being with and being counter

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Being-With and Being-Counter: Relationaldepth: The challenge of fully meeting theclient / Miteinander-Sein und Gegenüber-Sein: Tiefgehende Beziehungen: DieHerausforderung, dem Klienten wirklichzu begegnen / Estar con y Estar contrala Profundidad Relacional: El desafío deencontrarse plenamente con el consultante /Etre-Avec et Etre-Contre: Rencontrer leclient pleinement—Un défiDave Mearns a & Peter F. Schmid b c da University of Strathclyde, Glasgowb Institute for Person-Centered Studies, Viennac Sigmund Freud University, Viennad Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco

Version of record first published: 11 Aug 2011.

To cite this article: Dave Mearns & Peter F. Schmid (2006): Being-With and Being-Counter: Relationaldepth: The challenge of fully meeting the client / Miteinander-Sein und Gegenüber-Sein: TiefgehendeBeziehungen: Die Herausforderung, dem Klienten wirklich zu begegnen / Estar con y Estar contra laProfundidad Relacional: El desafío de encontrarse plenamente con el consultante / Etre-Avec et Etre-Contre:Rencontrer le client pleinement—Un défi, Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 5:4, 255-265

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Mearns and Schmid

Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4 255© Mearns and Schmid1477-9757/06/04255-11

Dave MearnsUniversity of Strathclyde, Glasgow

Peter F. SchmidInstitute for Person-Centered Studies, Vienna; Sigmund Freud University, Vienna;

Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco

Being-With and Being-Counter:Relational depth: The challenge of

fully meeting the client

Miteinander-Sein und Gegenüber-Sein: Tiefgehende Beziehungen: DieHerausforderung, dem Klienten wirklich zu begegnen

Estar con y Estar contra la Profundidad Relacional: El desafío de encontrarseplenamente con el consultante

Etre-Avec et Etre-Contre : Rencontrer le client pleinement — Un défi

Author note. This paper was presented as the second part of a double keynote lecture to the fourth World Congressof Psychotherapy in Buenos Aires in August 2005.Address correspondence to Dave Mearns: Email: <[email protected]>.Address correspondence to Peter F. Schmid, A-1120 Vienna, Koflergasse 4, Austria. Email: <[email protected]>.

Abstract. Following on from a previous publication (Schmid & Mearns, 2006), this paper continues theauthors’ investigation of the relationship emphasis within person-centered therapy. It explores the conceptof relational depth (Mearns & Cooper, 2005), especially in regard to work with hard-to-reach clients,outlining the particular challenges to the therapist seeking to engage the different parts of the client, eventhose in self-protective conflict with the therapeutic process. The ethical boundaries of therapeuticconfrontation and dialogue that constitute relational depth are explored as is the developmental agendafor the therapist.

Zusammenfassung. Dieser Artikel knüpft an eine frühere Publikation an (Schmid & Mearns, 2006).Die Autoren setzen ihre Untersuchung zur Betonung der Beziehung in der PersonzentriertenPsychotherapie fort. Das Konzept der tiefgehenden Beziehung („relational depth”) (Mearns & Cooper,2005) wird untersucht, besonders im Hinblick auf die Arbeit mit Klienten und Klientinnen, die schwerzu erreichen sind. Die besonderen Herausforderungen für den Therapeuten und die Therapeutin werden

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256 Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4

Being-With and Being-Counter

skizziert, wenn diese die verschiedenen Anteile des Klienten zu erreichen suchen, sogar jene, die sich ausSelbstschutz im Konflikt mit dem therapeutischen Prozess befinden. Die ethischen Grenzen vontherapeutischer Konfrontation und Dialog, die eine tiefgreifende Beziehung konstituieren, werdenuntersucht sowie auch die Themen, die anstehen, wenn es um Entwicklung für den Therapeuten bzw.die Therapeutin geht.

