patient is trying to become autonomous and less dependent on the therapist. In
both of the above kinds of transference, the therapist needs to interpret the trans-
ference in terms of unconscious desires. The therapist’s aim should be to help the
patient attain greater self-understanding.
Therapist-initiated transference is called countertransference. This takes
place when the therapist develops a crush on the patient and thinks that he or she
is in love. In such an instance, it is the therapist’s ethical responsibility to avoid act-
ing on his or her feelings. Often the therapist needs to reassign to case to a differ-
ent professional person.
The general aim of psychoanalysis is to make accessible and comprehensible to
the conscious mind information that has been creating emotional problems at an
unconscious level.
(a) The level of a dream is its concealed aspect, its meaning.
(b) A occurs when the patient sees the therapist in glowing, magical terms.
Answers: (a) latent; (b) positive transference.
Client-Centered Therapy: A Humanistic Approach
Client-centered therapyis based on the assumption that the troubled person
has powerful inner resources, resources that will help the individual think and
feel better. Note that the word patientis avoided, and instead the word clientis
used. This is done in order to downplay the identification of a therapy-seeker as
a sick person. The originator of client-centered therapy is Carl Rogers, a former
president of the American Psychological Association. Rogers believed, in com-
mon with Maslow, that human beings have an inborn tendency to be self-
actualizing. It is this tendency that must be tapped in order for the client to
improve.
Unlike psychodynamic therapy, client-centered therapy does not attempt to
explore the unconscious level. Instead, all work is done in face-to-face interviews
at a conscious level. The therapy is a sort of intelligent discussion between the
therapist and the client.
Rogers believed that most of us have an ideal self,a person we would like to
become. We also have a self-concept,an image of the way we are. In the case of
troubled people, the self-concept is unsatisfactory in relation to the ideal self. This
state is known as incongruence.Client-centered therapy helps the client resolve
the gap between the self-concept and the ideal self. When the gap is largely
closed, there is a state ofcongruence.In such a state an individual is less likely to
suffer from depression and anxiety.
In order to nurture a personal growth process, client-centered therapy
Therapy: Helping Troubled People 235
