Case study 3-i

3
Person-Centered Therapy:
A Client With Postpartum
Depression
Laura Kelly

■ PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY

As a fledgling therapist in the late 1980s, amid significant changes to the payer system
in healthcare and a move away from long-term-ongoing psychoanalytical therapies to
shorter problem-focused approaches, I set out to “find my way.” Despite my educa-
tion at Rutgers University in the theoretical orientation of interpersonal psychoanalysis
through the works of Hildegard Peplau and Harry Stack Sullivan, I found myself more
aligned with the humanistic approach of Carl Rogers and his Person-centered therapy
(PCT).

It may have been my own anxiety specific to my therapeutic skills that initially drew
me toward a framework where the therapist would have a more supportive, nondirec-
tive approach rather than the directive, interpretive approach of psychoanalysis. My
supposition that PCT would allow me to relax and not do too much work was soon
dispelled. Creating Rogers’ core conditions of genuineness/congruence, unconditional
positive regard, and accurate empathic understanding necessitated an extremely high
level of presence and concentrated listening as well as an awareness and understanding
of myself and the client, moment-to-moment during the therapy sessions. It required
that I track the client’s narrative by carefully following the sequence of events and stay-
ing on topic without interrupting or changing directions in order to truly understand
the client’s phenomenological experience. It demanded fostering a deep client– therapist
connection that allowed for an attuned responsiveness based on sensing the client’s
experience. It necessitated the utilization of facilitative communication skills that
carefully matched the client’s experience. And, it required the delivery of a judicious
response at choice points that emerged during a session. This was not easy and required
a great deal of therapeutic skill as well as my own personal self-growth work.

In the years that followed, I spent countless hours reading the works of Carl Rogers
and those that followed in his footsteps. I watched numerous videos of his work and
attended many conferences, workshops, and training programs in the humanistic
approach. As I honed my skills, my naïve understanding of his theory matured and my
utilization of his techniques, along with other types of humanistic therapies, helped a
multitude of clients in relatively brief periods of time.

Copyright Springer Publishing Company. All Rights Reserved.
From: Case Study Approach to Psychotherapy for Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
DOI: 10.1891/9780826195043.0003

42 ■ CASE STUDY APPROACH TO PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR ADVANCED PRACTICE PSYCHIATRIC NURSES

As a PhD student in nursing during the late 1980s, and the only psychiatric advanced
practice nur