Rory Lees-Oakes: Here’s the truth about unconditional positive regard . It does not mean accepting everything your client says or does, and it’s the one condition almost every counsellor thinks they’ve already got. Get it wrong, and you’ll burn out trying to be a saint. Get it right, and it becomes the most powerful thing you offer.

So in the next few minutes, I’ll show you three things. What unconditional positive regard really means, why it’s the hardest of Rogers’ conditions to hold, and three things you can start doing today to actually build it.

And everything we cover today, I’ve pulled into a free handout for you. Three tips on unconditional positive regard.

It’s a quick, practical one-pager you can keep by you as you practice. Just scan the QR code on screen or grab the link in the description.

Right, let’s start with what this actually is. Unconditional positive regard was one of Carl Rogers’ necessary and sufficient conditions for therapeutic change, and the definition is deceptively simple.

It’s a prizing of the person in front of you, holding no judgment towards them, accepting them fully just as they are. Rogers described it beautifully as, “A caring which is not possessive, which demands no personal gratification. It involves an acceptance of and a caring for the client as a separate person.”

For that regard to be truly unconditional, we have to accept all of the client’s feelings and experiences and resist quietly ranking them as good or bad, valid or invalid. So why does this matter so much? Because Rogers believes self-acceptance is the ingredient that lets a person change. He put it as a paradox.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I change. When a client sits in a space with no threat of judgment, something happens. They start to say the things they’ve kept hidden, the parts wrapped in shame, [00:02:00] and slowly they take in that accepting attitude and begin to offer it to themselves.

That’s where growth lives . Here’s the part people don’t expect. If we want to be non-judgmental towards a client, we have to start with ourselves, because judgment starts within and gets projected outward. Think about what a label does. The moment someone becomes a banker, an addict, one of them, our frustration lands on the label, not the human underneath it.

Unconditional positive regard begins by turning that lens around and asking, “Who am I? What’s my own self-concept made of?” And let me be honest with you, because I think this matters. I’ve been a therapist, a trainer, and a supervisor for many years, and I still hold judgments. I do. Cut me off at a junction or take my parking space, you’ll see the judgmental side of me arrive very quickly.

This isn’t about becoming superhuman, some saintly figure who’s transcended all judgment. It’s about knowing your judgments well enough to set them aside outside the professional relationship you hold with your client. Because when you look at the client in front of you, whatever their job, whatever they’ve done, whatever language they speak, they are a fellow human being, and each of us is a product of the road we’ve walked.

That road shapes how we act, the views we hold, sometimes strong views. But it’s the road, not a badness inside the person. Think of someone who’s done something genuinely terrible. It’s tempting to picture a monster, a devil with a tail, but behaviour is one part of a person, never the whole of them. Good and evil are the absolutes we reach for when we can’t yet explain a behaviour.

Rogers reminds us that behaviour makes sense from the client’s own frame of reference. There’s always a road that led there. Now, an important clarification, because this [00:04:00] trips people up. Unconditional positive regard does not mean we accept every value or view a client holds. It doesn’t mean we agree. What we accept is their right to hold it, and the fact that they think and feel this way because of the road they’ve walked, not because of a fault inside them.

We accept the experience and the person, not necessarily the behaviour or its consequences. That distinction is everything.

This is exactly what the free handout unpacks. Tip one is simply this: Don’t only accept the parts you like. Try to accept all of the client, even where their world looks nothing like yours.

You’ll find all three tips in Three Tips on Unconditional Positive Regard. Scan the QR code on screen or use the link in the description.

So if judgement is this natural, why is it so woven into us? For that, we need one more piece of theory. We live in a conditional world. Your status can be judged by your birthright, your postcode, the car you drive, the label on your clothes, how much you earn.

You may be treated as worth more if you tick certain boxes. Rogers called these conditions of worth. Think of a child at school. Do well in the test. “Well done. Who’s clever?” Do less well. “You need to pull your socks up.” Praise, made conditional. We grow up absorbing those conditions, and when our self-concept, the person we’ve been told we ought to be starts to clash with our actual experience, that’s where psychological disturbance takes root.

Here’s the hard truth: There’s no book you can read and simply arrive. This is inner work. It’s about noticing your own conditions of worth and gently stripping them away, seeing who you really are and where your prejudices come from. One exercise I love is a short self-inventory. Questions like, one thing I like about myself is…

What I dislike in others is… I really give myself a hard time when… Sit with those honestly, and you’ll learn a great deal about the judgments you carry, and notice the pattern. Self-forgiveness comes first. If you can look back at your own mistakes and say, “I’m only human, I did that because of where I was,” it becomes so much easier to extend that to someone else.

We may be the only animal that punishes itself for the same act again and again for years. Learning to stop is part of forming a non-judgmental attitude. The philosopher Martin Buber called this the I and thou relationship. Not I and it, not me and a label, me and you. One human genuinely meeting another.

