Self-exploration

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Self-exploration is the expression (verbalization) of one's own inner experience and the current experience as well as the feelings and evaluations of a person associated with it. In the client-centered psychotherapy founded by Carl Rogers (1902–1987) , self-exploration is viewed as the main activity of the client during therapy sessions. Clients with a high degree of self-exploration usually achieve greater therapeutic success. By expressing empathy , unconditional appreciation and congruence as well as verbalising emotional content, the psychotherapist supports and promotes self-exploration in the client.

Classification in the client-centered personality theory

Experience encompasses everything that happens in a person (“organism”) in a moment and what he can perceive from outside or inside. Earlier experience can be visualized and then belongs to the "experience". Experience becomes conscious through symbolization, predominantly through verbalization. Experience is only partially exactly symbolized and fully conscious; it can also be symbolized incompletely or distorted or excluded from the symbolization. Rogers speaks of self-concept when it comes specifically to the person's view of himself. A person's current experience is partially congruent with their self-concept and can then be fully symbolized and conscious; it is partly incongruent with it. The incongruent experience that does not match the self-concept is repulsed, i. H. not adequately symbolized and not consciously. Experience that is significantly incongruent with self-concept threatens the self . As a result, the person's ability to cope with life is impaired, which can lead to “mental maladjustment” and to illness.

The goal of client-centered psychotherapy is that the client can symbolize and consciously perceive his “organismic” experience as completely as possible. He changes his self-concept. He achieves this in and between the sessions by increasingly symbolizing his experience through self-exploration.

Exploration is the "term for in-depth questioning of the patient to explore his psychological experience and, if necessary, to record psychopathological abnormalities." Self-exploration thus means that the person explores himself, his experience and his assessments.

See also

literature

  • Jochen Eckert, Eva-Maria Biermann-Ratjen, Diether Höger (eds.): Conversational psychotherapy. Textbook for practice . Springer Medizin Verlag, Heidelberg 2006.
  • Carl Rogers: The client-centered conversation psychotherapy . Kindler, Munich 1972 (American 1951).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reinhard Tausch, Anne-Marie Tausch: Discussion Psychotherapy 9th Edition. Hogrefe, Göttingen 1990, p. 189 f. The authors use the term self-examination as a synonym for self-exploration.
  2. ^ Jochen Eckert, Eva-Maria Biermann-Ratjen & Diether Höger (eds.): Conversation Psychotherapy. Textbook for practice. Springer Medizin Verlag, Heidelberg 2006, p. 232 ff.
  3. ↑ Eckert u. a. 2006, p. 59
  4. ↑ Rogers 1972, p. 429 ff .; Eckert et al. a. 2006, pp. 59-71.
  5. ↑ Eckert u. a. 2006, p. 142.
  6. ^ Pschyrembel: Clinical Dictionary 258th edition. de Gruyter, Berlin 1998, p. 477. The client-centered psychotherapist does not evaluate. “Psychopathological abnormalities” is therefore not a concept of client-centered psychotherapy.