Inaugural Special Double Issue 100 Years On: Breadth and Developments in the Person-centered and Experiential Therapies
TITLES AND ABSTRACTS The United Colours of Person-centered and Experiential Psychotherapies Germain Lietaer Abstract. Reflecting on the issue of commonality among the different subapproaches within the person-centered/experiential paradigm, the author mentions the following first-order identity characteristics: focus on the experiencing self; moment-by-moment empathy; high level of personal presence; an egalitarian dialogual stance; belief in the cruciality of the Rogerian therapist conditions. As second-order identity characteristics he mentions: holistic person-centeredness (versus symptom-directedness), emphasis on self-agency and actualizing process; self-determination and free choice as human possibilities; finding a balance between autonomy and solidarity as an existential task.
Keywords: Client-centered psychotherapy, experiential psychotherapy, identity aspects.
Further Theoretical Propositions in Regard to Self Theory within Person-centred Therapy Dave MearnsAbstract. Keywords Self theory, actualizing process, configurations, self pluralism. Aspects of the Actualising Tendency from a Humanistic Psychology Perspective Jobst FinkeAbstract. Extracts of the controversy within PCA around the concept of the actualizing tendency (AT) will be outlined in order to present Rogers’ position in this discussion. This position will be interpreted as an effort to synthesize humanism and naturalism. The relationship between the historical development of these ideas and Romantic philosophy of nature is also pointed out. Difficulties arising from this effort to formulate a stance from a humanistic philosophy perspective lead to reflections about how to describe the concepts of growth and self-organisation in terms which include specific human and personal interests. In order to make the concept of the AT more concrete, it needs to be described in terms which include the ways the actualizing tendency expresses itself in the way a person leads his or her life. The self-concept, life issues and coping techniques will be focused upon as expressive of the actualizing tendency. Keywords: humanism vs. naturalism, personalism, self-organization vs. self-determination, Romantic philosophy of nature, holism, personal manifestation of the ‘actualizing tendency’.The Valuing Process and the Inner Critic in the Classic and Current Client-centered/Experiential Literature Nele Stinckens, Germain Lietaer and Mia Leijssen Abstract. This article elaborates on the client-centered/experiential view on the valuing process and its destructive extreme, the inner critic. Some light is shed on the process characteristics of this client problem, on the change process and on the arsenal of facilitating therapeutic interventions. Rogers’ implicit process view is confronted with current client-centered/experiential theories, resulting in a reformulation of certain axioms of Rogers’ theory of personality: the social dimension is explicitly included in the description of the valuing process and the self is considered as a dynamic system in which various subsystems continuously interact in a dialectical field of tension. These new accents contribute to a clearer demarcation of the inner critic, a sharper insight into its dysfunctional mechanisms and an expansion of the arsenal of therapist interventions. Keywords: valuing process, inner critic, Rogers’ implicit process view, current client-centered/experiential theories. Knowledge or Acknowledgement? Psychotherapy as the art of not-knowing' — Prospects on further developments of a radical paradigmPeter F. Schmid Abstract. A way of celebrating the one hundredth anniversary that Carl Rogers himself probably would have liked is to proceed with the understanding of what his revolution means today and what challenges are ahead for tomorrow: within and outside of the ‘person-centered community’. What tasks are ahead if we try to carry Rogers’ intentions forward? Such developments need to be carefully rooted in and checked towards the anthropological foundations of person-centeredness. The paper intends to give a short overview of some major developments in the Person-Centered Approach understood from an ‘encounter-philosophical’ point of view, and its ethical and epistemological foundations, with the focus on psychotherapy. Based on this, some consequences for a newer understanding of psychotherapy in general as an ethical enterprise and further developments of the Person-Centered Approach are indicated. Keywords: anthropology, ethics, person, encounter, presence.
