Starting therapy can feel daunting enough without unfamiliar words being thrown around. You might hear phrases like introjected values, conditions of worth, or self-actualising tendency and think: what on earth does that mean?
I want you to feel comfortable with the language of therapy. After all, the words we use are meant to help, not to confuse. So let me take you through some of the ideas that sit at the heart of my approach, and show how they might connect with your own life.
Growing Towards Your Best Self
Person-centred therapy rests on a simple but powerful belief: that every human being has within them a natural drive to grow, heal, and thrive. We call this the self-actualising tendency.
Think of a plant bending towards the light. Even if it’s been knocked over or kept in the shade, it still has the instinct to move toward growth. Humans are the same. Life may have left you feeling stuck or burdened, but your potential to grow is always there. Therapy simply provides the right conditions for that growth to happen.
The Hidden Rules We Learn Early
As children, many of us absorb unspoken rules about what makes us acceptable. Maybe you were praised for being strong, but discouraged from showing sadness. Or perhaps love seemed to come only when you achieved. These are called conditions of worth.
They can feel like invisible strings pulling at you: I must always please others, I must never make mistakes, I’m only good enough if I succeed. Over time, those conditions shape how you see yourself and can lead to self-criticism, anxiety, or a sense of never measuring up.
Whose Voice Are You Listening To?
Alongside those rules come the values we take in from other people -parents, teachers, society. These are called introjected values. They aren’t necessarily bad, but they may not truly belong to you.
For instance, you might believe I must always put others first or my worth comes from hard work because that’s what you were taught, not because it reflects your own deepest values.
Therapy offers space to notice these borrowed beliefs and gently ask: Do these really fit me? Do they still serve me now?
Learning to Trust Your Own Voice
Another idea we often explore in therapy is the locus of evaluation — in other words, where you look to decide whether you’re “good enough.”
If you rely mainly on an external locus, you might find yourself constantly checking what others think: Do they approve of me? Am I living up to their standards? With an internal locus, the focus shifts back to you: What do I feel? What matters to me?
Most of us swing between the two, but therapy supports you in strengthening your inner voice, so you can live more from your own truth rather than through the eyes of others.
When What’s Inside Doesn’t Match Outside
Sometimes there’s a gap between how we feel and how we show up in the world. You might feel sadness, but force yourself to smile. Or feel anger but stay silent to keep the peace. This mismatch is called incongruence.
When we live too much in this gap, it can lead to stress, anxiety, and disconnection from ourselves. Therapy helps to close the distance, so that your inner and outer selves begin to align – what we call congruence.
The Relationship at the Centre
Underpinning all these ideas is something simple but profound: the therapeutic relationship between you and your therapist. In person-centred work, this relationship rests on three core conditions:
These are not just fancy words. They describe the soil in which your own growth can take root.
Why It Matters
You don’t need to remember all the terms. What matters is how they come alive in the room: helping you to feel safer, freer, and more connected to yourself. Therapy isn’t about fixing you. It’s about gently uncovering the parts of you that learned to survive and giving them space to breathe, heal, and grow.
The language of therapy points towards this simple truth: you already hold the potential for change within you. My role is to create the conditions that allow it to flourish.
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