In addition to providing an accepting relationship, therapists can help cli-
ents understand themselves better through a process of reflection . Rather than
interpret what clients really mean, as a Freudian therapist might, a Rogerian
therapist helps clients listen to what they are saying. Part of this comes about
when clients are given the opportunity to put their feelings into words. By
translating vague feelings into precise words, clients come to understand their
feelings. Clients listen to their words and examine their thoughts, perhaps for
the first time. One technique a therapist can use to further this process is torestate the client ’s statements. Some people mistakenly think this means the
therapist simply repeats the client ’s words verbatim. But as the following ex-
cerpt demonstrates, the goal is to help clients explore their thoughts and feel-ings by directing their attention to what they are saying. In this example,
Rogers is working with a woman who is struggling with her sense of personal
identity:
Client: I suppose I want to know just what to do, but then maybe nobody could give
me that.
Therapist: You realize that you are probably looking for immediate answers that nobody could
give you.
C: I just don ’t know. I don ’t know what I ’m looking for. It ’s just that I wonder if I’ m
insane sometimes. I think I’ m nuts.
T: It just gives you concern that you ’re as far from normal as you feel you are.
C: That’s right. It ’s silly to tell me not to worry because I do worry. It ’s my life. …
Well, I don’ t know how I can change my concept of myself —because that ’s the way
I feel.
T: You feel very different from others and you don’ t see how you can fix that.
C: I realize, of course, that it all began a long time ago —because everything begins
somewhere. I wasn ’t just—somehow or other something failed somewhere along the
line. And I guess we sort of have to get at it, a sort of reeducation. But I don ’t feel as
though I can do it myself.
T: You realize that the roots must go a long way back, and that at some point you will
have to start in reworking it, but you ’re not sure whether you can do it.
C: That’s right. It ’s just the idea that I can see myself going through life this way, 50-,
60-, and 70-years-old —still thinking these horrible thoughts. And it just doesn ’t seem
worthwhile —I mean, it’ s so ridiculous. While everybody else is going their way and
living life, I ’m sort of at the edge, and looking on. It just isn ’t right.
T: The future doesn ’t look very bright when you look at it that way.
C: No. I know I ’m lacking in courage, that ’s the big thing I ’ml a c k i n g .T h a tm u s tb ei t ,
’cause other people aren ’t swayed so easily. …It’s a hard thing to explain these
things. It ’sj u s ta st h o u g h —it’s—true but I laugh at it in a way. …It’s a very confused
feeling.
T: Logically, you realize that courage is one of your deficiencies, but inside yourself you
find yourself laughing at that notion and feeling that it doesn ’t really have anything to
do with you. Is that it?
C: That’s right. I always sort of make myself different. That ’s it. (1947, pp. 138– 140)Application: Person-Centered Therapy and Job Satisfaction 295