The development of client-centered, or nondirective, therapy has largely been the work of Carl Rogers (1902-1987). His clinical experience as a child psychologist and his later work in training students in therapy led him to believe that people frequently come to have personal problems as a result of the _conditional_ love of their parents. To receive love and approval from their parents, children must satisfy certain _conditions of worth_ the parents lay down. If the children do not live up to the parents' demands, they are punished by the withdrawal of the parents' affection--a far more serious and emotionally scarring punishment than a physical spanking. Raised in this way, people later in life will tend to link their self-worth to internalized parental standards. Rogers observed that the more the love expressed by parents is conditional in this sense, the more it is likely that a person will experience emotional difficulties later on. As a result, Rogers gradually developed an approach to therapy that emphasizes "unconditional positive regard." Ideally, a client-centered therapist is able to express a sense of complete acceptance and respect toward the client. The therapist does not associate positive regard with implicit conditions of worth that the client must satisfy. In other words, client-centered therapy attempts gradually to reverse a habit that has come to undermine the client's sense of self-worth. It is a habit that we all, to differing degrees, develop as parents and society teach us to relinquish self-acceptance in favor of the conditional love or appreciation of others. Eventually, the habit becomes so ingrained that it can jeopardize our own feelings of self-esteem. Client-centered therapy encourages a client to grow in several ways: {125} 1. by feeling comfortable enough in the company of the therapist to express feelings freely and openly 2. by coming to recognize his own feelings of incongruence, of being divided against himself, often due to experiences that have encouraged a negative or insecure sense of self-worth 3. by perceiving that the therapist is an integrated, accepting person, able to convey acceptance and warmth toward the client 4. by reintegrating a sense of self, freeing himself from the distortions of self-worth brought about by love that has strings attached AN EXAMPLE Melissa Adams is twenty-eight years old, the district manager of a large pharmaceuticals marketing division in the Midwest. She is slender, immaculately dressed, and--as Dr. Feldman could see immediately--rigid and very uptight about herself.