Resumen. Continuando con una publicación previa (Schmid & Mearns, 2006), este artículo continúa lainvestigación de los autores sobre el énfasis en la relación dentro de la terapia centrada en la persona.Explora el concepto de profundidad relacional (Mearns & Cooper, 2005), especialmente en el trabajo conconsultantes a quienes resulta difícil acceder. Señala los desafíos particulares del terapeuta que buscavincularse con las diferentes partes del consultante, aún aquellas en conflicto autoprotector con el procesoterapéutico. Se exploran los límites éticos de la confrontación terapéutica, el diálogo que constituye unaprofundidad relacional, y la agenda de desarrollo personal del terapeuta.

Résumé. Suite à un article précédent (Schmid & Mearns, 2006), les auteurs continuent leur recherchesur l’importance de la relation dans la thérapie centrée sur la personne. Le concept de profondeurrelationnelle (Mearns & Cooper, 2005) est particulièrement étudié dans le travail avec des clientsdifficiles à atteindre. Il s’agit d’un défi à relever pour le thérapeute qui cherche à entrer en contact avecles parties différentes du client, même celles qui sont, pour mieux se protéger, en conflit avec leprocessus thérapeutique. Les frontières éthiques de la confrontation thérapeutique et du dialogue quiconstituent la profondeur relationnelle, sont explorées, ainsi que le projet de développement personnelet professionnel du thérapeute.

Keywords: Person-centered therapy, relational depth, encounter, confrontation, dialogue, developmentalagenda, existential touchstones

In a previous paper (Schmid & Mearns, 2006) we laid down the basis of person-centeredtherapy as a relationship therapy. We explored the nature of that relationship, emphasizingthat it was both alongside the client and in confrontation with them. We emphasized thenotion of achieving relational depth where the client is offered an intensity of human relatingthat is experienced as affording unique safety and support such that the client might take therisk of going behind their normal portrayal level of self to enter parts that are of particularexistential significance to them. We examined the different kinds of resonance in the therapist:self-resonance, empathic resonance and personal or dialogic resonance and how these canlead to confrontation and dialogue. We pointed out that such a strong relational way ofworking could be particularly indicated for a range of hard-to-reach clients and illustratedthis by brief references to such clients as Dominic the drunk, Bobby the ex-gangster and Rickwho had become mute as a response to his traumatization in war.

In this paper we will go on to identify the particular challenges to the therapist inworking at relational depth — the challenge of engaging the hard-to-reach client and thechallenge to the therapist of using their self fully and in a fashion that is professionallyboundaried. Furthermore, we develop criteria for person-centered confrontation and dialogue.Lastly, we will outline the developmental agenda for the therapist seeking to work in theseways.

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Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4 257

CHALLENGES FOR THE PERSON-CENTERED THERAPIST

In the struggle to obtain the kind of dialogue we have been describing there are two particularchallenges for the person-centered therapist:

· Not to be relationally negated by the self-protective processes of the client;· Struggling to meet the different parts of the client that may have come to personify

different facets of the conflict and offer relational depth to all.

Not to be relationally negated by the self-protective processes of the client

In person-centered therapy discourse we tend not to use terms such as defences or resistancesbecause these have come to connote a battle against the process of the client. Instead, wemore often use the term self-protective processes because this term more accurately reflects theprimary function of those processes — to protect the self as it has actualized to that point.

If we look at two of the clients mentioned in the previous paper (Schmid & Mearns,2006) we can see examples of their self-protective processes. One of the functions of Dominic’sdrinking (see also Mearns & Cooper, 2005) was that it could always return him to a positionof stasis thus staving off any potential threat of change. This is one of the reasons why theperson-centered therapist would not focus their work on specific client behaviors or problems.If the work is focused, for example, on the client’s drinking, then it is too easy for the self-protective processes to negate the therapeutic endeavor and recreate stasis by recommencingdrinking. The challenge for the person-centered therapist is not to make the therapy vulnerableby placing emphasis on the drinking behavior. While this seems obvious in theoretical termsit is striking how often the opposite, problem-centered approach is taken. Of course, it iseasier to relate to a problem than a person, particularly a hard-to-reach person.

