In fact the whole task of psychotherapy is to deal with a failure in communication. In emotionally maladjusted people, communication within themselves has broken down, and as a result, their communication with others has been damaged. To put it another way, their unconscious, repressed, or denied desires have created distortions in the way communication with others. Thus they suffer both within themselves and in their interpersonal relationships.
The goal of psychotherapy is to help an individual achieve through a special relationship with a therapist, good communication within himself or herself. Once this is achieved, that person can communicate more freely and effectively with others. So we may say the psychotherapy is good communication with and between people. We can turn that statement round and it will still be true. Good communication, or free communication, within or between people is always therapeutic.
Barrier: The tendency of evaluate
Carl Rogers found one main obstacle to communication: people’s tendency to evaluate.
We all have natural urge to judge, evaluate, and approve/disapprove person’s statement.
For instance:
Suppose I say with some feeling “I think the Democrats are showing a lot of good sound sense these days”. What is your fist reaction? Most likely, it will be evaluative. You will find yourself agreeing or disagreeing, perhaps making some judgment about me such as “He must be a liberal” or He seems solid in his thinking”
If you have ever been a bystander – one in which you were not emotionally involved – you’ve probably gone away thinking “well, they actually weren’t emotionally talking about the same thing”. And because it was heated you were probably right. Each person was making a judgment, an evaluation, from a person frame of reference.
Gateway: listening with understanding
We can achieve real communication and avoid this