery to be successful, there needs to be a quality relationship between the practitioner and the client. The relationship here also needs to be based on acceptance, positive regard, and empathy.
Future
As far as future prospects are concerned, the entry of evidence-based practice is leading to positive outcomes and evidence-based practice is, therefore, bound to grow into the future. Research has shown how effective group, family, individual counseling sessions are for various concerns (Sexton, Whiston, Bluer & Waltz, 1997). Even more valuable to counseling practice, it has been shown through research that some counseling practices are more effective than others when dealing with certain client problems. Certain problems should, therefore, be matched with certain models of counseling (Sexton et. al, 1997). Such trends will inform the direction of counseling into the future and promote the place of evidence-based practice in the counseling profession (Sexton, 1999).
The presence of a clearly laid out model of practice is vital as it details how a service should be delivered and why the chosen model is the most optimal path. Such a model incorporates best practices in the field that have been found to achieve the best results consistently. Notably, it also gives practitioners a framework that they can use to evaluate their effectiveness based on industry research and evidence. Many counseling professions have developed specific models of practice and more are likely to do so in the future. This will lead to consistent models that can be used in the measurement and evaluation of counseling work and lead to more consistent outcomes for clients across the board (Pratt & Roberts, 2014).
The expansion of evidence practice in counseling in the future will likely take the profession from an era dominated mainly by theoretical frameworks to an era dominated by evidence-based research and practice that will see the advent of integrated practices where counseling professionals help several clients achieve optimal outcomes consistently and predictably. Evidence-based practices are effective at providing professionals with tested industry knowledge that can increase effectiveness and that can form the foundation upon which professional education is based. In counseling, it can unify the profession and influence the next phase of counseling evolution (Sexton, 1999).
Conclusion
An analysis of the forces that underlie the profession of counseling reveals that the industry is grounded on the concept of humanism. Humanism informs the professions theoretical frameworks and industry practices. The concepts of social justice, wellness, people empowerment, relationality, and development are the basic tenets that define counseling and that also show that the profession is uniquely humanistic.
Counselors put great value on the relationship they have with their clients. A healthy therapeutic relationship provides a good footing for the counselor to invite out of their client the resilience they need to beat whatever concerns might have brought them to the counselor. This alliance is the stage upon which the counselor can inspire growth and development in the client. The ability of a counselor to contextualize the needs and feelings of an individual and see where actualization and growth can happen speaks to the value of the humanistic side of counseling (Hansen, 2006). The wellness of an individual is helped by the capability to contextualize issues within the client’s lived experience. A person lives within an economic and social environment but their lived experience is unique to themselves and will often not be similar to that of another person (Vereen et al, 2014). Nonetheless, there are patterns the counselor can pick on as they spend time with the client that should help them determine the best solutions for the client based on counseling theory and evidence-based guidelines.

References
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