Another client from the previous paper, Bobby (see also Mearns & Thorne, 2000; Mearns& Cooper, 2005) exhibited self-protective processes that had been developed over a lifetimeof protecting himself against the danger of the loss of control that relationship might bring.He was expert in counteracting growing intimacy with ready suspicion, cynicism and sarcasm.Also, he was outwardly aggressive and threatening towards the therapist and where he sawweakness, he was ready to jump on it with taunting behavior. Arguably the most violent ofhis self-protective processes was the hate he would experience and manifest in response tofeeling the smallest relational warmth within himself.

During the past ten years person-centered therapists have gone a long way towardsidentifying a range of client processes developed to protect the self as it is actualized to anearlier point of stasis: for example, fragile process and dissociated process (Warner, 2000); psychoticprocess (Prouty, 1994) and ego-syntonic process (Mearns, 2006). One of the main challengesfor the person-centered therapist is not to be relationally negated by those processes. Instead,the therapist meets the person engaged in these processes, actively values them and relateswith them, and is as responsively empathic as when the client is manifesting other qualities.The impact of this upon the client is striking — the very strategies they used to protect themfrom relationship are themselves being encountered in relationship. That confrontation can

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be so existentially significant for hard-to-reach clients that it opens doors to deeper levels ofself-experiencing and self-expression.

Struggling to meet the different parts of the client

The second main challenge for the person-centered therapist seeking to establish dialogue atan existential level with their client is the struggle to meet the parts of the client that may havecome to personify different facets of the conflict and to offer relational depth to all, eventhose who might seek to destroy the therapy or the therapist. Like many psychotherapeutictheories, person-centered therapy has developed its own understanding of self-pluralism(Cooper, Mearns, Stiles, Warner, & Elliott, 2004). It is interesting to see this same kind ofdevelopment coming from many different parts of the profession, yielding broadly similarconcepts such as the person-centered notion of configurations (Mearns & Thorne, 2000) butalso, from other traditions, voices (Hermans & Kempen, 1993), subpersonalities (Rowan,1990), ego states (Berne, 1966) and others.

The growth of conflict within the self leading to the possibility of change is described byCarl Rogers in terms of his concept of actualization. In his 1959 revision of his PersonalityTheory (Rogers, 1959), he spoke about the conflict that arose between the self as it hasactualized to this point and the continuing promptings of the actualizing tendency. For example,the action of the actualizing tendency will have prompted the client to achieve the bestbalance they could between their own enhancement and meeting the conditions of worthimposed upon them. However, while obtaining that resolution will have seemed like anenormous achievement of survival for the client, the promptings of the actualizing tendencydo not cease with the winning of that apparent stasis. Having survived childhood conditionsof worth, the adult now finds themselves in renewed conflict under the challenge of implicitexistential questions such as Is this all there is to my life? Is surviving all I can do? Must Icontinue to be fearful in relationships?

A more generic concept than actualization for examining this process is Leon Festinger’sfifty-year-old concept of dissonance (Festinger, 1957). Most clients come into therapy becausethe dissonance within their self has reached an intolerable level. In terms of a pluralistconception of the self, the conflict between and among the parts has increased to an extentthat the family of the parts is in potential breakdown. In so far as psychotherapy hears all thevoices more fully and also (hopefully) equally, therapy initially tends to increase that dissonance,albeit in a well-supported context. Dissonance is uncomfortable but it is also a secondarymotivation for change and development. This is one of the reasons why psychotherapy is apolitically radical process. Unlike symptom-reduction treatments it brings dissonant processto the fore and does not reinforce stasis.

