August 2026: Bridging Research and Practice

Renger, S. (2023). Therapists’ views on the use of questions in person-centred therapy. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 51(2), 238–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2021.1900536

While the person-centered therapy model originally proposed by Carl Rogers in the mid-20th century did not offer a perspective on the asking of questions in the therapeutic relationship, many practitioners have believed that asking more than a few demographic questions unnecessarily “leads” the client and does not show respect for where the client is. Rogers did not decry the asking of questions, and in fact, noted their general usefulness. Nevertheless, his theory and practical instruction did not demonstrate question-asking as a key intervention in person centered therapy. Realizing that her own work with clients did not take this hard line and noting that some colleagues identifying as person-centered therapists did not either, the author of this research sought to conduct a qualitative interview study to understand the practiced art of therapists who were deeply influenced by Rogerian practices regarding their use of questions in counseling.

From her initial pool of 25 experienced therapists, six agreed to be interviewed who also met the inclusion criteria of identifying as person-centered therapists. Clinicians who described their practice as more integrative (i.e. utilizing techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectic therapy, or other modalities) were excluded from the research to discern the lived practices of therapists identifying as person-centered therapists.

Utilizing a thematic analysis approach to interpreting the results of the interviews, the author discovered therapists ask questions regularly for many reasons including: checking understanding or clarifying an issue the patient has presented; challenging the client’s thinking or appraisal of facts/circumstances; enabling the client to process some element of the problem. Therapists reported that sometimes they asked questions in therapy mostly for the sake of satisfying their own curiosity. The participants used questions overall because they believed this intervention/technique would facilitate client growth.

Participants notably used questions for clarifying their own understanding or even to “slow down” the process: “In some situations, the counsellors’ needs for information took precedence, although these questions could be very tentative such as ‘You look sad,’ or ‘Have I got it right?’” Another participant reported using questions to monitor the process, for example, saying to a client: “Hang on a minute now, are we dashing past this?” (p. 244). 

In the author’s discussion of the findings, she acknowledged her own potential biases as a practitioner of person-centered therapy. But she also acknowledged the consensus of her research participants that questions can play an important role in helping counseling clients, and that in fact, asking the right questions in the right environment is to act in a fully person-centered way.