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9: Person-Centered Therapy

Additional resources for this chapter

instructor material

DOI:

10.1891/9780826177025.0009

Authors

  • Luke, Melissa

Abstract

Although several hundred different theoretical approaches are said to be currently recognized within counseling and psychology, person-centered therapy continues to have a strong presence among the major theoretical systems. Person-centered therapy postulates that people (a) are inherently trustworthy, (b) have a vast potential for self-understanding, and (c) have a self-directed capability to resolve their difficulties. Carl Rogers, founder of person-centered therapy, described person-centered therapy as consisting of the clinician’s creative use of self as the instrument of change to ultimately expand the client’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral ways of being. Thus, the incorporation of the expressive arts provides a complementary nonverbal means by which to enact the theory. This chapter proposes expressive arts interventions such as (1) Client Mirror; (2) Double-Sided Masks to Improve Congruency; (3) Dreamcatcher Creation: A Process of Becoming; and (4) Empowerment Over Hurtful Words along with the indications, goals, modality and other details.