Within the person-centered system, where we are seeking to achieve the kind of dialogueat a profound existential level described in our previous paper (Schmid & Mearns, 2006), thechallenge to the therapist is to enter the client’s dissonance system and find ways to meet thedifferent parts that have developed to house the various imperatives within that system. So,the person-centered therapist is challenged to meet “Dominic the drunk” as equally as “sober

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Dominic” even although “Dominic the drunk” is extremely wary of relationship because ofits potential to challenge his imperative of restricting Dominic’s further actualization. As wellas Bobby’s self-protective processes already described, he had two main configurations: sadme and frightened me. The challenge of encountering sad me was the pure depth of thatsadness. Interestingly, one of the powerful therapeutic experiences for Bobby was his therapistbeing able to meet his frightened part without, in turn, feeling fear (Schmid & Mearns,2006). This simultaneously increased Bobby’s own fear but also raised his hope. Existentially,fear and hope are often two faces of the same coin.

All the time, while struggling to work within the client’s dissonance system and formtherapeutic relationships at depth with all the parts, the person-centered therapist is aware thatthere are different ways in which the massive dissonance may be reduced. All systems ofpsychotherapy, including person-centered therapy, tend to hold to the hope that the result ofour therapeutic work will be that the dissonance will tend to be reduced by the client’s changingin a growthful direction. However, there are no such guarantees — dissonance can also bereduced by the client’s beating a retreat to an earlier point of stasis and balancing the movementwith a strident negation of the therapy process and the therapist. Such is the radical politics ofpsychotherapy that we cannot and should not seek to control the client’s outcomes.

CRITERIA FOR PERSON-CENTERED CONFRONTATION ANDDIALOGUE

As outlined at the end of the previous paper (Schmid & Mearns, 2006) we need criteria todetermine when confrontation, disclosure of personal resonance and dialogue are person-centered and when they are not. This is necessary not only in order to correctly understandwhat is meant by these terms but also important in order to have a guideline to check foroneself and to be able to discriminate between one’s own need for encounter and the client’s(maybe tacit) invitation to enter an encounter relationship in therapy.

What confrontation and dialogue are not

As a matter of course, confrontation and dialogue have nothing to do with expert behavior suchas “the way I see it is more correct than the way you see it.” They are also different from “youcould/should go in this or that direction with your further exploration of your experiencing.”They do not intend process direction or process guidance. Furthermore they are definitely not forthe satisfaction of the needs of the therapist stemming from outside the therapeutic relationship.They have nothing to do with diagnosis. They must not be mixed up with blaming, reproaching,insinuating or attacking the client’s self-protection (“resistance” or “defence”; Rogers, 1971, pp.277–278). And not at all have they to do with rude or insensitive behavior.

It seems particularly necessary to emphasize that confrontation and dialogue are alsosubstantially different from so-called self-disclosure (Carkhuff, 1969) — at least in its common,widespread meaning and use, or better: excuse, where it is often mixed up with the idea that

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everything the therapist says or does can be justified by the idea of congruence. This is aconfusion of congruence with thoughtlessness, lack of empathy, self-portrayal and self-performance, selfishness or even coarseness and misuse.

Devoting one’s awareness to the service of the Other: Criteria for working atrelational depth

The overall criterion is: Whatever the therapist does should be towards the assistance andfacilitation of the client. This means that the therapist is devoting their whole awareness to theservice of the Other. This includes the awareness of self and relationship, the whole consciousness.The general criterion is defined in terms of a number of sub-criteria as follows:

ExistentialityOn an encounter level client and therapist are touching and are being touched. Existentialitydenotes a personal quality which has to do with significant experiences and their interpretations.Dialogue can never be made or produced (see also Barrett-Lennard, 2003, chapter 5); itevolves out of being touched on a personal level and the willingness to share this.

Freedom of choiceThe therapist has the freedom to choose the level of their relationship to the client within thepossible spectrum. They are free to choose the existential level or a more presentational one(see Mearns, 1996, p. 308; cf. Schneider & May, 1995). They are not forced to bring themselvesinto play; they deliberately can decide. The therapist has more than one option to continue.Although the moment of being touched is never chosen purposefully, the way to proceed inthe encounter relationship happens with full consideration.

