Person-centred therapy has been from the outset and remains a radical challenge to the prevailing medical model and the notion of therapist as `expert'

Person-centred therapy was originally developed in the 1940s by Carl Rogers and his colleagues. From the outset, Rogers' intention was to provide a radical alternative to the prevailing psychodynamic and behavioural approaches to psychotherapy and also to psychiatry and the medical model in which all these can be seen as rooted. This was initially called `non-directive therapy' and by 1951 his preferred term was `client-centred therapy'. In the 1960s when he began to apply the principles derived from his approach to therapy to other realms of human relationship, the term `person-centred approach' gained currency. This in turn led to the term `person-centred counselling/ therapy' which is currently the preferred term in the UK but which may also be taken to embrace a `family' of related approaches based on client-centred theory (Point 3).