Congruence: the social contract between a client and therapist

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper will examine what it means to be congruent as a therapist. Is a congruent therapist someone whose first priority is to be honest with him or herself and therefore hopefully intra-personally congruent? Or, is a congruent therapist instead someone whose only priority is to be honest with the client and therefore inter-personally congruent? We argue that what ought to constitute congruence in psychotherapeutic relationships is the degree to which the conduct of the client and psychotherapist conform to the social contract or rules that guide their relationship. Congruence is then an interpersonal construct based on a shared and collaborative understanding of the social contract. Consequently, behaviors that are congruent in one psychotherapeutic relationship (psychoanalytic) might be incongruent in another kind of psychotherapeutic relationship (client-centered). We show that the client-centered therapist of 1951 followed a different set of rules than the person-centered therapist of today. The client-centered therapist would be incongruent in the person-centered context and vice versa. We shall show further that while the rules that guide client-centered therapy are perfectly clear, the rules that guide person-centered therapy are vague.