Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- Rogers:
Person−Centered Theory
(^330) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
clients and are able to communicate these perceptions so that clients know that an-
other person has entered their world of feelings without prejudice, projection, or
evaluation. To Rogers (1980), empathy “means temporarily living in the other’s life,
moving about in it delicately without making judgments” (p. 142). Empathy does not
involve interpreting clients’ meanings or uncovering their unconscious feelings, pro-
cedures that would entail an external frame of reference and a threat to clients. In
contrast, empathy suggests that a therapist sees things from the client’s point of view
and that the client feels safe and unthreatened.
Client-centered therapists do not take empathy for granted; they check the ac-
curacy of their sensings by trying them out on the client. “You seem to be telling me
that you feel a great deal of resentment toward your father.” Valid empathic under-
standing is often followed by an exclamation from the client along these lines: “Yes,
that’s it exactly! I really do feel resentful.”
Empathic listening is a powerful tool, which along with genuineness and car-
ing, facilitates personal growth within the client. What precisely is the role of em-
pathy in psychological change? How does an empathic therapist help a client move
toward wholeness and psychological health? Rogers’s (1980) own words provide the
best answer to these questions.
When persons are perceptively understood, they find themselves coming in closer
touch with a wider range of their experiencing. This gives them an expanded
referent to which they can turn for guidance in understanding themselves and
directing their behavior. If the empathy has been accurate and deep, they may also
be able to unblock a flow of experiencing and permit it to run its uninhibited
course. (p. 156)
Empathy is effective because it enables clients to listen to themselves and, in effect,
become their own therapists.
Empathy should not be confused with sympathy. The latter term suggests a
feeling fora client, whereas empathy connotes a feeling witha client. Sympathy is
never therapeutic, because it stems from external evaluation and usually leads to
clients’ feeling sorry for themselves. Self-pity is a deleterious attitude that threatens
a positive self-concept and creates disequilibrium within the self-structure. Also,
empathy does not mean that a therapist has the same feelings as the client. A thera-
pist does not feel anger, frustration, confusion, resentment, or sexual attraction at the
same time a client experiences them. Rather, a therapist is experiencing the depth of
the client’s feeling while permitting the client to be a separate person. A therapist has
an emotional as well as a cognitive reaction to a client’s feelings, but the feelings be-
long to the client,not the therapist. A therapist does not take ownership of a client’s
experiences but is able to convey to the client an understanding of what it means to
be the client at that particular moment (Rogers, 1961).
Process
If the conditions of therapist congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empa-
thy are present, then the process of therapeutic change will be set in motion. Al-
though each person seeking psychotherapy is unique, Rogers (1959) believed that a
certain lawfulness characterizes the process of therapy.
324 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories