Issue 3:1 Spring 2004
TITLES AND ABSTRACTS Special Issue Process Differentiation and Person-Centeredness Keynote Lectures from the 6th World Conference for Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling Guest Editors: Roelf J. Takens, The Netherlands • Germain Lietaer, Belgium AbstractsProcess Differentiation and Person-Centeredness: Introduction to the Special Issue Abstract. The guest editors introduce this special issue by describing its overall theme and the papers included. The question of whether process differentiation is consistent with the essence of personcenteredness is a key question for therapists within the person-centered and experiential approaches to therapy. In this special issue on the 2003 Egmond aan Zee PCE conference, we present four widely varying viewpoints on this unresolved question, each originally presented as a keynote address at the conference.Author note: Roelf J. Takens can be contacted at the Department of Clinical Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, V.d. Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, Netherlands. e-mail: <rj.takens@psy.vu.nl>. Keywords. client-/person-centered therapy, person-centeredness, process differentiation. Self-pathology and Post-modern Humanity: Challenges for person-centered psychotherapyHans SwildensAbstract. The author describes, in somewhat metaphorical terms, the difficult situation of client-centered therapy in continental Europe. The “magic formulas” raised to rescue the situation are provisionally indicated: person-centeredness, process-differentiation and psychotherapy-integration. Client narcissistic defense is proposed as the major challenge of these times, and the role of process-differentiation and person-centeredness is discussed in respect to this development. The changing language of psychopathology, the rise of self-pathology, the broader nosological and sociological perspectives on the loss of identity and the development of a postmodern human type are discussed. Further, a treatment of this new challenge by a person-centered approach and especially a role for a process-oriented form of this approach are proposed. Finally, the magic formulas are revisited more precisely, and person-centeredness and process-differentiation are considered to be inseparable, needing each other in the treatment of the narcissistic defense.
Rainer SachseAbstract. The author describes the conceptual-scientific development of classic CCT into a new therapy form that he terms clarification-oriented psychotherapy to emphasize the importance of clarification processes. He thus proposes a change of paradigms from a primarily relationship-oriented, less directive psychotherapy to a primarily process-directive psychotherapy involving explication processes. The paper criticizes the still-common classic form of CCT as being conceptually obsolete and to a great extent empirically falsified.
Back to the Client: A phenomenological approach to the process of understanding and diagnosis Peter F. SchmidAbstract. In rejecting intervention-centered psychotherapy Rogers advanced the conception that ‘the essential conditions of psychotherapy exist in a single configuration, even though the client may use them very differently’. Does this conviction actually imply a refusal to differentiate or diagnose? From a dialogical point of view therapists and clients are not only seen as being in relationships; as persons they are relationships, which makes them different in each therapeutic contact. Person-centered therapy, conceptualized as personal encounter, implies not only co-experiencing but also co-reflecting on experiences in the relationship. This epistemological paradigm change of PCT results in a fundamental counter-position to traditional diagnosis and classification: It is the client who defines the meaning of his/her experiencing and thus ‘in-forms’ the therapist who is challenged to open up and risk the co-creation of becoming a unique relationship. The paper develops criteria for a genuinely person-centered conceptualization of different processes of personality development.Being and Doing: Person-centeredness, process guidance and differential treatmentLeslie S. GreenbergAbstract. In this paper I describe key aspects of both person centered and process differentiation or process-experiential approaches and suggest that they can exist in a harmonious relationship, each complementing the other. I point to the difference hinging on the intention of the therapist rather than the therapist’s actions per se. I then discuss some pertinent research findings from the York Psychotherapy of Depression Project that explore the effects of the offer of a relationship with the effects of the addition to the relationship of the facilitation of specific processes. Next, I touch on the importance of the development of differential treatment and the use of process diagnosis as well as process guidance in this endeavor. Finally, I argue for the importance of a differential focus on facilitating the processing of emotion and present three empirically supported principles of an emotion–focused form of treatment: Emotion Awareness, Emotion Regulation, and Emotion Transformation.
Mick Cooper: Existential Therapies (Reviewed by Gerhard Stumm)
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