Foundations of Treatment 121
In sum, psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy rely on six methods to help
a patient understand his or her unconscious urges and confl icts and to promote
insight and change: the therapeutic alliance, free association, interpretation, dream
analysis, and the use of resistance and transference.
Interpersonal Therapy
As discussed in Chapter 1, therapists who provide treatment within the framework
of humanistic psychology view psychopathology as arising from blocked personal
growth.Client-centered therapy, a humanistic therapy developed by psychologist
Carl Rogers, is intended to promote personal growth so that a client can reach his
or her full potential.
The Goal of Client-Centered Therapy
Rogers believed that a client’s symptoms arise from an incongruence between the
real self (that is, the person the client knows himself or herself to be) and the ideal
self (that is, the person he or she would like to be). This incongruence leads to a
fragmented sense of self and blocks the potential for personal growth. The goal of
treatment, according to Rogers, should be to decrease the incongruence, either by
modifying the ideal self or by realizing that the real self is closer to the ideal self
than previously thought, which in turn leads to a more integrated sense of self, and
an enhanced ability for the client to reach his or her full potential. According to the
theory, the client’s emotional pain should diminish as the real self and the ideal self
become more congruent.
Methods of Client-Centered Therapy
The two basic tenets of client-centered therapy are that the therapist should express
genuine empathy and unconditional positive regard toward clients.
Genuine Empathy
The therapist does not interpret the client’s words, but rather accurately refl ects
back the key parts of what the client said, which allows the client to experience
the therapist’s genuine empathy (Kirschenbaum & Jourdan, 2005). Were Leon in
client-centered therapy, for instance, the therapist would try to convey his or her
empathy for Leon’s situation by paraphrasing his descriptions of his feelings and
reactions to situations. According to Rogers (1951), if the therapist simply repeats
the same words, refl ects the client’s words inaccurately, or seems to express false
empathy, the therapy tends to fail.
Group Therapy
A humanistic therapy developed by Carl
Rogers that is intended to promote personal
growth so that a client can reach his or her
full potential.
depressed, living in fantasies, and preoccupied with having children. Ms. B’s fi rst sister (C)
was born when Ms. B was 2 years old. She recalls the years following C’s birth as being fi lled
with a constant need to be with her mother and a sense of panic and rage at her mother’s
“unavailability.” She longed for her mother’s exclusive attention and would have temper
tantrums when her mother could not be with her. Separation, even for a short time, was
experienced as traumatic....
Ms. B felt that I was an empathic and reliable person who was available to her in a special
way. She also felt that I did not like her and was bored by her. When I was quiet during
a session she felt I was punishing her. “Sometimes you’re like my mother and sometimes
my father.”
As our work continued, the transference oscillated between Ms. B’s view of me as being
“indifferent” toward her and more interested in other female patients (particularly her “arch
rival”—a patient she would see in the waiting room) and her view of me as not comforting
her, not telling her that everything will be all right: “I want you to get rid of that woman...
you’re indifferent to me. Make me feel better.... it feels just like mother.”
(Frosch, 2002, pp. 612–614)
