Unconditional Positive Regard......

Another interesting little box of information in my interpersonal communications book:

A psychotherapist, Carl Rogers, is the best-known advocate of paraphrasing as a helping tool. He focuses upon uses this tool as a professional helping others, however, he and his followers believe the same approach can work in all interpersonal relationships.

Rogers uses several terms to describe his approach, these labels are:

• non directive
• client-centered
• person-centered

The the term labels reflect his belief that the best way to help another person is to offer a supportive climate in which the people seeking help can find their own answers.

Rogers

believes advising, judging, analyzing and questioning are not the best ways to help others solve their problems. Instead, he and his followers are convinced people are basically good and that they can improve without receiving any guidance from others, after they accept and respect themselves.

One essential ingredient for Roger's person-centered helping technique is what he calls:  "unconditional positive regard."

Taking on the attitude of unconditional positive regard requires the helper to treat the speaker's ideas respectfully and non judgmentally. It also means accepting others for who they are even when you don't approve of their present ideas toward life.

When you treat a help-seeker with unconditional positive regard, it does not obligate you to agree with everything the help-seeker thinks, feels, or does, but it does obligate you to suspend judgment about the rightness or wrongness of the help-seeker's thoughts and actions.

This person-centered approach to helping places a heavy demand on the listener.  It demands an ability to reflect the speaker's thoughts and feelings perceptively and accurately and even more difficult is the challenge of listening and responding without passing judgment on the speaker's ideas or behavior.

Uncond

itional positive regard is especially hard when we are faced with the challenge of listening and responding to someone who beliefs, attitudes, and values differ profoundly from our own. The approach requires the helper to follow the scriptural injunction of loving the sinner while hating the sin.

I just find this information especially interesting. If you are more interested in this topic, one of the best models of this approach is illustrated in the movie "Dead Man Walking."

Actually, this is one of my assignments in this class. I will be watching the film "Dead Man Walking," and trying to figure out just who it is in the movie best demonstrating this approach and then writing a paper on it plus other listening concepts I see characters displaying.

Source:  Looking Out Looking In, 12th edition, Ronald B. Adler and Russell F. Proctor II