Authentic Counselling Training

Dialects of Person Centredness

[Under construction: 16 April 2005]

This document in all parts is copyright © Peter Hughes from the date of construction given above. Please feel free to make use of them for solely personal purposes. However, should you wish to use them for teaching, training, commercial or other purposes, you are required to ask me first.

From its roots in 1940s US, and its Atlantic migration in the 1960s, person centred counselling has garnered a significant following across several continents. As a successful psychotherapeutic approach, person centredness has attracted much attention, both within and outside (for example, in education) the psychotherapeutic world, and not least from practitioners intent on developing the approach. Many people have been instrumental in creating the range of counselling models that are now known as person centred.

 

Carl Rogers (1902-1987) is the person most widely known for involvement with, and the development of, person centredness. He devised, conducted and led empirical research to determine what activities were most therapeutically effective; formulated and refined a theoretical framework that conformed to, and explained, the research; and constructed a coherent expression of the philosophy on which the approach is based. Many synopses of Rogers’ work begin with a brief biography. This is relevant because Rogers’ person centred model is, in part at least, a reflection of who he was as a person. His model accorded with his own values, philosophy and ways of being with people, particularly clients.

 

Rogers was, however, far from the only person involved in the creation of person centredness. Rogers had many contemporaries, including Eugene Gendlin, Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) and Virginia Axline (1911-), each developing person centredness in ways that were true to their own experience, beliefs and ways of being with clients.

·      Gendlin’s focus was ‘somatic’, on what the body knows, bringing into awareness a ‘felt sense’, a process (and now a model) he termed ‘focusing’.

·      Maslow’s focus was on the human urge to satisfy needs, from basic needs concerning safety, food and water, to more complex needs including the need for love and self-actualisation.

·      Axline’s focus was on children engaged in non-directive play.

·      Natalie Rogers, Carl Rogers’ daughter, focused on creative expression.

Each of these practitioners, whilst staying broadly within the philosophical foundation and theoretical framework of what is now termed the person centred approach, devised a person centred model with an emphasis that is different from that devised by Carl Rogers. Their models were not departures from that devised by Carl Rogers, it is more that the passage of time has left Carl Rogers’ model standing proud. Subsequent practitioners (Mearns, Merry, Thorne, Tolan, Warner, etc.), too, have devised and developed their own person centred model.

·      For all that Dave Mearns and Brian Thorne pay homage to Rogers, their person centred model, proposed in Person Centred Counselling in Action, gives most weight to empathic understanding, hedging genuineness around with much caution. Rogers, on the other hand, at different stages in his life, variously viewed as being of paramount importance either genuineness, or empathic understanding, or unconditional positive regard.

·      Rogers avoided directing clients to consider particular issues, and also avoided giving advice to clients, hence an early name for the approach: non-directive counselling. On the other hand, other practitioners acknowledge that no relationship is without its impact on a person, and therefore a client can never remain uninfluenced by a counsellor. Moreover, person centred counsellors knowingly engage clients in activities that are likely to bring about, for example, greater self-understanding and greater self-acceptance. Further, person centred counsellors working in brief and time limited settings are likely to aim to work at the edge of a client’s awareness with the intent of helping the client both to embrace aspects of themselves that they disown and deny, and also to reject some of the distortions that they hold about themselves.

·      In the counselling room, some practitioners, including Carl Rogers, are/were quiet and self-parsimonious, wishing to avoid interfering with the client’s process, in the belief that the processes in which the client engages are the self-healing processes that the client needs. (However, similar counselling practice can also mask the counsellor’s failure to engage the client in a self-healing process; attribute responsibility for this failure to the client; and obscure the fact that the counsellor’s understanding of person centred theory may be insufficient or insubstantial.) Other practitioners are vocally active and easily share with a client what is going on inside themselves. These practitioners (perhaps influenced by theologian Martin Buber) believe that, whilst self-reflection is important, therapeutic processes are substantially evinced by relationship, and that the full, but not overpowering, presence of the person of the counsellor is a key component in the self-healing value of the counselling. (However, these practitioners run risks of overwhelming the client so that the client is unable to engage therapeutically; of swamping the client’s process with that of the counsellor; and of engaging with the client only at a banal and trivial level.)

·      Some practitioners maintain one way of being with all clients, aware of the fact that it is not what a counsellor does to a client that is therapeutic, but the environment the counsellor creates for the client to heal themselves. Other practitioners behave responsively to clients, in the belief that each client is a person with whom the counsellor has a unique relationship.

·      Some practitioners hold firmly to a precisely defined person centred model, from which a departure would be seen as less than ideal. Other practitioners give less attention to fine nuances of theory and practice, hold their model of person centredness less rigidly, and may range in emphasis across the various models encompassed by the person centred approach.

·      Some practitioners hold to a person centred model easily described as falling within the recognised boundaries of person centredness. These practitioners can be said to be ‘pure’ person centred counsellors. (However, the word ‘pure’ is also used (unhelpfully, in my view) for Rogerian person centred counsellors, implying that non-Rogerian person centred counsellors fall short of an ideal.) Other practitioners develop a person centred counselling model that is not purely person centred, that to a greater or lesser extent inclines towards some other counselling model(s) or approach(es), such as existential, psychosynthesis, Jungian psychodynamic or cognitive behavioural. [Whilst some of these practitioners counsel from a single, identifiable position that could be described as lying somewhere between the constellation of person centred models and the constellation of models of some other approach(es), the practice model adopted by other person centred practitioners for any one counselling relationship may draw from a range of approaches, depending on ‘environmental’ conditions such as the circumstances of the counselling (GP practice, substance use agency, occupational health, relationship agency), the issues being brought to counselling (depression, alcohol, bereavement, compulsive behaviours), and the person of the client.] This is the field associated with the term ‘integration’ in which issues related to combining counselling models/approaches are addressed.

