Client-centered therapy

Abstract Rank’s ideas transformed Carl Rogers into the founder of client-centered therapy, and an advocate for relationship therapy. Not long after meeting Rank, Rogers began to formulate his three core conditions for a relationship to be healing. Instead of following any “technique,” the therapist must be authentic (congruent), showing unconditional respect and empathy for clients. Railing against transference, Rogers attacked psychoanalysis, pointing to the absence of authenticity, respect, and empathy on the part of analysts as harmful. In turn, Freudians condemned Rogers for adopting Rank’s “anti-Oedipal” ideas and, thereby, denying “the unconscious.” But neither Rank nor Rogers ever excluded the possibility of unconscious factors affecting the perceptions of either party in the therapeutic relationship. The helper, according to both Rank and Rogers, accepts the client’s feelings as reflecting the constantly fluctuating conditions of the moment, whether or not the client’s perceptions agree with the helper’s view.