A trainee Person Centred psychotherapist, shy and reserved. Finds speaking up in her Personal Development group at university difficult.
Feedback from her peers states she is quiet but when she does speak it is valuable. An intelligent warm and likeable person, who seems to have overcome a lot.
The student is in recovery from alcohol addiction and this contributes to her feeling of difference within the group.
The group wish they could have learnt more and feel she could have utilised the group more. They feel she possesses a great deal of empathy.
The student grew up in a one parent home after being taken away from a violent father at age 3 resulting in fear of rejection and abandonment.
Her mother believed children should be quiet and polite resulting in a fear of speaking up. The student was overweight as a child, and found it difficult to relate to other children, resulting in a belief that to be valuable she must be slim and attractive, and that there is something ‘weird’ about her.
She finds she would rather hold back on her opinions than risk causing conflict or being disliked. She finds it extremely difficult to be vulnerable herself, despite wishing others to open up and be vulnerable around her.
Considering, and with reference to Carl Rogers ‘Theory of Personality’
Critically examine the origins and effects of this students ‘conditions of worth’ and ‘organismic valuing process’
Reflect on how a person’s identity – in this case, white, heterosexual female- impacts upon others and on self and how it may affect the student / her clients in the role of ‘therapist’.
How could this student synthesise an understanding of herself that incorporates the ongoing perceptions of others around her?
How might her current struggles in this group affect her in her role as a person centred therapist in the future? How might her current struggles be overcome, and if they were what effects might this have for her in the future?