Carl Rogers & Jon Kabat-Zinn Essay

Total Length: 1630 words ( 5 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 3

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After all, Rogers believed that every individual has within himself "vast resources for self-understanding and for altering their self-concepts, basic attitudes and self-directed behavior" (Moon quoting Rogers). But these resources need to be tapped if a facilitator (like the client-centered therapist) can bring out conditions such as "congruence, empathic understanding, and unconditional positive regard" (Moon).

In order to properly provide therapy for the client, a therapist should be able to experience what that client is experiencing, Moon explains, paraphrasing Rogers. He quotes Rogers as saying that a therapist must "sense the hurt or pleasure of another as he senses it, and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them… [and to] lay aside your own values in order to enter another's world without prejudice" (Moon quoting Rogers). Moon sums up the Rogers approach to clients by saying that Rogers first views the conditions vis-a-vis the client and Rogers does not impose "assessments or techniques" but rather trusts the client's "ability and right to self-determination" while joining forces with the client to help him or her up out of the stagnation.
As for Kabat-Zinn, in an interview (Cochran, 2004) he insists he does not want people following him, but rather, he wants them "following themselves" -- and doing it "mindfully."

Works Cited

Cochran, Tracy. (2004). Mindful Writing: Jon Kabat-Zinn Asks Us to Come to Our Senses.

Publishers Weekly, 251(49), 23-26.

Elias, Marilyn. (2009). "Mindfulness" Meditation Being Used in Hospitals and Schools.

USA Today. Retrieved January 13, 2010, from http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-06-07-meditate_N.htm.

Kabat-Zinn, Jon. (1994). Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness in Everyday Life.

New York: Hyperion.

Knight, Tracy A. (2007). Showing Clients the Doors: Active Problem-Solving in Person-Centered Psychotherapy. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 17(1), 111-

Moon, Kathryn A. (2007). A Client-Centered Review of Rogers with Gloria. Journal of Counseling and Development, 85(3), 277-286.….....

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