Understand a Major Therapeutic Model of Counselling

1.1 Explain the historical development of one major therapeutic model, including all the people influential in its development.

The origins of the therapeutic process can be traced back to before the Age of Enlightenment, when the church and community took responsibility for the emotional and spiritual well-being of its members.

With the rise of the Industrial Revolution, as a belief in science and technology began to take a foothold, the power of the church declined. With the continued development of science and medicine a focus on the understanding and treatment of mental illness became more prevalent. The most significant pioneer of this new form of medicine was Sigmund Freud, who chose to listen to his patients and try to work out the cause of their malady from what they said.

As psychoanalysis continued to evolve, so too did the division of opinion about its effectiveness and the validity of many of the assumptions made by Freud and his peers. This resulted in the growth of a different view amongst such people as Albert Ellis, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers was the fourth of six children, brought up in ‘a very strict and uncompromising religious and ethical atmosphere’ coupled with a ‘worship of the virtue of hard work’ (Rogers, 1961:5). From age 12 the family home was on a farm and Rogers himself later attended The University of Wisconsin to study agriculture. During this time he had a change in outlook, which developed through his experiences with a Sunday morning discussion group and later his involvement in a World Student Christian Federation Conference in Peking. He eventually changed his field of study, leading him to doctoral studies in Clinical and Educational Psychology. He received his PhD in 1931, whilst working for the Rochester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Rogers was strongly influenced by humanistic psychology and drew from the work of Abraham Maslow, Otto Rank and Jesse Taft, particularly in his approach...