In person-centered therapy (also known as client-centered therapy), the counseling process is set and determined by the client, not the therapist. Carl Rogers believed that individuals are rational, good, and responsible. Self-acceptance is a basic construct. Congruence occurs when who we would like to be and how we see ourselves are in accordance with one another. In order for the therapist to be effective, he/or she must possess empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard.

Goals of person-centered therapy:

1. Deal with here-and-now
2. Help clients "grow" to where they can better cope with present and future problems - person-centered therapists are not looking to solve client's problems; they want the client to move towards self-actualization.

The person-centered therapist is not seen as an authority or a person who knows best, and the client is not seen as a passive person who just follows direction. Therapy is based on the client's capacity for awareness and ability to make positive and constructive decisions. This approach assumes faith in the client's problem-solving abilities, using the "if-then" principle - if the client believes in the counselor's genuineness, empathic understanding, and unconditional positive regard, then the client will approach positive change and self-actualization.

Techniques of person-centered counseling:

1. Active listening
2. Reflect the feeling/paraphrasing/non-verbals
3. Congruence
4. Unconditional positive regard
5. Empathy

Rogerian counselors believe in "being themselves", with their inner-experiencing present during counseling. Understanding of the client's feelings comes through the counselor's inner-experiencing of his/or her own feelings (genuineness). In person-centered counseling, since present experience provides the means to personal growth, the counselor serves as a facilitator, helping to find meaning in the client's inner-experiencing. In this role the counselor, freely showing responsive warmth while avoiding evaluative judgments and probing questions or descriptions of the client, encourages a permissive atmosphere absent of pressure or coercion. Person-centered counseling often calls the counselor the "helper", and the client "the other".

An innate motivation toward self-actualization (enhancement of the organism) assumes that, with growth, a client learns to develop self-concept and self-regard, and to differentiate between positive and negative inner-experiencing. Affected by the reactions of others and by introjection of external conditions, self-regard encounters conflict when the needs and desires of the organism are at odds with interactions with significant others in the environment. Intervention is called for when negative organismic needs routinely eclipse self-regard needs. Person-centered counseling seeks to allow conflicted individuals to incorporate these negative organismic needs, once denied, into their self-concepts.