In the second half of the 20th century, the Client-Centered approach in psychology appeared. This approach basically says that the therapist isn’t the expert. It is the client that has in himself the power of healing, growth, and fulfillment.

Let’s highlight two principles of this type of therapy that many service designers could relate to. This type of therapy is non-directive. The therapist isn’t leading the conversation; the client is. In such a therapy, the therapist has an unconditional positive regard: The therapist has a total acceptance of and support for his client. And this happens without casting judgment.

My father is a psychotherapist who has specialized in this approach. I always found it interesting to note that the human-centered design approach that I have (more details on this in the coming pages) has a lot in common with the Rogerian Psychotherapy. Service Designers also ideally follow a non-directive approach. We don’t know the solution when we start a project. We listen to all stakeholders as we believe they have the solution to the problems we are mandated to fix. The more I talk about the Client-Centered approach of psychology with my father, the more I believe that Service Designers should put in the necessary time and energy to learn more about this practice as we might have a lot to learn from the years of experience of these practitioners.

For the history lovers, here are a few dates to make your day beautiful. It seems that the first elements of the Client-Centered Psychotherapy were already noted by Carl Ransom Rogers when he lectured at the University of Rochester and wrote The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child in 1939. In 1951, he published more of his findings in a book called Client-Centered Therapy.

This article is part of the book "A Tiny History of Service Design, " a tiny two-hour read that goes through the historical events that created what Service Design is today.