So how do we actually do this in the room? Four things. One, self-acceptance. If you can’t accept a feeling in yourself, you’ll struggle to accept it in your client. Two, step into the client’s frame of reference. View their behaviour from where they stand, not from your chair. Three, know your prejudices and take them openly to supervision, because the biases we can’t see are the ones that leak out.

And four, stay open. Arrive at every session without assumptions, and catch yourself when you start predicting. I want to be balanced because unconditional positive regard isn’t without its critics. Some argue it can sit in tension with congruency. So, uh, if I’m laying every judgment aside, am I being fully authentic?

Others working in more challenge-based or solution-focused ways question its place at all. And there is evidence here. Studies show a small to moderate link between a therapist’s positive regard and how well therapy goes. But measuring regard that’s truly unconditional remains genuinely difficult. Even Rogers acknowledged how challenging these conditions can be in practice, and many therapists report struggling with certain clients.

And so if you struggle, you’re in good company. Take it to supervision. So unconditional positive regard, it’s prizing the person. It’s accepting their right to their own experience without needing to agree, and it starts always with the regard we’re willing to offer ourselves. It may be the hardest condition to hold.

It’s also, I think, the most human. If you take one thing away today, let it be this handout. Three tips on unconditional positive regard, free, practical, and yours. Scan the QR code on screen or tap the link in the description.

And if you really enjoyed this video, take a look at our playlist, Person-Centred Therapy: Everything You Need to Know.

There’s much more there to explore. I’ll see you in the next one.

Rory Lees-Oakes: Here’s the truth about unconditional positive regard . It does not mean accepting everything your client says or does, and it’s the one condition almost every counsellor thinks they’ve already got. Get it wrong, and you’ll burn out trying to be a saint. Get it right, and it becomes the most powerful thing you offer.

So in the next few minutes, I’ll show you three things. What unconditional positive regard really means, why it’s the hardest of Rogers’ conditions to hold, and three things you can start doing today to actually build it.

And everything we cover today, I’ve pulled into a free handout for you. Three tips on unconditional positive regard.

It’s a quick, practical one-pager you can keep by you as you practice. Just scan the QR code on screen or grab the link in the description.

Right, let’s start with what this actually is. Unconditional positive regard was one of Carl Rogers’ necessary and sufficient conditions for therapeutic change, and the definition is deceptively simple.

It’s a prizing of the person in front of you, holding no judgment towards them, accepting them fully just as they are. Rogers described it beautifully as, “A caring which is not possessive, which demands no personal gratification. It involves an acceptance of and a caring for the client as a separate person.”

For that regard to be truly unconditional, we have to accept all of the client’s feelings and experiences and resist quietly ranking them as good or bad, valid or invalid. So why does this matter so much? Because Rogers believes self-acceptance is the ingredient that lets a person change. He put it as a paradox.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I change. When a client sits in a space with no threat of judgment, something happens. They start to say the things they’ve kept hidden, the parts wrapped in shame, [00:02:00] and slowly they take in that accepting attitude and begin to offer it to themselves.

That’s where growth lives . Here’s the part people don’t expect. If we want to be non-judgmental towards a client, we have to start with ourselves, because judgment starts within and gets projected outward. Think about what a label does. The moment someone becomes a banker, an addict, one of them, our frustration lands on the label, not the human underneath it.

Unconditional positive regard begins by turning that lens around and asking, “Who am I? What’s my own self-concept made of?” And let me be honest with you, because I think this matters. I’ve been a therapist, a trainer, and a supervisor for many years, and I still hold judgments. I do. Cut me off at a junction or take my parking space, you’ll see the judgmental side of me arrive very quickly.

This isn’t about becoming superhuman, some saintly figure who’s transcended all judgment. It’s about knowing your judgments well enough to set them aside outside the professional relationship you hold with your client. Because when you look at the client in front of you, whatever their job, whatever they’ve done, whatever language they speak, they are a fellow human being, and each of us is a product of the road we’ve walked.

That road shapes how we act, the views we hold, sometimes strong views. But it’s the road, not a badness inside the person. Think of someone who’s done something genuinely terrible. It’s tempting to picture a monster, a devil with a tail, but behavior is one part of a person, never the whole of them. Good and evil are the absolutes we reach for when we can’t yet explain a behaviour.

Rogers reminds us that behaviour makes sense from the client’s own frame of reference. There’s always a road that led there. Now, an important clarification, because this [00:04:00] trips people up. Unconditional positive regard does not mean we accept every value or view a client holds. It doesn’t mean we agree. What we accept is their right to hold it, and the fact that they think and feel this way because of the road they’ve walked, not because of a fault inside them.

We accept the experience and the person, not necessarily the behaviour or its consequences. That distinction is everything.

This is exactly what the free handout unpacks. Tip one is simply this: Don’t only accept the parts you like. Try to accept all of the client, even where their world looks nothing like yours.

