Within Counseling and Helping Relationships, CACREP highlights core conditions from person-centered theory: empathy, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness (also called congruence).

Genuineness/congruence means the counselor’s outer responses match their inner experience—they are authentic, real, and not putting on a professional façade.

Among the options, “congruence” (B) is the technical term that directly corresponds to genuineness.

Paraphrasing (A) and empathic responding (D) are important attending and empathy skills, but they do not automatically mean the counselor is genuine. Self-disclosure (C) can be a tool that may express genuineness, but it is not, by itself, the definition of genuineness and can even be misused.

Therefore, the counselor behavior that most clearly and directly demonstrates genuineness is B. Congruence.