“But I Am a Runner”: Trying to Be a Rogerian Person-Centered Practitioner With an Injured Athlete

Abstract

This reflective case study presents the experience of a trainee sport and exercise psychologist during a period of applied consultancy with an injured runner. This was the trainee’s first consultancy experience attempting to practice from a Rogerian/classic person-centered perspective. As a trainee, his sport psychology delivery process followed academic and professional training models. After identifying an incongruence relating to the client’s identity as a runner, Rogers’s rejection of formulation and intervention led to tensions. Drawing on sport and counseling psychology literature to guide reflection and approach, maintaining a relationship between client and practitioner consistent with Rogers’s necessary conditions of change was the intervention. The trainee’s reflections consider being challenged by conflicts between philosophy and training requirements, their limited practice experience, and responding to the client during sessions that sometimes felt inconsistent with person-centered principles. Ultimately, the client reported moving toward being a more authentic self by contextualizing running as only one aspect of their life.