You’ll find all three tips in Three Tips on Unconditional Positive Regard. Scan the QR code on screen or use the link in the description.

So if judgement is this natural, why is it so woven into us? For that, we need one more piece of theory. We live in a conditional world. Your status can be judged by your birthright, your postcode, the car you drive, the label on your clothes, how much you earn.

You may be treated as worth more if you tick certain boxes. Rogers called these conditions of worth. Think of a child at school. Do well in the test. “Well done. Who’s clever?” Do less well. “You need to pull your socks up.” Praise, made conditional. We grow up absorbing those conditions, and when our self-concept, the person we’ve been told we ought to be starts to clash with our actual experience, that’s where psychological disturbance takes root.

Here’s the hard truth: There’s no book you can read and simply arrive. This is inner work. It’s about noticing your own conditions of worth and gently stripping them away, seeing who you really are and where your prejudices come from. One exercise I love is a short self-inventory. Questions like, one thing I like about myself is…

What I dislike in others is… I really give myself a hard time when… Sit with those honestly, and you’ll learn a great deal about the judgments you carry, and notice the pattern. Self-forgiveness comes first. If you can look back at your own mistakes and say, “I’m only human, I did that because of where I was,” it becomes so much easier to extend that to someone else.

We may be the only animal that punishes itself for the same act again and again for years. Learning to stop is part of forming a non-judgmental attitude. The philosopher Martin Buber called this the I and thou relationship. Not I and it, not me and a label, me and you. One human genuinely meeting another.

So how do we actually do this in the room? Four things. One, self-acceptance. If you can’t accept a feeling in yourself, you’ll struggle to accept it in your client. Two, step into the client’s frame of reference. View their behaviour from where they stand, not from your chair. Three, know your prejudices and take them openly to supervision, because the biases we can’t see are the ones that leak out.

And four, stay open. Arrive at every session without assumptions, and catch yourself when you start predicting. I want to be balanced because unconditional positive regard isn’t without its critics. Some argue it can sit in tension with congruency. So, uh, if I’m laying every judgment aside, am I being fully authentic?

Others working in more challenge-based or solution-focused ways question its place at all. And there is evidence here. Studies show a small to moderate link between a therapist’s positive regard and how well therapy goes. But measuring regard that’s truly unconditional remains genuinely difficult. Even Rogers acknowledged how challenging these conditions can be in practice, and many therapists report struggling with certain clients.

And so if you struggle, you’re in good company. Take it to supervision. So unconditional positive regard, it’s prizing the person. It’s accepting their right to their own experience without needing to agree, and it starts always with the regard we’re willing to offer ourselves. It may be the hardest condition to hold.

It’s also, I think, the most human. If you take one thing away today, let it be this handout. Three tips on unconditional positive regard, free, practical, and yours. Scan the QR code on screen or tap the link in the description.

And if you really enjoyed this video, take a look at our playlist, Person-Centred Therapy: Everything You Need to Know.

There’s much more there to explore. I’ll see you in the next one.

It can be argued that developing a way of being which is unconditionally accepting of the client may also be inauthentic.

We all make judgments in our lives and hold internal biases; does laying those aside put the therapist in a position of incongruence?

Modalities which favour challenge, and solution-focused techniques to promote change are less likely to see value in unconditional positive regard.

Techniques such as challenging unhelpful behaviours and highlighting cognitive distortions appear to be in conflict with Rogers’s ideas around accepting the client just as they are.

Like a lot of humanistic theory, which is difficult to research and measure in an empirical way, unconditional positive regard comes under criticism for the lack of conclusive evidence for its efficacy.

Expressing difficult thoughts and feelings … in an environment free from the threat of judgement and rejection can help the client to internalise the therapist’s non-judgemental attitude and to promote self-acceptance and self-love – making growth and change possible.

In order to fully accept the other, it is important that we work towards developing compassion towards ourselves.

If a client brings a feeling or element of their personality which we are unable to accept in ourselves, we are much less likely to be able to offer UPR in the relationship.

Personal development, personal therapy and self-care are important for nurturing our feelings and attitudes towards ourselves.

Offering unconditional positive regard requires us to put our judgments aside and be alongside the client – stepping into their frame of reference.

Behaviours or attitudes which the therapist might ordinarily feel compelled to judge must be viewed from the perspective of the client, in the context of their experiences, and not from the therapist’s frame of reference.

It is important to understand and acknowledge our personal prejudices and unconscious biases, so that we are aware of how they might impact on our ability to be present with clients.

If a judgment lies in our unconscious, we may not spot its presence in our interactions with our clients and may unknowingly be responding from a place of judgment. Open and non-defensive work in supervision is vitally important.

Enter into every therapeutic encounter with an openness and willingness to be with the client in the moment.

Avoid making assumptions or predictions and check yourself if you find yourself doing so. This way we can fully receive the client, providing the conditions for growth and change.