Abstract
Psychosocial counseling is a newer profession, which contrasts with clinical consultations in that it is not based on providing professional advice. It helps clients find their own path and self-determination, without teaching or offering therapy or treatment. The idea of supporting a person while letting them find their own way is a very contemporary one. In psychology, this form of support was developed by Carl R. Rogers (1902-1987). He called it Person-Centered Therapy, as it takes a person, in their subjectivity, seriously. It does not focus on illnesses or disorders, but rather on the human being and their capacity for continued self-development. Rudolf Steiner was also convinced that each person must (/may) find their own, individual path and that every person depends on relationships and mutual support.
Psychotherapeutic relationship-centered counseling is a new form of counseling that I have developed. It combines and further develops Person-Centered Therapy with and through an anthroposophic understanding of the human being. This article focuses on one important aspect of this form of counseling: positive regard that the counselor brings for their clients.
Introduction
During Rudolf Steiner's lifetime, modern psychology and psychotherapy were still in their infancy, and were oriented toward the natural sciences. In accordance with the materialistic natural scientific model, John B. Watson (1878-1958), the father of behaviorism, sought to explain human behavior without exploring human experience through introspection, as was customary in psychology at the time. In his view, psychology should be limited to external behavior—that is, to what can be observed. He referred to a person's internal psychological processes as a «black box.» Sigmund Freud also oriented himself on natural scientific methods. He, however, was interested in what was happening in the «black box»—i.e., in the human psyche. He developed psychoanalysis, which in turn influenced many new schools of thought in the study of the psyche and many modern psychotherapeutic approaches. A number of prominent psychologists began by working closely with Sigmund Freud, and then broke away from him to found their own approaches to psychology, including Wilhelm Reich, Alfred Adler, Carl Gustav Jung, Otto Rank, Carl Rogers, and many others (see Kriz, 2014).
Steiner spoke about behaviorism and psychoanalysis, but not about the later developments of humanistic psychology, because they were only developed after his death. The person-centered approach in counseling and psychotherapy was developed by Carl Rogers and is a part of humanistic psychology. (1) In it, the relationship between two people (subjects) is the key factor in counseling and therapy. The therapist shapes this relationship through three basic attitudes: empathy, positive regard, and authenticity. Thus, the relationship itself is the therapeutic element, which cannot be replaced by any specific technique.
Positive regard is an important factor in counseling
«The term ‹positive regard› generally encompasses attitudes such as warmth, love, respect, sympathy, and recognition.» (Rogers, 1959) (2)
Rogers and the person-centered approach are well-known in anthroposophic circles. R. Steiner also emphasized on numerous occasions that empathy, or warm interest and compassion, is an important and effective force in education and supportive education (see: Erdin, Perspectives 1/2024). Closely linked to this is the ability of an educator, therapist, or counselor to show ‹positive regard.› But what exactly does this mean?
Practitioners of the person-centered approach often make little distinction between positive regard and empathy. They frequently refer to «empathy rooted in positive regard.» In this article, I would like to demonstrate that unconditional positive regard is a key factor in counseling; while it is a prerequisite for empathy, it also drives the counseling process forward and facilitates the transformation of what has been perceived empathically. Positive regard is not directive, because all of the content that is being received with positive regard comes from the client, and the client also determines the direction the counseling takes. The transformation that can take place within the person being counseled is facilitated by the counselor through positive regard. I would like to illustrate this potential for transformation with an image: The beauty of a blooming sunflower ends when it fades. We see that the beautiful yellow petals have become brown and withered. We might feel sad about it. In any case, the glow that brought us joy when we saw the blooming sunflower is gone. At this point, many people will casually throw the flower in the trash. But the counselor can draw attention to the sunflower seeds that have formed in the center of the flower. This act of seeing something new that can emerge from decay—or, in the realm of the soul, from difficult experiences—is what I call positive regard.
