Person-Centred Counselling Online

Person-centred counselling is a talking therapy developed by Carl Rogers in which you lead and the counsellor listens closely, trying to understand your experience as you live it. I offer it online by secure video from the UK, as a trainee counsellor and BACP student member working under supervision. Sessions last 50 minutes, in English, for £45.

What is person-centred counselling?

Person-centred counselling grew out of the work of the American psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s. You may also see it called client-centred therapy or Rogerian therapy. It belongs to the humanistic family of therapies, which share a belief that people tend to grow towards health when the conditions around them allow it.

The central idea is easy to say and harder to practise. You are the expert on your own life. I don't arrive with a plan for you or a theory about what's wrong with you. I try to offer a relationship in which you can hear yourself more clearly and make choices that feel more like your own.

That's why this kind of counselling is called non-directive. The direction comes from what matters most to you that week, which might be very different from what you expected to talk about when you logged on.

I've written a longer, gentler introduction for first-time clients in What is person-centred therapy?, and there's a short definition of person-centred therapy in the glossary.

What are the core conditions of person-centred counselling?

In 1957 Rogers published a paper setting out what he called the "necessary and sufficient conditions" for change in therapy. Three of them describe the counsellor's attitude, and they're usually known as the core conditions.

• Empathy. I try to understand what something is like for you, from the inside, and to check that I've understood it rather than assume.
• Unconditional positive regard. You don't have to earn my respect. You can bring the parts of yourself you feel ashamed of or confused by.
• Congruence. I aim to be genuine with you, a real person in the room, within the boundaries of a professional relationship.

"Sufficient" was a bold word, and researchers have argued about it ever since. What has held up well is the importance of the relationship itself. In 2018 an American Psychological Association task force concluded that the therapy relationship makes "substantial and consistent contributions" to outcome, whatever the type of treatment (Norcross and Lambert, 2018).

What happens in a person-centred counselling session?

Imagine you log on at 7pm after a long day. You might start with something specific: an argument with your mother, a decision you keep putting off, a tightness in your chest that turns up every Sunday evening. Or you might start with "I don't really know why I'm here." Both are fine places to begin.

Mostly I listen. I reflect back what I hear, sometimes ask what something feels like, and notice when your words and your feelings seem to point in different directions. I won't set exercises or tell you what to decide. If you go quiet, I won't rush to fill the silence.

For some people this is a relief. For others it feels odd at first, especially if you're used to being told what to do. It's okay to say so. That can become part of what we talk about.

Sessions usually happen weekly at the same time, which gives the work a steady rhythm. How many sessions you have is something we decide together and review as we go.

The first session is an ordinary 50-minute session. Part of it is a chance to talk about what you're hoping for and whether this way of working suits you. If you'd like to know more beforehand, I've written about what to expect in your first counselling session.

Person-centred counselling vs CBT: what's the difference?

CBT, cognitive behavioural therapy, is the therapy most people in the UK have heard of. It's useful to see the two side by side.

	Person-centred counselling	CBT
Who sets the agenda	You, session by session	Usually agreed goals and a plan
Structure	Open conversation	Structured sessions, often with worksheets
Between sessions	Nothing set	Usually practice or homework
Main tool	The relationship and being understood	Changing patterns of thinking and behaviour

NICE, which writes clinical guidance for the NHS in England, describes the counselling it recommends for depression as offering "empathic listening, facilitated emotional exploration and encouragement", without specific advice to change behaviour. That's a fair summary of the person-centred style.

Neither approach is better for everyone. Some people want tools and a plan, and CBT gives them that. Others have tried a structured approach and felt something was missing: they wanted to be understood before being helped. If you're unsure, it's reasonable to try one and notice how it sits with you.

What does the research say? An honest summary

I'd rather tell you what the evidence shows than oversell it.

