From the 60 years’ history of client-centered therapy and counseling, dating back to Carl Rogers’ book Psychotherapy and Counseling (1942), it can be concluded that a variety of therapeutic modes have been developed within the realm of person-centered psychotherapy, ranging from non-directive counseling to more interactional and process-experiential orientations. However different our views on the psychotherapeutic encounter may have become, its core is still seen as an interchange based on equality between therapist and client, in which the client’s experiences are met with unconditional regard, respect, empathy and genuineness by the therapist. We foster the self-actualizing process of the person and, more than in other stances, we put our trust in the client’s potentials and self-agency. However, in the course of time, client-centered therapy has differentiated into a variety of psychotherapeutic and counseling practices.

The intention of the organizers of the 6th International Conference on Client-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling (PCE2003), held last year in Egmond aan Zee in the Netherlands, was to reflect on our therapeutic attitudes and interventions in the face of two apparently opposing propositions. On the one hand, therapeutic processes need to be differentiated in response to different client problems; while on the other hand, it is argued that it does not matter anyway which problems the client has with respect to our therapeutic attitudes and actions. Five eminent speakers were thus each asked to deliver a keynote address on this conference theme, ‘Process differentiation and person-centeredness’.  Four of them have agreed to publish their addresses in this special issue of PCEP. Regrettably, Dave Mearns decided to withdraw his contribution, so you have to miss for now his inspiring paper with the challenging title: ‘Problem-centered is not person-centered’ (it will be carried in a later issue of PCEP).

However, we are very pleased to publish the other four keynote addresses in this special issue. Starting with the contribution of Hans Swildens on self-pathology and post-modern humanity, process differentiation and person-centeredness are discussed within the context of the narcissistic defense, which is considered to be the great challenge of our times. In turn, he discusses the changing language of psychopathology, the rise of self-pathology, and broader nosological and sociological perspectives on the loss of identity and the development of a post-modern human type. Swildens concludes that person-centeredness and processdifferentiation are intertwined and inseparable aspects in the treatment of narcissistically organized clients.

Echoing Husserl, Peter Schmid proclaims that we have to go back to our clients. In his paper he follows Rogers in arguing that the essential conditions of psychotherapy exist in a single configuration, even though the client may use them very differently. 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. Further, Schmid rejects the concept of psychological health, preferring a theory of authenticity. Consequently, he refuses to speak about clients with specific disorders, but only about persons who are suffering from an inauthentic or alienated self-concept. Symptoms are a specific cry for help, which have to be understood in a process of personal encounter between therapist and client.

In contrast to this view, Rainer Sachse advocates a change of the client-centered paradigm from a primarily relationship-oriented therapy to a primarily clarification-oriented one.  According to him, research shows only moderate effect-sizes for traditional client-centered therapy, so we have to abandon the paradigm of non-directiveness and move on to more directive forms of psychotherapy, including process-experiential and clarification-oriented psychotherapy. These modern modes of client-centered therapy equal the effect-sizes proclaimed by cognitive behavioral therapies. When offering clients traditional non-directive therapy it means offering them a suboptimal method, which Sachse considers not to be a client-centered but, rather, a therapist-centered way of dealing. That’s why he wants to departfrom this ideology-based form of therapy towards an empirically based ‘clarification-oriented’ psychotherapy.

Leslie Greenberg, in a more moderated statement, is also pleading for a more actionoriented approach in client-centered, ‘process-experiential’ psychotherapy, in which specific therapist interventions for specific client tasks are at stake. However, he emphasizes the importance of the core conditions and respects and acknowledges the client’s expertise, while trusting and believing more than Sachse does in the client’s capacity to grow. He tries to overcome the dichotomy between Being and Doing by the notion of integrating ‘following’ and ‘leading’ in therapy. This is seen as a dialogical process, in which the distinction often disappears, ‘analogously to a dance in which each partner responds to the other by alternately following and leading’. Greenberg’s ideal is an easy sense of dialogue and co-exploration in an overall collaborative alliance.

Altogether, this special issue of PCEP on the occasion of the 6th International Conference on Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling offers a broad spectrum of views on our stance nowadays, especially on the theme of person-centeredness and process differentiation. We hope that the reader will succeed in determining his or her own position in this debate. In an article in the next issue of PCEP we will report on the panel discussion, which took place at the closing of the Egmond conference, and add some of our personal thoughts.