Psychology Words: Unconditional Positive Regard
July 28th, 2008[This is the last post for this month by guest blogger Dr. Bryan Maier (Biblical Seminary). He has been exploring questions stimulated by some of the classic therapeutic theories. In particular, Dr. Maier wishes that readers would be prompted to think how the Scriptures speak to concepts traditionally raised in theories courses. As in past posts, Dr. Maier raises a variety of questions for the reader to consider.]
I hope that my attempt to interact with Scripture and psychological theories has been thought provoking for you. If you want more of these type of discussions, I would encourage you to join us at our annual conference this September in Chicago (see this webpage for details). We will enjoy several keynote speakers and breakout sessions helping us to think through the role of hermeneutics in the building of a Christian Psychology. I will be presenting a paper on the Psalms of Lament.
For my final essay from psychological theories, I would like to look at the concept of unconditional positive regard from person centered therapy. The idea is that if we love (defined according to Rogers and our ethical standards) our clients well, they will in turn learn to love themselves which will embolden them to take healthy risks in their relationships and have less dysfunction. Upon hearing this, many Christian counselors either resonate immediately by attempting to utilize the power of love (especially the love of Christ), OR they reflexively label Rogers theories as narcissistic idolatry that distracts from truly loving God and loving others.
One of the key questions of course, is what does love mean, especially in the clinical setting. Rogers took an optimistic view of humans and assumed that every one of us has within us the desire to change in a more positive direction. The role of the therapist is find that desire and to help release its power. On the other hand, one of my colleagues often says that the task of counseling is convincing someone who wants to buy a car that what they really need is a horse. If this is love, it must be some kind of “tough love”. So we need to reflect on what love means.
Whatever love means, could it be as powerful as Rogers claims? If it is true that Jesus famous words “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 19:19, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:28-29) presuppose a pretty robust love of self (the passages don’t seem to make sense any other way), then it seems that there is a call to love others. But does this love make any difference in the lives of our clients? Can we love someone into changing? Can God? If so, what does this love look like? Is it the unconditional positive regard that Rogers speaks of? 1 John 4:19 claims that our love for others is based on God’s love for us, “We love because he first loved us”. Is our job as counselors to give our clients a taste of that love every time we meet? If so, how do we assess or measure the degree that we love? Is it solely a matter of content (we are telling them the right things) or is there an affective component? Can we love a client but not really like them, or vise versa?
August 15th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
As someone who has “recovered” from so-called mental illness, and for whom God’s actions and on-going spiritual growth has been key to my own journey of recovery and health, I am intrigued by your comments and questions about the role of love in the therapist’s role.
I helped create a client-run recovery support program and often reflected on the central role of love in the task. I would state it without using the word love, however, in pointing to the need to honor the journey of the client, accepting them as a unique and valuable person, and supporting their own efforts to build capacity for self-responsibility and progressively better choices and self-determination toward emotional health. Each of these can be suffused by the actions of the Divine and our attention to Christ’s presence and teachings.
A soteriology (the portion of systematic theology dealing with the attemtp to describe what we and God might mean by salvation) based upon the metaphor of healing could point to the centrality of healing our awareness and capacity for spiritual and emotional growth as the core of salvation. God heals our relationship with God, and with each other, and gives us divine counsel and “accompanyment” that empowers us to rely on God and not on particular (ly limited human) paradigms of meaning, but rather grants us the capacity to “surf” the extant paradigms to God’s glory and our continued healing.
If such a notion of salvation could be intergrated into a therapists worldview, the role would be indeed to love the client, but more specifically, to appreciate their struggle, to accompany them in the growth of thier efforts to grow capacity to “grow out of” their sickness, and to celebrate together the ways God shows up in the process. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness…” The challenge is perhaps more in making honest appraisal between what is wisdom in the therapists appropriation of the situation, and what may be his or her own bias of perception. In this, “Love (and and opena nd honest humility) covers a multitude of sins.”
Paz.
-Kevin Murphy
August 25th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Good comments Kevin. I really believe in honoring the journey of my clients even when that journey sometimes doesn’t end where I think it should. It does matter where you are going but if you don’t love your clients at least in the biblical sense, they will not listen to your attempts to direct them in the right way. Also if our clients are Christians, we can also trust that the Holy Spirit is up to something and we can honor that. Thanks for your comments.
August 26th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Just some thoughts on Dr. Maier’s essay and Mr. Murphy’s response:
Would it be more accurate and helpful to refer use a term like “realistic love” rather than “tough love”. It seems so to me. This would lose some of the negative and often inaccurate connotations surrounding “tough love” and perhaps more easily foster a reader’s openness to the concept?
It may also be worth noting that one of the current “in” techniques in counseling, especially chemical addictions counseling (one of my fields) is motivational interviewing, which has been described as client-centered but directive. Clearly an aspect of regard and respect for the client exists, but there remains a recognition that not all the client’s efforts are successful – after all, mandated or not that is probably why they are in a counseling session.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Alan,
I too appreciate a lot about motivational interviewing and think it is a great step forward in addictions counseling. There is a big difference between demanding that a client change and reaching out to validate the part of them that WANTS to change. The latter option is more motivational which is what we are after in the long run anyway.
Thanks
Bryan