• Humanistic therapies in general. A review of 91 studies published between 2009 and 2018 found that clients in humanistic-experiential therapies showed large improvements on average, and that these therapies performed roughly as well as other therapies overall. Where they were compared directly with CBT, CBT had a small advantage. The authors point out that most of those comparisons were run by CBT researchers, often using weaker versions of humanistic therapy, and that the findings for depression and anxiety were more mixed (Elliott and colleagues, 2021).
• A large NHS trial. The PRaCTICED trial randomised 510 adults with moderate or severe depression in Sheffield's NHS talking therapies service to either Counselling for Depression, a person-centred experiential therapy, or CBT. At six months, counselling was not worse than CBT. At twelve months, CBT did better (Barkham and colleagues, 2021).
• NICE guidance. NICE's 2022 depression guideline lists counselling as an option for both less severe and more severe depression, placed below several other options in the committee's order of preference. The counselling NICE has in mind follows a specific protocol developed for depression.

If you're wondering about video sessions specifically, is online counselling effective? looks at that research.

So I won't claim that person-centred counselling is proven to cure anything. I also want to be clear about what I offer: general person-centred counselling as a trainee, not that NHS protocol and not a treatment for any diagnosis.

Person-centred counselling for anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common things people bring to counselling. A person-centred approach doesn't treat it as a fault to be removed. It's curious about what the anxiety is about, when it shows up, and what it might be trying to protect.

You might notice, for example, that the worry spikes before every family phone call, or whenever you're about to disappoint someone. Talking that through slowly, with someone who isn't going to judge you, can loosen its grip. My page on anxiety goes into this further, and I've gathered free, reputable self-help resources for anxiety. If you'd like a rough sense of how much worry is affecting you, the GAD-7 anxiety questionnaire is a short screening tool, not a diagnosis.

There's an honest caveat here too. For generalised anxiety disorder, NICE recommends CBT or applied relaxation as the main psychological treatments, and counselling isn't on that list. If your anxiety is severe, diagnosed, or includes frequent panic attacks, please talk to your GP about those options. Some people use both.

Person-centred counselling for women

My work is focused on women, especially women living abroad and women from close, family-centred cultures. Men aren't turned away.

Rogers described "conditions of worth": the sense, learned early, that you're only acceptable when you're good, helpful, successful or quiet. Many women recognise this in themselves. You might be the dependable daughter, the one who copes, the partner who keeps everything running, and still feel unsure what you actually want. That pattern often shows up as people-pleasing.

Person-centred counselling suits that kind of question well, because it doesn't replace your family's expectations with a new set of expectations from me. You can read more on my page about online counselling for women.

Is person-centred counselling right for you?

It may suit you if you want space to think out loud, to feel heard before you're advised, or to explore something that doesn't have a neat label. It may suit you less if you mainly want direct advice, structured techniques or a fixed number of sessions with a clear endpoint.

I don't work with active suicidal crisis, psychosis, eating disorders, specialist trauma treatment, addiction, couples or children. If any of these apply, I'll help you look for the right service. If you're in danger now, call 999 in the UK or 112 in the EU. In the UK, Samaritans answer on 116 123, day and night. The UK helplines page lists more crisis and specialist lines, each with its source.

A person-centred therapist in the UK, working online

I'm Michelle Fernando, a trainee person-centred counsellor and a BACP student member, and I work under regular clinical supervision. I'm completing an MSc in Counselling and Psychotherapy at Keele University and currently counsel on placement at Axis Counselling in Shrewsbury. I trained in Sri Lanka and the UK.

• Format: secure video, 50 minutes. In person in Shrewsbury by arrangement.
• Language: English.
• Times: evening sessions are available, UK time.
• Fee: £45 per session, charged in pounds. I keep a few lower-cost places for students, trainees and people on a low income, and ask for 48 hours' notice to cancel.
• Where it sits: counselling delivered online from the UK. If you live in another country, it isn't part of the healthcare system there.

When you're ready, you can book a session. If you'd like to ask something first, email hello@michellefernando.com and I'll reply within 48 hours.