Person-centred Approach

The Person-Centred Approach is a way of being that can be embodied in a range of roles – teaching, counselling & psychotherapy, support work, child and adult care work, health work, HR – and originates in the ideas of Carl Rogers, the American psychologist.

Along with colleagues, Rogers developed a way of psychotherapeutic working he called Client-Centred Therapy. This involved the therapist relating to the person in an empathic, accepting and authentic way. Rogers also brought these attitudes and this way of being into education in his radical text “Freedom to Learn”.

Rogers’ and his colleagues’ theory was that as human beings we instinctively tend towards embracing experiences that both maintain our existence and enhance and expand our development and potential. This process can be further supported and enhanced when the environment we are in fosters that process.

When it comes to the group work learning environment of the COSCA Certificate course, as well as delivering the course content, a main aim of the facilitator will be to help this developmental process happen, by promoting an accepting, authentic, enquiring, and collaborative atmosphere.

fern growing out of sea wall

Whilst the COSCA Counselling Skills Certificate course is robustly broad-based and generic in its content and structure, it is our intention and hope that you experience the core principles of the person-centred approach from the way we engage with you.

As a team of Counselling Skills trainers our teaching style is infused with the principles of person-centred values, attitudes and a way of being.

At the heart of the person-centred approach is the belief in the actualising tendency: each individual’s capacity to find their own way to direct their unique development. In the same way, our training courses are rooted in the capacity and ability of each student to develop to their full potential...to flourish.