Five decades of psychotherapy outcome research now clearly identify the factors that contribute to successful client outcome. The factors of the client/therapist relationship and the clients internal and external resources (extratherapeutic variables) account for seventy-percent of success (Duncan, Hubble, & Miller, 1997). These are the variables that are the foundation of Person-Centered Therapy. There is a proposed treatment model based upon psychotherapy research that, unrealized by the authors, is substantially the person-centered model (Duncan and Moynihan, 1994).
I predominately
use the term person-centered therapy rather than client-centered therapy
in order to emphasize the remarkable resiliency and self-resources of persons
entering therapy. The term also suggests greater behavioral flexibility
for the therapist than is often mistakenly associated with the term client-centered
therapy. I maintain that the two labels are not different and that
both terms refer to the theory proposed by Carl Rogers. Periodically, the
terms are used interchangeably in this book. The term person-centered therapy
represents to me a re-birth of Rogers remarkable trust of each individuals
potency for self-determination and selt-authority.
Jerold D. Bozarth
1998