Positive regard is the intentional drawing of attention to the positive
Positive regard is, first and foremost, a recognition of what is positive and worthy of recognition in other people. It is up to each individual to decide whether to focus their inner attention on the positive or the negative in a person or a situation. The same glass is half-empty or half-full, depending on whether one looks at the water or the empty space. In education, we can look at what a child has already learned, or at the skills they still lack. A Waldorf school progress report focuses on the growth and learning that has taken place. In the «basic requirements for anyone who wants to undergo occult development», Steiner describes six exercises. The fourth of these exercises is to practice directing our own attention in this same way: «It consists of always seeking out the good, the admirable, the beautiful, etc. that is already within us.» (Steiner, 1969)²
Positive regard is the recognition of potential
In education and in counseling there is another important kind of recognition we can give: The recognition of the child or adult's capacity to learn and acquire new skills. This is the recognition of the child/adult as a developing being. The diagnosis of ‹intellectual disability›, ‹autism›, etc., always carries the risk that the labeled person will not be perceived as capable of learning or acquiring new skills, and will also no longer believe in their own ability to do so. Destruction of self-confidence is a huge obstacle to acquiring new skills.
A person's identity is «partly shaped by the recognition or lack thereof—and often by the misperception—of others, so that a person or a group of people can suffer real harm, a real distortion, when their environment or society reflects back a limiting, demeaning, and disparaging image of them. Lack of recognition or misperception can cause suffering. It can be a form of oppression, and can confine the other person to a false, distorted existence.» (Taylor, 1993)
Positive regard means recognizing and taking seriously a person's individual feelings
People come to psychotherapeutic counseling when they have experienced disappointment or hurt. Children have struggled in school; adults have been abandoned by or are in conflict with their partner, have conflicts with their children, or have lost their job, etc. Psychoanalysis and systemic counseling take opposite approaches:
a) In psychoanalysis, conflicts, disorders and their causes are closely examined: What is the cause of this conflict? When did this difficulty begin? etc. Psychoanalysis is a process of investigation that focuses primarily on a person's past and seeks to explain the present situation through potential past causes:
b) In systemic counseling, it is emphasized that strong emotions inherently carry the risk of overwhelming the individual. This is referred to as a «problem trance.» (Schmidt, 2017) Schmidt notes that counselors and therapists are emotionally influenced by their clients:
«…which often leads to a shared sense of hopelessness, with therapists unwittingly contributing, through their interactions, to the perpetuation or even intensification of the patient's experience of the problem.» (Schmidt, 2022)
The systemic approach therefore focuses less on situations and weaknesses that have been experienced as problematic (as in the psychoanalytic approach) and more on resources and solutions that might be achievable in the future.
c) In psychotherapeutic relationship-centered counseling, we are present in the here and now. We take the clients' feelings and impressions seriously, and support their sharing these feelings and impressions through empathic listening and positive regard. This helps clients become conscious of their world of lived experiences. At the same time, they are able to create some distance between themselves and their impressions, feelings, ideas, and impulses to act. They learn to see them from the outside and to stop identifying with them. This gives them a certain freedom from their ideas, impulses to act, feelings, and desires. They have them, but are not determined by them.
Psychotherapeutic relationship-centered counseling takes clients' experiences seriously and simultaneously strengthens clients to grow beyond their present experiences. An important aspect of this support is acknowledging all the difficult experiences and subjective feelings and working through them together.
Listen to victims and then verify
As an ideal, many people would agree that this approach—listening to others with empathy and respect—is the right one. In reality, however, things are different: People who lack external power are rarely believed. The extent of the violence they have experienced is often not taken seriously.
In cases of sexual and sadistic violence, it is common for people around the victim to look the other way and refuse to believe the injustice the victim has suffered.
In this context, positive regard means letting go of the fascination with power, standing up for those in weaker positions, and taking the victims' accounts seriously.
To illustrate this, I'll share a brief example involving a close acquaintance of mine, whom I'll call Rolf (3). He worked at a residential facility for adults with significant support needs—in this case, adults with intellectual disabilities. One morning, caregivers noticed that a woman we'll call Beatrice (4) was injured. She had clearly been hit by someone. Beatrice shared a room with another woman, and the caregiving team all agreed that the two must have had a fight during the night. Beatrice's mother disputed this, but the facility did not investigate further. The mother convinced her daughter to open her curtains and leave them open after the caregivers had left for the night. The bedroom was on the ground floor, and the mother was able to watch unnoticed from outside. She saw the janitor raping Beatrice at night, and was able to record it on camera.
