Accountability, Self-Relationship, and the Courage to Be Whole: A Humanistic-Experiential Perspective

In psychotherapy and personal development, accountability is typically framed as an ethical or behavioural stance — owning our actions, facing our mistakes, and honouring commitments. But within the humanistic-experiential tradition, accountability goes deeper. It is a process of relating to the self honestly, without distortion or denial. It becomes a pathway to authenticity and emotional well-being.

Drawing on the work of Carl Rogers (1951, 1957, 1961), alongside contemporary developments in Self-Relationship Training (SRT; Capaldi, 2025) and research on Negative Treatment of Self (NTS; Capaldi & Elliott, 2023), we find that accountability is less about blame and more about fostering a congruent and compassionate relationship with the self.

Incongruence and the Fragmented Self

Rogers (1951, 1961) described incongruence as a misalignment between an individual’s lived experience and their self-concept. In an effort to preserve a positive self-image shaped by early conditions of worth, individuals often distort or deny aspects of themselves — such as anger, fear, shame, or unmet needs. These disowned experiences do not simply vanish; instead, they tend to fester, turning inward or being projected onto others.

As Rogers (1957) wrote: ‘The more experiences are denied or distorted in awareness, the less accurately the individual’s symbolised self corresponds to the real self.’ Incongruence gives rise to internal conflict, self-alienation, and a breakdown in the self-relationship.

Accountability as Integration, Not Condemnation

Seen through this lens, accountability is not about punishment or perfection. It is about acknowledgement — allowing into awareness the aspects of ourselves we’ve pushed away. This act of integration is deeply therapeutic. By ceasing to deny our lived experiences, we become more congruent, whole, and emotionally alive.

Contemporary theorists such as Robert Elliott and Leslie Greenberg (Elliott et al., 2004) highlight how emotion-focused therapy supports this integration by helping clients symbolise denied emotional experiences. Likewise, Eugene Gendlin’s (1996) felt sense encourages direct, bodily contact with inner truths that transcend rational self-concept.

Negative Treatment of Self: The Cost of Disowning Accountability

The concept of Negative Treatment of Self (NTS), as outlined in the work of Capaldi and Elliott (2023), adds a powerful dimension. NTS refers to a harmful pattern of self-relating made up of three interconnected parts: what the person targets in themselves, the ways they treat themselves negatively, and the emotional reactions that come before or follow these actions. These elements work together in a cycle, each reinforcing the others. This creates ongoing self-sabotage that makes it harder to reach personal goals or maintain well-being.

These patterns often originate in early relational trauma, where the child internalises experiences of rejection or emotional neglect. Over time, the self becomes both the judged and the inner critic, both the abandoned and the self-deserter. In such cases, accountability can become distorted, manifesting as self-rejection, denial, neglect, or self-condemnation. The task, then, is to discern true accountability — the conscious ownership of one’s experience — from internalised shame, which drives harsh self-criticism, distortion, and further self-rejection.

Without addressing NTS, attempts at self-improvement risk reinforcing cycles of guilt, denial, self-blame, and perfectionism, rather than facilitating healing.

Self-Relationship Training: A New Paradigm

Self-Relationship Training® (SRT), developed by Capaldi (2025), offers a structured, evidence-based model for transforming the inner relationship. Drawing on humanistic-experiential and emotion-focused approaches, SRT helps individuals shift from self-criticism to self-soothing, from avoidance to self-contact, and from shame to self-empathy.

At the heart of SRT is the principle that we must develop a secure internal attachment — a compassionate, honest, and curious stance towards ourselves. This resonates deeply with Rogers’ vision of the fully functioning person (Rogers, 1961), who is open to experience, congruent, and self-trusting.

In this frame, accountability is no longer a punitive demand. It is a capacity rooted in emotional resilience and self-awareness. One can say, ‘I was wrong,’ without collapsing into self-loathing. One can feel anger or fear and still remain connected to the self with warmth and understanding.

Empathic Accountability in the Therapy Room

In therapy, the task is to model and co-create this new relationship. Rogers’ core conditions — empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard — are essential to fostering empathic accountability: the willingness to face the truth of one’s experience within a context of acceptance.

As Mearns and Cooper (2005) argue in their work on relational depth, it is the depth of authentic human connection that enables clients to confront their disowned parts without shame. Similarly, Greenberg and Watson (2006) demonstrate how clients who transform maladaptive self-relations move from self-criticism to protective and self-caring positions, leading to greater integration and psychological well-being.

Conclusion: From Self-Division to Self-Compassion

Accountability, in the humanistic-experiential view, is a commitment to wholeness, not to perfection. It invites us to move beyond denial and distortion, not to judge ourselves, but to embrace the full range of our lived experience. Through Self-Relationship Training and a compassionate encounter with the self, we can transform avoidance and patterns of negative self-treatment into inner security and congruence.

In the end, accountability is not something we do to ourselves — it is something we do with ourselves, in service of healing and authenticity.

References

• Capaldi, K., & Elliott, R. (2023). Negative Treatment of Self in Socially Anxious Clients. Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 23(1), 101-121.

• Elliott, R., Watson, J., Goldman, R. N., & Greenberg, L. S. (2004). Learning emotion-focused therapy: The process-experiential approach to change. American Psychological Association.

• Gendlin, E. T. (1996). Focusing-oriented psychotherapy: A manual of the experiential method. Guilford Press.

• Greenberg, L. S., & Watson, J. C. (2006). Emotion-focused therapy for depression. American Psychological Association.

• Mearns, D., & Cooper, M. (2005). Working at relational depth in counselling and psychotherapy. Sage.

• Rogers, C. R. (1951). Client-centered therapy: Its current practice, implications and theory. Houghton Mifflin.

• Rogers, C. R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21(2), 95–103.

• Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.