Index to Volume 1. October 1992.
The Person Behind The Psychodiagnosis. Angelo V .Boy.
University of New Hampshire. USA.
Abstract
Psychodiagnosis procedures have become more routinized in the practice of psychotherapy. This article looks at the person who performs a psychodiagnosis and identifies areas which have the potential to contaminate the psychodiagnostician’s objectivity. The areas identified are psychodiagnostician’s values, theoretical orientation, activity to judge cultural influences, unconscious lures, and ethical considerations.
Coterminous Intermingling of Doing and Being in Person-Centered Therapy. Jerold D. Bozarth.
University of Georgia. USA
This paper examines the roles of “being” and “doing” in person-centered therapy. The examination consists of : (1) reconsideration of the basis principles of the person-centered approach as espoused by the late Carl R. Rogers, (2) examination of Rogers’ responses to his clients, and (3) consideration of some of the reported research findings concerning the function of the person-centered therapist.
Experienced client-centered therapists and other students of Carl Rogers' theory of therapy generally agree that the client-centered conception of empathic understanding gives great emphasis and importance to the client's feelings in the therapy process. Rogers' writings about client-centered therapy include major references to feelings (e.g., Rogers, 1959). Concerning empathic understanding, Rogers says that "the therapist senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that the client is experiencing..." (Rogers, 1980, p. 116). The precise meaning of "feelings" and the precise function of the language of feelings, however, is not clearly articulated by Rogers and others when describing empathic understanding in client-centered therapy. The meaning and the function of "feelings" in regard to empathic understanding is, consequently, somewhat confusing to students. It is particularly misunderstood when Rogers is interpreted to be advocating that the therapist respond to the "hot" emotions or feelings in the client's communication (Zimring, 1990, p. 436).
Observations on Healing and Person-Centered Therapy. David Spahn
Dubuque, Iowa, USA
On the numerous times (beginning in 1974) that I have had opportunities to watch a member of a small encounter group or large community group, I have been particularly impressed by what has appeared to me to be his intense and exclusive focus of attention on the other person. My sensing of this was essentially visual, yet it seemed I also could feel it in other ways. I remember remarking to people on numerous occasions, "Did you see how he was totally focused on the other person? You could just tell that he had nothing else on his mind." This degree of attentiveness is the thing I remember most vividly. It reminded me of my experience in a "psychic healing" workshop.
University of Georgia. USA
This report is a heuristic case study of individual experiencing at a Person-Centered Community Workshop in Pezinok, Czechoslovakia during the week of April 13-20, 1991. The purpose of my study is to recreate the phenomenon of each participant's 'symbolic growth experience' (Frick, 1983) defined as "a conscious perception of the symbolic-metaphorical dimension of immediate experience leading to heightened awareness. The creation of meaning, and personal growth' (p. 68). The creation of each unique experience emerged from heuristic analysis of interviews of five of the participants in the workshop and immersion of the researcher in the workshop as a participant. The emergent depictions, portraits, and a synthesized integration of the data produced a dynamic flowing between three categories: (1) the individual factors of personal influencing and societal influencing; (2) the group factors of influencing of training and group interacting: and (3) group processing depicted as "struggling,,” “organizing,”and “dividing.” These three categories are interactive with each category flowing into the core category of "freeing." The findings of this study are reminiscent of a previous finding of a qualitative study by Frick (1983). Emerging from his study was a symbolic growth experience defined as a "freeing power” of experiencing 'self acceptance,’ ‘self-affirmation,’ ‘congruence', and ‘increasing trust’. The re-creation the individual experiences of the researcher and the co-researchers resulted in a synthesized creation of the phenomenon of individual ‘freeing’ as experienced in the person-centered community workshop.
THE CHICAGO GROUP for Counseling and Psychotherapy
A Little on Carl Rogers
In two references to homosexuality (1951 and 1972) and in his statement indicating an apparent felt lack of understanding about why "...male homosexuality seems more threatening to many persons than female homosexual contact," (1972, p. 142) Rogers makes no judgment about this orientation.
In the first reference, a client is quoted in order to illustrate that client’s experience of the exploration of his self, and how the therapist's way of being can facilitate that exploration.
I remember a good deal of emotional tension in the second interview where I first mentioned homosexuality. I remember that I felt drawn down into myself, into places I didn't want to go ... I still remember the warm, acceptant voice of the counselor and my feeling that it was just a little more acceptant than I could be of the fears I was expressing but not enough different to be reassuring in a threatening way. ( 1951, p. 72)
In the second instance, a client speaks of a lesbian relationship, and of her feelings of jealousy at the thought that her female lover had had sexual contact with yet another woman. However, the context of this example has more to do with the impact a third party has on an involved couple than on the homosexuality, itself, Rogers says,
But all of this experimentation1 is not without cost. The senses of loss, of hurt, of jealousy, of self-pity, of anger, of desire for retaliation are experienced time and time again by those involved in the experimentation. No matter how ‘modern' the person's point of view, or his or her intellectual commitment, someone is hurt in one way or another, as Lois makes clear, every time partnerships shift. And jealousy does not necessarily relate simply to sexual behavior, but to such things as a loss of closeness... (1971, pp. 141-142)
A Comparison of American and Chinese Counseling Students’ Perceptions of Counseling. Richard C. Page, Hsiao-Ping Cheng
University of Georgia, USA. National Changhua University. China
Abstract
This study assessed the differences between the ways that counseling students in two different countries. Taiwan and the United States, perceived counseling. The evaluative and potency scales of a semantic differential were used to compare the attitudes of these students related to counseling and certain counseling related variables. One finding of this study was that the Chinese students evaluated counseling, group counseling and counselors more positively than the American students while the American students rated the potency of all of these concepts higher than the Chinese students.
Analysis of a Transcript. Claudia's session with Suzanna. Barbara Brodley, Fred Zimring.
Illinois School of Professional Psychology Chicago, Illinois U.S.A. and Case Western Reserve University. USA
This article is concerned with a short therapy interview that a beginning student (Claudia) of Barbara Brodley's had with a practice client (Suzanna). Both the therapist and the client have given permission for this publication. After the transcript of the interview there are comments by Barbara and Fred. A short note comparing our comments concludes the article.
The following transcript was made by a graduate student as an assignment in empathetic following. The student had no previous experience as a therapist and this assignment was turned in the third week of class; thus, she had practiced only two weeks and had only two classes in an introductory course in client-centered therapy. The client is a practice client chosen by the student from among her acquaintances who had agreed to participate in the student's practice for the course; The "client" was a client in a regular therapy relationship. The topic of the practice interview was the client's reactions to an incident with her regular therapist. The transcript is verbatim of the entire interview, with the names mentioned by the client changed to preserve anonymity.
Book Review of Against Therapy by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Jeffrey Masson's book Against Therapy posits the premise that the profession of psychotherapy is inherently harmful to mankind through it's very fabric of omnipotent power and hence the propensity for corruption. Masson's view of therapists is one of abrogation of client's concerns and interests and arrogation by the therapist to impose his/her own views and interpretation, disdaining the direction or input from the patient.
Announcements (obviously these are not current, but may be of historic interest).
Posted by. Allan Turner. June 21, 2004.