Carl Rogers Case Study

Carl Rogers’ core conditions of acceptance, genuineness, and empathy are the current benchmark for illustrating the therapist 's contribution to successful therapy outcomes (Campbell & Christopher, 2012; McAuliffe & Eriksen, 2011; Duncan, Miller, Wampold, & Hubble, 2010). Late in Rogers’ career, he came to recognize that counselors also contribute their presence to the therapeutic encounter. In an interview, he expressed feeling as though he paid too much attention to the core conditions (acceptance, genuineness, and empathy) and negated what existed “around the edges of those conditions that is really the most important element of therapy, when [he] is very clearly, obviously present” (Baldwin, 2013, p. 30). In this same interview, Rogers expressed that being present is an embodiment of the therapeutic conditions (Baldwin, 2013).
Currently, “no mental health discipline has developed a systematic approach for teaching therapeutic presence as a skill or ability” (Hick & Bien, 2008, p. 179). Furthermore, researchers have found that conventional counselor training programs that emphasize didactic teaching methods, adherence to manual-guided techniques, and/or application of theory to clinical work using supervised training, do not improve the effectiveness of counselors over time

177). These qualities prove difficult to formally bring into counselor preparation programs. Traditionally therapists are trained to build rapport through empathic reflection of the client’s feelings. These training methods focus on the content of the therapist’s communication rather than the therapist’s presence in the room (Young, 2005). According to Geller and Greenberg (2012), there is a need for therapists to be trained to “feel centered and strong in their own self while receiving and entering the experience of the [client]” (p.