Re-visioning Person-Centred Therapy: Theory and Practice of a Radical Paradigm

Description

By exploring various ways to assimilate recent progressive developments and to renew its vital links with its radical roots, Re-Visioning Person-Centred Therapy: Theory and Practice of a Radical Paradigm takes a fresh look at this revolutionary therapeutic approach. Bringing together leading figures in PCT and new writers from around the world, the essays in this book create fertile links with phenomenology, meditation and spirituality, critical theory, contemporary thought and culture, and philosophy of science. In doing so, they create an outline that renews and re-visions person-centred therapy’s radical paradigm, providing fertile material in both theory and practice. Shot through with clinical studies, vignettes and in-depth discussions on aspects of theory, Re-Visioning Person-Centred Therapy will be stimulating reading for therapists in training and practice, as well as those interested in the development of PCT. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of contributors Introduction Tribute to Fyodor E. Vasilyuk PART I: Some kinds of love: person-centred therapy and the relational dimension 1. Therapy as an accident waiting to happen Old tradition – new wave 1 Radical ethics 2 A real audacity … 3 …animality is more honest 4 Showing rather than telling … 5 … power in their hands … 2. The psychotherapeutic encounter as a political act of micro multitude Introduction Political considerations Politics and psychotherapy References 3. Beauty and the Cyborg Introduction Person-centred, human-centred, self-centred A comic faith The beautiful soul Some kinds of love Love and ‘the Powers’ Technofixes Empathic manipulators Necessarily insufficient Beastly love References 4. Walking backwards towards the future: reclaiming the radical roots – and future – of person-centred therapy Looking back Looking under Looking forward References 5. Ethics and the person-centered approach: a dialogue with radical alterity Introduction Figueiredo and philosophy of science Possible abodes for the PCA in the territory of ignorance The ethics of Levinas Places for strangeness in the person-centered approach Conclusion Note References PART II: The politics of experience 6. Dialectics of person and experiencing Playing a symphony A single ellipse with two focuses Note References 7. Actualizing tendency, organismic wisdom and understanding the world Introduction Directional and interactional “Buen Con-Vivir” Reflections and learning from the practice of psychotherapy Body wisdom and understanding of the world Some examples Esther’s example Rita’s example The richness and complexity of organismic wisdom In short Notes References 8. Person-centred approach as discursivity and person-centred therapy as heterotopic practice Introduction Modernity and person-centred discourse Person-centred particularity/otherness (Post)modernity and person-centred discursivity Person-centred heterotopia References 9. Client-centered: an ethical therapy A path not taken Therapy is defined, and its power relationship discussed Client-centered therapy is described Freedom as ethical premise for practice The medical-model concept of therapy rests on a different ethical premise We reject Carl Rogers’ actualizing tendency The ethical therapist respects the client’s right to direct her own life, including her time in therapy Our ethical premise does not require the client always to regard her therapy as nondirective The practice of client-centered therapy, if faithful to its theory, is ethical Notes References 10. Experiencing and the person-centred approach Lying there Empiricism Experienciality The whisper of thought and language Experiencing The role of experiencing Epilogue Notice References 11. Experiential-existential psychotherapy: deepening existence, engaging with life Introduction Experiential–existential psychotherapy Facing one’s own existential challenges The existential roots of experiential therapies Micro, meso, and macro searching Meaning From I-Me and I-it to an I-I and I-Thou relationship The therapist is fully implied Concluding thoughts Notes References PART III: Person-centred therapy and spirituality 12. From the scientific to the mystical in the work of Carl Rogers Introduction The accidental mystic The mystical moment and Rogers Note References 13.Living from the ‘formative tendency’: ‘cosmic congruence’ Introduction On becoming a person ‘Congruence cannot be defined as explicit symbolization’ ‘Presence’ as congruence ‘Congruence as story’ ‘Cosmic congruence’ Carl Rogers’ ‘presence’ as agápe The social dimension The changing face of an institution Coming full circle Conclusion References 14. “A kind of liking which has strength” (Carl Rogers): does person-centred therapy facilitate through love? Introduction What does love mean? – A phenomenological investigation Many forms of love – or One Love Varieties of one love? Love in the PCA Summary: the PCA is about the power of love References PART IV: Person-centred learning and training 15. Enter centre stage, the case study… Prologue Note References 16. Sheep of tomorrow Introduction This is the dawning of the age of the fish bowl The name of the father Infernal locus of evaluation UPR for all Sheep of tomorrow One hundred plus years of solitude References 17. What do I know and how do I know it?: theories of knowledge and the person-centred approach Introduction The divided brain Deconstruction Apophasis A theology of the event Conclusion References 18. The empathor’s new clothes: when person-centered practices and evidence-based claims collide Introduction Psychotherapy from a manual Low fidelity isn’t fidelity The babies and the bath water Common factors The curious paradox Looking along and looking at Conclusion Note References PART V: Challenging some aspects of person-centred practice 19.Challenging snoopervision: how can person-centered practitioners offer new alternatives to the fracturing of the person in the supervision relationship? Introduction The extinction of the species A double bind Trigger warnings A story Post-truth Notes References 20. Re-visioning person-centred research Introduction Jo’s narrative of encountering Rogers Conclusion References 21. Psychopathology and the future of person-centred therapy Introduction Carl Rogers and psychopathology Client perceptions of distress Contemporary person-centred attitudes to the medical model Pockets of hope within the medical model Conclusion References 22. Presence: the fourth condition Current state of the person-centered approach Person-centered core conditions Presence: the fourth condition Presence is relational Presence requires self-care Presence engages self-acceptance Questioning celebrity in order to access presence Presence and directivity versus non-directivity Rogers’ unrecognized path to presence Presence can save our approach References 23. A place in which everything can go Introduction Congruence and saying everything Radical self-disclosure Keeping silence Breaking silence Free communicating, free conceiving Conclusion Acknowledgments References 24. A person-centred political critique of current discourses in post-traumatic stress disorder and post-traumatic growth Introduction Psychopathology and PTSD: critiques and connections Traps for the unwary Trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy, eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing and person-centred approaches Conclusion Note References Index