Therapeutic Presence: Therapists’ experience of presence in the psychotherapy encounter. Shari M. Geller and Leslie S. Greenberg Abstract. A qualitative study was conducted with expert therapists who are proponents or have written about presence and its importance in psychotherapy. Based on a qualitative analysis of therapists’ reports, a working model of therapeutic presence was developed. This included three emergent domains. One domain entails preparing the ground for presence, referring to the pre-session and general life preparation for therapeutic presence. The second domain describes the process of presence, the processes or activities the person is engaged in when being therapeutically present. The third domain reflects the actual in-session experience of presence. Presence is discussed as the foundation of Rogers’ basic conditions of empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard and as the overarching condition that allows them to be expressed. Key words: presence, therapist qualities, relationship conditions, therapeutic relationship.Research Policy and Practice in Person-Centred and Experiential Therapy: Restoring coherenceJohn McLeod Abstract. One of the distinctive and innovative characteristics of the emergence of client-centred therapy as a mainstream orientation in the period 1945–1965 was the use of research as a means of advancing theory, research and practice. It is widely accepted that the level of research into what became known as the experiential therapies declined and fragmented over the following decades. However, the publication of two major research-based Handbooks in recent years indicates a resurgence in research around on person-centred and experiential therapy. The aim of this paper is to explore the significance of these recent developments and, specifically, to examine the relevance for contemporary practitioners and researchers of the approach taken by Carl Rogers and his colleagues in major research programmes based at Chicago and Wisconsin. The main message of the paper is that, despite the important differences that exist between the professional environments of the 1950s and now, the ‘client-centred’ research programme achieved a level of coherence that is lacking in current research policy and practice. Keywords: Carl Rogers, client-centered therapy, research programs, research policy.
Render unto Caesar: Quantitative and Qualitative Knowing in Person-centered/Experiential Therapy Research
Robert Elliott
Where Did We Come From and Where Are We Going? The development of person-centered psychotherapyHans SwildensAbstract. In this paper the author discusses the development of person-centred psychotherapy in the 20th century. He takes a historical-philosophical position and corresponding perspective, which he later alternates in part with that of a descriptive, directly-involved practitioner. He describes aspects of the emergence and growth of the movement and its developments, particularly in Europe, where in several European countries there is a tendency towards decline and avoidance, for example, through premature promotion of the integration of therapeutic methods. He attempts to understand these developments as emerging partly from the roots of the humanistic transition in the first half of the 20th century, and partly from the societal and economic shifts in the second. The author ends the discussion with five propositions to be understood as landmarks on the way to a possible and desirable reawakening.
Keywords: person-centered psychotherapy, Carl Rogers, humanism, existential philosophy, encounter philosophy, integration of therapeutic methods, neopositivism, phenomenology, historical perspective.The Future of Person-centered Therapy: Crisis and possibilityMartin van Kalmthout Abstract. In this article the question is asked of what should be done in order for the Person-Centered Approach to survive in the present cultural and political climate. The central thesis is that person-centered therapy can only survive when we succeed in demonstrating that we have a distinctive theme and a distinctive practice. This poses a very complex dilemma to us. On the one hand, we have to adapt ourselves to the present demands in order to survive. If we do so, however, we sacrifice the core of our approach and will no longer be distinct from other approaches and therefore will not survive either. It is argued that emphatically profiling ourselves as specialists in the exploration of the existential domain will provide a new perspective on our future. Keywords: Crisis of person-centered therapy; future of person-centered therapy; the existential domain; evidence-based medicine. The Helping Conditions in Their Context: Expanding change theory and practice Godfrey Barrett-Lennard Abstract. Carl Rogers’ innovation grew out of an individualist psychology and cultural mind set that saw each person’s destiny as belonging in his or her own hands. This paper stresses the connectedness of human lives, and views our life process and consciousness as relational in its essence. Conditions theory illuminates basic processes within the microcosm of the therapist-client engagement. A client’s outside relations, however, can crucially effect their response to therapy, broader social conditions are necessary for the helping mode and system to arise, and the relation between personal and societal malaise has vital implications for therapeutic work. An encompassing spectrum of potential healing and enabling processes emerges from a systemic-relational perspective. A unifying axis is the healing of relationship: relations within the self, close interpersonal relationships, group and community relations, and relations between large people systems. Principles are advanced to extend the working scope and theory of change.
Key words: change theory, healing of relationship, helping relation, relational engagement social context, therapy conditions.
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Journal of the World Association for Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling
Co-editors: Editors: Robert Elliott, USA • Dave Mearns, Scotland • Peter F. Schmid, Austria