What are the main dangers of using Person Centered Therapy without adequate training?

Answer 1

The same dangers of anyone who is not trained properly doing anything. The mind is certainly no exception to the rule of "leave it to an expert", you can't self-diagnose and you can not treat yourself, even if you were a therapist or psychologist.

Answer 2

Honestly???

PCT or Rogerian Therapy is not so much as a therapy but a philosophy. I mean everyone should always use this when working with clients. YOu should have good attending skiils, listen to them, and care about them. Actually care about them. You let them lead you to what they want to talk about.

I am not aware (which is possible) of any therapist that uses Person Centered Therapy without another type of therapy with it.

The dangers of PCT is that if you are not trained that the client would not be motivated to talk about things that were causing the discomfort in their life. But, then again the idea of treating someone with positive regard and letting you know that they care is a great session. Good things can and will come from that.

Answer 3

Intellectually, I challenge your question. What does "adequate" mean? How long is a piece of string? Also, it's loaded, like "have you stopped beating your wife", because it assumes there are dangers.

Imagine yourself (or someone you love) going to see a friend who is able and willing to offer the core conditions and confidentiality, because they care and it comes naturally to them. You (they) reveal your suffering. You will leave feeling somewhat happier, somewhat relieved, understood, loved, appreciated. You (they) will have more peace of mind than before. I'd say it's 99.9% probable you'll feel glad of the experience.

Carl Rogers said that if the six necessary and sufficient conditions are present, beneficial change WILL occur. He didn't say anything about training and all the rest of the professionalisation stuff that's come in over the past 20-30 years. See R. Laing and Peggy Mason for examples of good work done by essentially PCA methods in the middle of the last century by someone, Laing (not RD Laing by the way), who intuitively and naturally lived the person-centred way of being.

So, let's be clear. In the PCA, training is not mainly about learning how to do. (Sure, there are counselling skills to learn.) It's mainly about learning how to be. And we, alas, live in an un-person-centred culture, so for most of us it doesn't come naturally.


Now, if you were to ask about the dangers of trying to do person-centred therapy without being a b l e to offer the core conditions, that is a question I can appreciate. Think of some encounter when you've spoken intimately of your hurts and hesitancies to an ordinary person of goodwill. Perhaps they can let their own stuff into the interaction (oops, congruence?). Most people get into judgments frequently (oops, UPR?). (How many people do you know, other than person-centred counsellors, who can go a whole hour with you without saying either "I should" or "you should" or "should (not) have"?)

Some "identify", bringing themselves into the interaction instead of focusing on you ("My daughter is like that") (oops, empathic identification displaces empathy?). Perhaps their ego appears ("you hurt me", "I'm angry with you" or "I want") (what does that do to the fifth and sixth Necessary Conditions?).


If someone feels judged, gets unasked for "advice", has been got angry with, finds they've been pulled into helping the person they went to for help, or feels let down or, worse yet, betrayed, what does that do to their confidence? Their self-esteem? Their optimism? Their trust in others?

Correspondingly, if you judge someone, or advise them, or get angry with them, or betray them, are you holding the Core Conditions? Are you being (or even "using"... ) Person Centred anything, let alone Therapy?

So I suggest to you that these hurts can only happen to the person who is "anxious or vulnerable" when the other (to whom they have turned) is not successfully being person centred. I offer you and me this as a reflection to ponder. Training can facilitate a person to be more consistently, more comprehensively, less self-defensively person-centred, but it is a relative difference not an absolute one.

Answer 4

P.C.T. uses the Carl Rogers method,if one is not trained in this methodology,then they would not be able to assist anyone in this field.