Carl Rogers (1902-1987), who founded the Humanistic camp of psychology, was the first to quantify the notion of the need for unconditional positive regard on the part of the therapeutic practitioner. 

Humanistic psychology aims to allow the client to develop naturally, effortlessly and beneficially towards self-fulfilment and, what Rogers termed, self-actualisation. The client thereby can attain his/her true uninhibited nature. In order to achieve this much prized state, Rogers advocated that the practitioner should – at all times – create a safe space for the client by never offering an opinion or rendering any form of judgement. Unconditional positive regard, consequently, means that the practitioner must adopt a non-judgemental stance when assisting his/her client.

What is a non-judgemental position? 

So what does the term “non-judgemental” actually mean? Is it so much psychological mumbo-jumbo? Or is it a valid much sought-after position?

If the practitioner can be relied on and trusted by the client, then the therapeutic encounter will be a smooth and a trouble-free transition into psychological health. The therapist hence must create an environment in which the client can truly be himself/herself, can express his/her honest opinions and can speak freely without any fear of offending the listener. Hence a neutral and non-judgemental ambience in the therapeutic context is a vital commodity. This type of environment is one which is most definitely not encountered in the outside world because most people will stand in judgement on others at the slightest provocation.  

The non-judgemental stance will thus mean that the practitioner will never:

– offer an uncalled for or a prejudiced opinion of the client 

– provide an interpretation or an adjudication on any of the client actions

– criticise the client’s reasoning or motivations

– make a statement which will condemn or engendered guilt in the client

– pass sentence on any of the client’s perceived wrongdoings

In many healing professions, the practitioner will test the client and then make an assessment with regard to the patient’s state of health. A healthcare practitioner, for instance, may test for a given disease and/or question the patient about his/her symptoms in order to make a diagnosis and then to be able to treat the client accordingly. 

This approach should never, on any account, be the practice of the psychotherapeutic practitioner because any actual or implied diagnosis will instantly annihilate the non-judgemental stance. The client will now have a label on his/her forehead which may, at best, be disconcerting and, at worst, utterly incorrect and hence possibly damaging. Similarly the practitioner should not voice his/her opinion of the client’s lack of progress (even if it may be apparent) or, worse still, pronounce that the client has now been fixed.

Some gentle encouragement will, of course, be acceptable in order to support the client. But playing God in any other respect must be out of the question when interacting with the client. 

Let’s take an example

A client believed that she had been a naughty and disobedient child. The client was asked by the practitioner where this belief originated. The client was adamant that she had deliberately disobeyed the dictates of her parents on several occasions. The client hence regarded herself as wilful, destructive and inconsiderate of her parents.

The practitioner then invited the client to investigate the nature of her misdeeds. The client sited many occasions when she had been disobedient but it transpired that her most heinous crime was playing truant from school on one occasion and then buying cigarettes with her pocket-money. 

In time, of course, the client began to realise that her feelings of guilt were exaggerated beyond reason but, however, the safe-space provided by the practitioner allowed her to make these realisations unhampered by judgement and criticism. The client finally appreciated that her so-called misdeeds were her own way of asserting her individuality and defining her self-development as a young woman rather than being an offshoot of her parents by adopting their regime. The client thus was able to form her own opinion of right and wrong without her beliefs being filtered through a misty telescope of the strictures of her parents. The client, by this means, was able to become her own person as an adult without the guilt-imprinting, debased self-esteem and outmoded convictions of a previous generation which held her back from childhood. 

Help is at hand

If you yourself have a tendency to self-blame or harbour a feeling of substandard inadequacy, then please visit the “Find a Practitioner” page on the JMHT website (www.jmhypnotraining.co.uk) in order to relieve your distress and to behold the world more realistically and contentedly. 

Jacquelyne Morison

Jacquelyne Morison Hypnotherapy Training (www.jmhypnotraining.co.uk)