Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper is a modified version of a keynote address presented at the conference of the World Association For Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling, Athens, Greece, 10 September 2024. The conference theme had to do with developing the person of the PCE therapist. I give my interpretation and insights into selected key ideas about person-centered therapy as presented to a class in person-centered therapy. First, person-centered therapy is based in a process orientation to human beings. Humans are better characterized as ongoing living processes rather than as collections of internal personality structures. Psychotherapy focuses more on growth than repair and the process idea implies that change can happen more quickly than structural models of the person hold. Therapy is not one person ‘doing to’ another. Clients are creative self-healing agents. Therapy is a process co-created by clients and therapists together. Change is an emergent from this process. Person-centered therapists contribute primarily through empathic listening. I briefly illustrate the idea of therapy as a co-constructive process with an examination of part of the video of Carl Rogers working with Gloria. Finally, I consider the criticism that because person-centered therapists influence their clients, person-centered therapy is directive.
Published Version
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