Blog entry #2 date this entry October 12, 2026

"I just want you to see things the way I do!"

Recently, I was asked to speak to a diverse audience about my work as a psychotherapist. As I thought over the humanistic, client-centered approach and the various modalities I have been trained in and use in my sessions with clients, my thoughts kept returning to one of my very first clients. He was a seven-year-old first grader in public elementary school.

Sporting a buzz cut, his skinny legs were covered in the everyday scrapes and bruises any normal, energetic first grader acquires running and playing with classmates on the playground. This child, however, experienced periods of extreme emotional dysregulation that interfered with his schoolwork and disrupted his family life. He was scared; his parents were deeply worried; and his teachers were concerned. My job was to treat him with play therapy, because play is the language of children. One day, after playing endless rounds of Connect Four and Uno (which my young client usually won,) he looked at me in frustration and said, "I just want you to see things the way I do!"

In that single declaration, he summarized what the psychotherapist Carl Rogers had spent years developing, treating, and testing - a humanistic, client-centered approach to psychotherapeutic treatment. Using this approach, the therapist provides a safe space while offering non-judgmental and unconditional positive regard, skilled interventions, and insightful reflections to see and support the client's own inner strengths.

Therapy becomes a true partnership of seeing and being seen. In the therapy space, adolescent or adult clients begin to "see" or experience the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are preventing them from living their fullest life. They are seeing themselves through the lens of their family attachment style; discovering how past trauma has affected their present lives; and how mental and emotional dysregulation or neurodivergence can be treated and reframed to enable them to live more freely. In collaboration with their therapist, clients set goals for themselves and begin to envision and prepare for a hopeful and more fulfilling future.

My young client's story has a happy ending. He received the care and support from an integrated team of health care providers, along with special accommodations from his teachers, and the support and love of his family. He completed first grade with flying colors and moved forward with new skills and support to enthusiastically engage in the challenges and rewards of second grade.