Speaking With the Client's Voices: How a person-centered therapist used reflections to facilitate assimilation

Jacob Z. Goldsmith, James K. Mosher, William B. Stiles (Miami University) & Leslie S. Greenberg (York University)

Abstract: We describe how reflections facilitated change in person-centered therapy with a 29 year-old man we called Bill. The assimilation model conceives people as having multiple internal voices, and it conceives psychotherapeutic change as building meaning bridges (explicit understandings) between voices. In a previous paper (Mosher et al., 2008), we described the mutual assimilation among three of Bill's voices. In this paper we explore how the therapist’s reflections facilitated assimilation between two of these voices, a Self-Doubting Critic that directed criticism inwardly and a timid and depressed Guy Who Let Bill Down that internalized this criticism. Through reflections, the therapist expressed the positions of these voices, allowing them to hear and respond to each other, to explore and clarify their experiences, and to build useful meaning bridges.

Keywords: assimilation model, person-centered therapy, internal multiplicity

Facilitating Change in Men who are Violent Towards Women: Considering the ethics and efficacy of a person-centered approach

Lyndell Weaver

Abstract: This paper discusses the utility of the person-centered approach for working with male perpetrators of gender-based violence. It highlights the very limited evidence for the effectiveness of the pro-feminist cognitive behavioral model which characterizes perpetrator programs across the UK, and draws on Gadd’s (2004) critique of cognitive behavioral techniques for failing to address the denials which underpin some men’s violence and masculine identity. I propose that person-centered therapy, delivered by practitioners with an understanding of gender and power issues, may be an effective alternative for helping violent men to change, without being a soft option. By appraising Rogers’ concepts of unconditional acceptance and the change process, I argue that the genuinely empathic, accepting approach works by engaging fully with men’s emotional experience and promoting their movement towards self-directed responsible action. These theoretical points merit future research into the use of person-centered practice with violent men.

Keywords: cognitive behavioral programs, domestic violence, ethics, gender, masculinity, power, unconditional positive regard

Counseling Adult Survivors of Childhood Institutional Abuse: A phenomenological exploration of counselors’ perceptions and experiences in Ireland

Marie Gavin Wolters

Abstract: This paper reflects some of the findings of a qualitative study carried out to explore therapists’ perceptions and experiences of counseling adult survivors of childhood institutional abuse as compared with counseling adult survivors of childhood abuse in non-institutional settings. The purpose of the study was to begin to make a contribution to exploring the gap currently present in the literature on the experiences of therapists working with adult survivors of childhood institutional abuse.

Keywords: childhood abuse, institutional abuse, phenomenology, qualitative research

Twenty Years of Survival, Maintenance and Enhancement: From strategy and serendipity to unity in diversity and a state of readiness

Pete Sanders

Abstract: Key elements in the development of person-centered and experiential (PCE) therapies in Northern Europe are reviewed.
Internal struggles in the search for identity to the establishment of an infrastructure of organizations, conferences, academic departments and publications are described. This paper particularly concentrates upon the fortunes of the approach in the United Kingdom and to a lesser extent mainland Northern Europe. It argues that thoughtful planning and strategy and an ethic of understanding, inclusion and celebration of diversity have ensured the good health of the approach since Carl Rogers’ death.

Keywords: person-centered, experiential, psychotherapy, history, research, theory, practice

Encountering the Sacred: Person-centered therapy as a spiritual practice.

Mia Leijssen

Abstract. An authentic search for the sacred has been an integral part of person-centered psychotherapy. As he grew older Rogers (1980) realised that it made good sense to give spirituality a greater voice in psychotherapy.  Gendlin (1984) highlighted the remarkable role of bodily felt knowing in developing an awareness of spirit. What is felt in the human organism increasingly leads to a broadening of the experiential field and a discovery of meaning. Moments of change are very different in nature and sometimes they appear as peak experiences or sacred moments that nourish the soul. The psychotherapeutic relationship and the experiencing process point in the direction of a deeper cosmic process and involve a sense of transcendence: the experience that life is infused with sacredness and individuals are essentially spiritual beings. Recent studies have shown that people who receive some form of therapy that integrates spirituality make significant positive changes in their lives.

Keywords: spirituality, sacred, body, soul, transcendent

Re-examination of Rogers’ (1959) Collection of Theories on the Person-Centered Approach

Jeffrey H. D. Cornelius-White

Abstract: Since Rogers’ death in 1987 proponents of person-centered concepts have revised client-centered theory and the person-centered approach through continued research and writing, creating tribes of the person-centered approach (Warner, 2000; Sanders, 2004) and new applications. These developments and applications continue to grow and interact, and some have established research foundations, for example Cornelius-White (2007e) and Elliott (2002). In addition to theoretical changes, some scholars have worked to re-examine and offer extended concepts closely aligned to Rogers’ (1959) theories. This paper re-examines research projects that
the author has recently been involved with concerning Rogers’ main theoretical statement (1959) and proposes a reconfiguration of his General Structure of Our Systematic Thinking (op. cit. p.193).
 

Keywords: learner-centered education, theory of therapy, core conditions, person-centered approach