Focusing-oriented listening and “positive regard”

Is Focusing one of the evolved forms of client-centered therapy (person-centered approach) or not? This is a topic of discussion around the world. One of the most common discussion topics is whether Focusing is “directive.” While this topic may be necessary, I want to discuss something else. It concerns the therapist’s “unconditional positive regard” attitude, which Carl Rogers mentioned.

Some years ago, I attended a lecture by Mr. Keisuke Kato, a psychotherapist in clinical practice, on “Between Focusing and Client-Centered Therapy.” His lecture inspired me to think there is a danger that Focusing-oriented listening can sometimes give the impression of having only “conditional” positive regard for the client.

Let me give you an example of positive regard. “If you’re a good boy and stay at home, I’ll get you a toy.” I think many people were told this as children. However, in a therapeutic situation, if the client is listened to with this attitude of “I will accept you only if you are thus and so,” they cannot speak freely. I believe this is why Carl Rogers listed “unconditional” positive regard as one of the necessary and sufficient conditions, as opposed to “only if you are thus and so”:

It [unconditional positive regard] means that there are no conditions of acceptance, no feeling of “I like you only if you are thus and so.” ... It is at the opposite pole from a selective evaluating attitude—“You are bad in these ways, good in those.” It involves as much feeling of acceptance for the client's expression of negative, “bad," painful, fearful, defensive, abnormal feelings as for his expression of “good,” positive, mature, confident, social feelings…. (Rogers, 1957, p. 98)

I believe that Gendlin, a student of Rogers, pointed out the problems that Focusing tends to have without using terms like positive regard in the following sentences:

... once a therapist knows focusing, it is harder to listen to the client going round and round when it seems that a little attention to the implicit felt sense would open what is being talked about and provide a step. If the therapist always follows the urge, the client may feel that nothing but focusing is welcome or interesting to the therapist. (Gendlin, 1996, p. 108)

I can see that this has happened when a client tells me what happened during the week and then says, “just one more thing, all right?” as if to say “I know you’re waiting for me to stop talking and go into the edge of something.” Or, the client may say something like: “I have to talk this out, okay?” (Gendlin, 1996, p.108)

The sentences above are from the section “The Therapist Seems Impatient” in “Chapter 9. Problems of Teaching Focusing during Therapy” in “Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy.” Let me replace the sentences from Gendlin with Rogers’ thinking. I read this to mean that when the therapist seems impatient, there is a danger of giving the client the impression that “the therapist is interested in me only if I talk in a felt-sense focused way or only if I make statements that are rated highly on the Experiencing Scales (Klein et al., 1969; 1986).” In other words, this is a wake-up call to consider whether Focusing-oriented listening has fallen into the “conditional” positive regard trap. This is because the therapist’s “selective evaluating attitude” may reinforce the client’s “introjected value systems” (Rogers, 1951, p. 522) or “conditions of worth” (Rogers, 1959, pp. 224-6).

References

Gendlin, E.T. (1996). Focusing-oriented psychotherapy: a manual of the experiential method. Guilford.

Klein, M.H., Mathieu, P.L., Gendlin, E.T. & Kicsler, D.J. (1969). The experiencing scale: a research and training manual, 1, Wisconsin Psychiatric Institute.

Klein, M.H., Mathieu-Coughlan, P.L. & Kiesler, D.J. (1986). The experiencing scales. In Greenberg. L. & Pinsof, W. (Eds.), The therapeutic process: a research handbook (pp. 21-71). Guilford Press.

Rogers, C.R. (1951). Client-centered therapy: its current practice, implications, and theory. Houghton Mifflin.

Rogers, C.R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21(2), 95-103.

Rogers, C.R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In Koch, S. (Ed.), Psychology: a study of science. 3 (pp. 184-256). McGraw-Hill.