NONDIRECTIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY

also called Client-centred Psychotherapy, an approach to the treatment of mental disorders that aims primarily to foster the patient's general personality growth by helping him gain insight into his feelings and behaviour. The function of the therapist is to extend consistent, warm unconditional positive regard toward the client (avoiding the negative connotations of patient) and, by repeating and restating the client's own verbalized concerns, to enable the client to see himself more clearly and react more openly with the therapist and others. Pace, direction, and termination of therapy are controlled by the client; the therapist merely acts as a facilitator. The nondirective approach was originated by the American counseling psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1940s and influenced later individual and group psychotherapeutic methods. See psychotherapy.