Authentic Counselling Training
Unconditional Positive Regard
[Under construction: 4 May 2005 ]
Introduction
Many people feel uncomfortable when they attract the disapproval (negative regard) of another person. Worse, however, is to feel ignored (no regard). Positive regard feels good, even more so when given ungrudgingly. There is a kind of hierarchy of preference:
· Positive regard - unconditional
· Positive regard - conditional
· Negative regard - conditional
· Negative regard - unconditional
· No regard
This hierarchy explains why a person may prefer to attract negative attention (e.g. by acting in an antisocial manner) rather than be totally ignored. It also explains why a person may be willing to settle for a qualified, grudging, positive regard, with strings and conditions attached, over a negative regard. However, the real life situation can also be more complex than presented. For example, a person may be so unfamiliar with positive regard given unconditionally that they do not trust it, or even fear it. For such a person, unconditional positive regard poses a challenge to their concept of who they are as a person, which can be a profoundly unsettling experience.
Unconditional positive regard in
the counselling room involves the counsellor maintaining an unqualified, positive
attitude towards the client. The therapeutic effect on the client of the
counsellor’s unconditional positive regard is to undermine the conditions
placed on their sense of worth that the client carries around with them.
Some Components of Unconditional Positive Regard
· Respect: respecting a person in their dignity and brokenness as a person
· Non-judgmental: being neither judgmental against nor for
· Acceptance: accepting the person in all their fullness, missing nothing out, including how they treat the relationship with you.
· Valuing: embracing the person you encounter, and valuing them as a unique and valuable person
· Prizing: celebrating achievements and what is of value in the person’s eyes.
· Caring: being concerned for the person, and wanting the best for them
· Nurturing: wanting to help the person to grow in whatever ways are open for their growth as a person (nurturing the actualising tendency)
· Compassion: feeling compassion for how hard life can be for a person struggling to cope, or to find what is important to them, in a world that they may experience as hostile
· Warmth: experiencing a warmth inside for the person in this relationship
· Love: experiencing the full richness of a non-possessive love for the person in this relationship.
Questions about Unconditional Positive Regard
1. Who in your life currently gives you:
a) conditional positive regard?
b) unconditional positive regard?
2. Who in your past has given you:
a) conditional positive regard?
b) unconditional positive regard?
3. For whom in your life currently do you have:
a) conditional positive regard?
b) unconditional positive regard?
4. For whom in your past have you had:
a) conditional positive regard?
b) unconditional positive regard?
5. To what extent do you typically communicate your:
a) conditional positive regard for a person?
b) unconditional positive regard for a person?
6. By what means do you typically communicate your:
a) positive regard for a person?
b) negative regard for a person?
7. How would I know if you were:
a) feeling warm towards me? (What would you be doing?)
b) feeling cool towards me?
8. How would I know if you were:
a) showing me acceptance? (What would you be doing?)
b) feeling judgmental towards me / what I am saying?
9. How would I know if you were:
a) showing me respect? (What would you be doing?)
b) not feeling very respectful of me?
Unconditional Positive Regard: Exploration
According to Mearns and Thorne (1988):
"Unconditional positive regard is the label given to the fundamental attitude of the person-centred counsellor towards her client. The counsellor who holds this attitude deeply values the humanity of her client and is not deflected in that valuing by any particular client behaviours. The attitude manifests itself in the counsellor's consistent acceptance of, and enduring warmth towards her client."
Mearns and Thorne (1988) go on to make two related points:
a) that a person-centred counsellor will bring this attitude to encounters with all her clients;
b) that a person-centred counsellor will bring this attitude to each encounter with a client.
Implied in the above definition is that the client's actions or behaviour might somehow challenge the counsellor's positive regard for the client, and therefore show the positive regard to be conditional, not unconditional.
For me, there are two points that spring from this implication:
1. I am unclear why a client's actions or behaviour should challenge me. After all, it is unlikely that any of their actions or behaviour will impact on me (apart, say, from their attendance for counselling appointments). If, as a counsellor, I feel challenged by a client's actions or behaviour, this may be for one of three reasons:
a) I would not choose the client's behaviour or course of action for myself (for example, dropping out of a course I was attending) - in which case I am confusing the client with myself, and feel reluctant to allow them to be different from me;
b) I judge the client's behaviour or course of action to be in some way detrimental to the client (or in some way less than sufficient, or less than ideal), which is evaluative from an external frame of reference, and therefore patently unempathic, implying that my view of the client could be of greater value to the client than my empathy;
c) the client's behaviour or course of action points to values that conflict with my own (for example, the client expresses racist views, and reports that he had been involved in harassing a local Asian family) – see point 2, below.
2. Unconditional positive regard involves accepting the client's own personal constructs / personal values / valuing system. It would be possible to imagine a spectrum involving at one end confluence between the valuing systems of counsellor and client, and at the other end conflict between the valuing systems of counsellor and client. The person-centred counsellor allows herself to accept the valuing systems of clients which are far removed from her own. This does not mean that the counsellor must she share the client’s values, or pretend that she shares the client’s values. Indeed, the counsellor may, in boundaried circumstances, disclose to the client ways in which her values differ from those of the client. However, she is required to accept in full that the client’s values are the client’s values, that the client is entitled to hold those values for as long as the client wishes, that the client’s values are not deficient (however much they may appear to be deficient from the standpoint of the counsellor’s values), and that the client’s values may never change. If, during the course of the counselling, the client’s values change, then this may be indicative of the client changing as a person. If, during the course of the counselling, the client’s values change to become more like those of the counsellor, then the counsellor may need to consider whether she has been persuading the client in some way.
[This to be continued at a later date.]
This
document in all parts is copyright © Peter Hughes from the date of construction
given above. Please feel free to make use of them for solely personal purposes.
However, should you wish to use them for teaching, training, commercial or
other purposes, you are required to ask me first.