Since starting my training back in 2001, I have been fortunate to have been inspired by so many people – including many of my clients. The incredible resilience and sheer determination toward self- actualization is a wonder in nature that lives in all of us. Against all the odds, so many clients will find a way through their conditioning. Working through the conditioning allows us to live a more authentic life. 

There is mounting evidence to suggest, through the research of positive psychologists, that living an authentic life is a key factor for happiness. It is extremely important for good mental health. For us to be authentic, it must be that our thoughts and actions are in harmony. When they are out of alignment we are of course in a state of incongruence. Many of us are incongruent to a lesser or greater degree but it is how we live with this incongruence that matters. Some of us find it very difficult indeed whilst others are totally fine it. There are many reasons for this. Even though clients seek therapy for a multitude of problems, they are not always aware that they are incongruent. They just feel emotional pain, or a sense of something is missing in their lives – an imbalance perhaps. They are not aware that it is their conditioning that is stopping them from living a happier more authentic life.

I remember a quote from Rumi, a great 13^th century mystic poet from Persia who once said, ‘Why do you stay in prison when the door is open?’ To me this encapsulates how our conditioning can hold us back from living an authentic life. We either just don’t know that our conditioning is stopping us, or if we are aware, we are just too fearful of change. Humanistic psychologists believe that we have the resources within to find the strength to walk through that door – the potential is always within us.

Through his great contribution in the field of humanistic psychology and psychotherapy, Carl Rogers developed a method to help clients work towards self-actualization, (to become more authentic). The PCA can be extremely effective process in this aim – but there were a couple of issues throughout my training and career that use to trouble me and still do. Firstly, that there is a huge emphasis and so much information on the ‘three core conditions’ within the PCA, compared to the actual process that goes on underneath the clients narrative. Secondly, the phrase which I have heard on many occasions – ‘trust in the process’. This phrase is often used when a client is ‘stuck’ or when there is ‘no rhyme nor reason’, for a client’s behaviour in a session for instance. This has never felt like a useful phrase to me. 

Positive psychologists are revisiting and reinforcing Rogers theory through modern research. Their work is essential so that Rogers work can continue and develop.  As therapists I feel we need to revisit the process that runs beneath the narrative. It can be likened to the ‘unspoken’ side of therapy. I suppose you can say the ‘mechanics’ that runs underneath it all. If authentic living is the key to happiness I believe as a therapist I can help my clients achieve this. But I need to know this part of the process in-depth. For me, the deeper I researched into the process the more fascinated I became.

It really started when I started to notice a pattern within my clients. Although clients are unique there was this communality. I found it intriguing. As I researched further into this communality, to my surprise, I struggled to find much information on the subject, namely, how the ‘conditioned self’ and the ‘true/authentic self’ interact with each other in the therapy room. These two sides are so important to the whole therapeutic process. The two sides are within every client. It was only when I started to really hear these two sides whilst working with clients, that I started to work more effectively. Knowing how important this was to my work, I decided to set about creating a simple model to represent this complex process. I wanted to create a model that could be a visual representation of this process. A model that would make the process a lot easier to understand. The model was published for the first time in the British Association of Counselling Practitioners magazine, ‘Therapy Today’, in April 2019.

Because of the interest this created I decided to run introductory workshops on the subject. I wanted to go deeper into, what I feel, is this ‘lost’ part of Carl Rogers work. Incongruence creates these two parts within the client. Yet, I do not recall being taught about the importance of the two sides within – there was so little information about it. Because of the heavy emphasis on the’ three ‘core conditions’, I often wonder, have we lost sight of this extremely important part of Rogers work? Rogers knew the importance of this, and indeed created his ‘2^nd necessary and sufficient condition’, around this. I feel it is time to bring this part of his work back and out of the shadows. Now I have in-depth knowledge of the process I do not have to fall back on the, ‘trust the process’ phrase. Many questions that I struggled with in the past can now be answered.

I feel very privileged to be able to deliver these workshops. It is something I feel passionate about and have designed the workshop to be interactive, interesting and informative. I hope the workshops inspire many more therapists to look deeper into this fascinating process so that they can bring it back into their therapy rooms and enrich their practice even further.