“The only way out is through”
Carl Rogers
Four Main Schools of Psychotherapy
The person-centered approach – also known as person-centered/experiential psychotherapy – is part of a wider family of humanistic psychotherapies. The humanistic approach is one of the four major schools of psychotherapy, next to psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural psychotherapy and systemic psychotherapy. All four approaches show similar effectiveness in treating mental health disorders. It is, however, very important that not only the psychotherapeutic approach is a right fit for clients, but also that the psychotherapist as a person is suitable match. I can be helpful to bear this in mind in the first appointment.
Scientific Recognition and Effectiveness of Person-centered Psychotherapy
The effectiveness of person-centered/experiential psychotherapy has been scientifically-empirically proven and is thus officially recognized by Austrian health insurances, the Scientific Council for Psychotherapy as well as the Austrian Health Ministry.
In Germany, the Scientific Council for Psychotherapy for the Federal Government of Germany, the Federal Physicians Association (BÄK) and the Federal Psychotherapists Association (BPtK) consider person-centered psychotherapy as empirically supported. The German Institute for Medical and Pharmaceutical Examination Questions for Psychotherapists (IMPP) includes person-centered psychotherapy in the national curricula and psychotherapy exams.
Person-centered psychotherapy fulfills all the efficacy criteria of relevant, multi-disciplinary psychotherapy research, especially those proven by large-scale studies by Klaus Grawe (1998) as well as Messer and Wampold (2002, 2018): therapeutic alliance and cooperation, resource activation, problem actualisation, orientation to change and the experience of clarification as well as the experience of coping.
Individual Goals
Humanistic-person-centered psychotherapy and counselling can help bring calm to where confusion and restlessness previously existed. The process is about getting closer to one’s own truth – without prejudice from the outside. There are times when certain feelings and thoughts are difficult to put into words. If suitable expression can be found together, then clients can succeed in experiencing and communicating what is going on inside of them – an extremely satisfactory process.