I personally know of numerous cases where people in vulnerable positions were initially not believed, or in which indications of violence suffered were not taken seriously enough. Zimbardo (2009) and other sociologists and psychologists have examined the intertwining of power, capital, and identification with aggressors/perpetrators and were able to convincingly demonstrate this connection. Unconditional positive regard in a therapeutic or educational context therefore always means taking the side of people who lack external power or find themselves in a weaker position.
Positive regard means seeing and acknowledging the inner strength of the person seeking help
Showing positive regard toward the person seeking help means not disregarding their agency and self-determination, even when their ability to act is impeded.
Active listening and empathically putting oneself in the shoes of another person who is currently, for example, sad or desperate, always carries the risk that the counselor will be affected by the other person's suffering and can then no longer be perceived as supportive. Counselors avoid this risk in various ways:
Downplaying, denial, or assuming too much responsibility
As noted above, looking the other way is one form of denial. But trying to comfort someone can also be a form of denial.
In a counseling session I was observing as supervisor, the client, whom I'll call Christine (5), described her frustration at being prevented from properly performing a task she was supposed to carry out at work. She is a job coach, and her role is to support a young person who lacks motivation, so that he is able to keep his job. Without her help, he would be unemployed. He is one of the young people who struggle in the primary labor market, but cannot find employment in the secondary labor market because they do not have a diagnosis. His employer wants to fire this young man, and told Christine «I'm not a charity.» This triggered negative feelings and anger in Christine. She's able to handle it well, because she's been through this before and has developed a strategy that has already proven effective in similar situations. But she is angry that she has to resort to these strategies. The employer should be glad of and grateful for her support. Through the counselor's active and empathetic listening, Christine's anger deepened into sadness and the feeling of «being a nuisance.» The counselor responded, «You are a worthy human being.» A bit later, Christine said that she was sad because she felt she wasn't able to be as helpful as she wanted to be. The counselor told her that just being there and being supportive was already a lot. Although the counselor's statements showed positive regard toward Christine as a person and could be perceived as supportive, they also downplay Christine's feeling of «being a nuisance.» She could have said, «Yes, the employer probably feels you are a nuisance, because you remind him that he is responsible for supporting his employees, and he would probably rather have employees who don't need any support.» This statement would have acknowledged her feeling of being a nuisance and implied that Christine has the strength to cope with this uncomfortable feeling.
It can be difficult to see the strength in a desperate person. But every person has strength. For example, if a person comes to counseling and says, «I was raped», the counselor—instead of saying, «Oh, how awful»—can say, «I'm glad that you showed up and have found the strength to talk about it.» People who have experienced difficult and terrible things deserve admiration, because they have survived the difficult situation. Christine deserves admiration, because she is fighting so that the young man can keep his job, despite being treated as a nuisance.
Admiring and acknowledging the endurance of people who have survived something awful also takes the burden off of the counselor. They do not have to—and also shouldn't—take on full responsibility for the other person's life. They should recognize and support the clients' self-determination. Otherwise, they would be making the clients once again into victims of power.
Of course, we are all responsible for the society we live in. To prevent one person with power from being simply replaced by another, we must let go of our fascination with power and our tendency to ally ourselves with powerful people. Herbert Marcuse pointed out that any revolution that overthrows a ruler by establishing a new authority figure is a «revolution betrayed.» (Marcuse, 1966)
Conclusion
Positive regard is a complex skill set in the counseling process. It requires counselors to be able to direct their attention and to see a person's resources and the positive in a person, even in a difficult situation. Positive regard also means discovering the as-yet-undeveloped potential in the other person. It also means acknowledging and taking all of a client's experiences and subjective feelings seriously, even when the feelings are difficult to endure and we would rather avoid them. And positive regard also means trusting the client's strength to survive and overcome difficulties, and to find their own path. Then we see people not as victims, but as survivors.
Translation from German: Tascha Babitch
Notes:
(1) Carl Rogers, Virginia Satir, and Abraham Maslow founded the American Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP) in the late 1950s. In 1962, Charlotte Bühler, Abraham Maslow, and Carl R. Rogers founded the Society for Humanistic Psychology.
(2) This quote was translated from the German edition by Tascha Babitch.
(3) Pseudonym
(4) Pseudonym
(5) Pseudonym
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