ABSTRACT
Rogers and his early colleagues and collaborators were, for the most part, well-educated, middle-class, white American men. It is widely held that the theories and practices they developed reflect who and how they were. That is to say that person-centred therapy is essentially the product of a mid-twentieth century, white, North American, male perspective. Perhaps (for example) it is true that a cultural emphasis on rugged individualism did contribute to the development of humanistic psychology and thus person-centred thought. However, if this was the sole influence, then the actualising tendency and other theoretical precepts are artefacts of a particular time, place and culture and their relevance to any other time, place and culture is at least questionable. This in turn would mean that the applicability of person-centred therapy is limited because it fails to take note of variations in culture. Needless to say, person-centred practitioners do not accept this criticism wholesale. For some, person-centred theory, because it is organismic, natural and universal (Point 11), is independent of culture and there is appreciation from outside the approach of the anti-intellectual, non-racist, non-sexist qualities inherent in person-centred therapy. However, for other person-centred practitioners, although this is true, culture is something to be consciously taken into account in both theory and practice.