·      Some practitioners bring to a counselling encounter a profound wish to engage, trusting that healing is brought about through a boundaried relationship, and their practice is identifiably person centred. Other practitioners have a deep desire to fix, to mend, to heal, and use verbal skills to help bring this about, borrowing techniques eclectically from other counselling models (the ultimate conclusion of which is termed an integrative skills model, exemplified by the models of Gerard Egan and Sue Culley).

 

From afar a galaxy appears in the night sky as nothing but a star. Careful examination shows that a galaxy is, in fact, made up of many millions of stars. The wide variation in practice and theoretical emphasis demonstrates that the person centred approach could more accurately be described as a collection of person centred models that share much of a philosophical base and a fair amount of theoretical framework. Each variant has the opportunity to demonstrate its validity as a therapeutic model.

 

English people tend to consider the English language written and spoken by English people to be true English. This is reminiscent of Rogerian person centred counsellors in relation to person centred counselling. In fact, ‘English’ is better thought of as a portmanteau term, for there are many different Englishes, each with valid claims to recognition based on use and history. Some are listed below:

·      English English: a minority language spoken by no more than 50 million people in a world of 6 billion. This variant of English is derived from a synthesis of Danish-amended Anglo-Saxon and Norse-amended French, with centuries of influence from Latin, Empire, transcontinental travel and contemporary US culture. It is versatile in that it can be adapted to many different situations (gossip, poetry, commerce), and because it has a history of assimilation, it is accomplished at incorporating new ideas. Microsoft terms this language UK English.

·      Lallans: Scots English, spoken as a primary language in lowlands Scotland for many centuries, and currently by millions of Scottish people every day, but recognised outside Scotland largely only through the poetry of Robbie Burns, and the writing of Irvin Welsh [Trainspotting]. It is recognised neither by Microsoft nor by English people.

·      American (US) English: this variant of English, written/spoken by hundreds of millions of people, is considered to be increasingly divergent from (and by some British people to be a corruption of) English as spoken by English people. Its creation has been substantially influenced by centuries of European immigration submerging a plethora of indigenous American cultures, and incorporating African cultures within a white-dominated slave-economy; with ongoing, long-standing Caribbean influences, and the more recent emergence of Spanish as the dominant language in parts of the US (George W. Bush is reported to speak fluent Spanish). How much of a variant is Canadian English, not least with the influence of Quebecois French?

·      Strine: Australian English.

·      South African English

·      Jamaican English

·      English as spoken widely and understood well throughout India, frequently experienced with difficulty by some English people when talking with call centre staff.

·      legalese: a verbose variant of English that gives attention to precise definition and distinction (including that between ‘avoidance’ and ‘evasion’), that distrusts punctuation, and that willingly lists exhaustively.

·      scientific and technical English: a terse variant of English, often perceived as clumsy, that emphasises precision in what it refers to, but gives scant attention to intelligibility. It embraces jargon to beyond opacity, readily neologises, and is averse to affect. Psychobabble is a verbose cousin of scientific and technical English that explores motives and justification. Psychobabble rejoices in the obfuscatory aspects of scientific and technical English, and its lack of integrity makes it an ideal language for entertainment.

·      diplomatic English: a verbose variant of English that is deft and encourages confidence; that is strong on tact and disguise; that is unwilling to make a direct statement where a euphemism will serve; that excels at implication, and invites inference and ceaseless speculation.

Beyond English are creoles, and beyond them, pidgins. Pidgins are spoken as a means of shared communication, although never as a first or developed language. A majority of people speaking English around the world are not primarily English speakers, and use English as a second or third language. Many counsellors/ psychotherapists around the world are not person centred, but adopt some of the basic practice of the person centred approach. At this point I risk stretching the metaphor too far, so I shall relocate to a related, simpler metaphor. Within the UK there are many different accents and dialects: BBC, Geordie, Mackem, Scouse, Brummy, Cockney, Estuary, and so on. It is variously entertaining or insulting when a person adopts a way of speaking that is not their own. I am currently learning Dutch. I don’t know with what accent I am learning to speak Dutch, what dialect I am learning, how in/formal the expressions are, or whether there are any social/ class-related implications to what I am learning to say. I am simply following what I am being taught. The early stages of language training involve, amongst many other things, learning vocabulary, grammar and basic pronunciation. In this respect, the person centred model of Carl Rogers is an excellent model from which learn person centred counselling. Later stages of training in person centred counselling, however, are less about learning more accurately to mimic Carl Rogers, and more about discovering what dialect of person centredness the trainee naturally speaks.

Questions

1.      Which of the core conditions are you most / least enthusiastic to communicate to a client?

2.      How much notice do you take of a client’s apparent stage of development?

3.      To what extent do you aim to work at the client’s edge of awareness?

4.      How alert are you, when counselling, to a client’s expression of conditions of worth?

5.      How vocally active do you prefer to be when counselling?

6.      To what extent are you attracted by models of counselling other than the person centred model?

7.      Which of Rogers’ 19 Propositions sit less easily with you?

8.      How much do you believe that healing is brought about solely by the provision of a boundaried relationship?

9.      What does your dialect of person centredness sound like?

 p.g.h@btinternet.com

This document in all parts is copyright © Peter Hughes from the date of construction given above. Please feel free to make use of them for solely personal purposes. However, should you wish to use them for teaching, training, commercial or other purposes, you are required to ask me first.