ImmediacyEncounter is just the opposite of preconceived techniques, methods and trained skills. Truedialogue happens im-media-tely, without media or means. As dialogue is a process, immediacyis a process, too, as Martin Buber (1923, p. 19) states: “Immediacy is born through the factthat all ‘media’ that separate us ‘decay’, become unnecessary, surplus.” (See Schmid, 1994,2002.) (Apropos true dialogue: at the encounter level, at existential depth a person cannotlie; see Mearns & Cooper, 2005.)

Relationship-centerednessCommunication in an encounter relationship always more or less explicitly says somethingabout the relationship between those involved. In a communication of this quality the therapistalways also communicates — explicitly or implicitly — about how they see their relationshipwith the client. For example, this can be their personal feeling towards the client that isstirred up by the client’s expressions or their personal acknowledgment of the person of theclient, or their deep empathic understanding of the client by referring to a comparableexperience of themselves etc.

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MutualityThe therapist’s communication allows that a mutual exchange can occur, if the client chooses toenter this mode. What the therapist utters shows that it is an invitation (not an obligation) torespond on the same level. Here it is where true dialogue can commence, if the client desires.

Openness to riskIn the encounter mode there is always a risk (of being touched, surprised, hurt, loved, etc.).Like every personal relationship, psychotherapy at the level of relational depth includes thedanger of being misunderstood, hurt, rejected or ignored. This goes for the therapist, butalso for the client.

SpontaneityEncounter and dialogue happen without calculated intention, they are never “in order to”;they can never be used. They are characterized by a principled non-directiveness or to nameit in a positive way, by a facilitative responsiveness (Schmid, 2005). They are answers to givensituations. They rest on the belief that it is always the very moment that is the source ofchange, development and decision (making up the “kairotic quality” of encounter; Schmid,1994, 2003).

Addressing all parts of the selfMeeting at relational depth means to encounter and address all visible and sensed parts of theother person, although usually not at the same time (see above).

Co-reflectivenessSince we are talking about personal rather than naïve encounter (Schmid, 2004), therelationship includes the joint reflection of the relationship. Thus co-reflection (ormetacommunication or metadialogue) is an essential part of dialogue. This means to viewthe dialogue from within the dialogue: therapist and client reflect their relationship.

QualityThe criterion for whether something is personal confrontation or dialogue is not a matter ofintensity. The difference is qualitative rather than quantitative. Confrontation and dialoguecan be very unspectacular. To encounter a client, to meet them at relational depth, means totouch the client in(side) their experiencing as opposed to an approach from the outside (seeMearns, 1996, p. 309).

ContextualityThe phenomena and processes we talk about, although precious and maybe rare for a lot ofpeople, happen within the world, not outside of it. It is extremely important to be aware ofthe context. Personal words may have a specific meaning to a specific client and/or in aspecific situation. This implies being aware of who else is listening or involved. For example,it is very important in groups to be conscious of the fact that the person addressed by a

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statement may well understand it as it was meant and another person, listening and seeminglynot involved, can be hurt or can take it the wrong way. To be aware of the context also means tobe attentive to the client’s relational life outside therapy and to the wider socio-economic andcultural context of the enterprise and microcosm of therapy itself (see Barrett-Lennard, 2005).

Awareness of powerLast but not least, dealing carefully with the power issue involved is an unrenounceableethical task for therapeutic confrontation and dialogue. Particularly when at the level ofencounter, clients are vulnerable and may be misused. The therapist must keep in mind thatpsychotherapy is for the client and therefore always carefully reflect on the relationship — inthe relationship itself, as just mentioned (partly together with the client) and outside therelationship (most commonly in supervision). If the therapist fails to do so, they mightconfuse interest with curiosity, being touched with self-therapy, confrontation with correction,sharing with advice, in a word: encounter with abuse.

THE DEVELOPMENTAL AGENDA FOR THE PERSON-CENTEREDTHERAPIST

How do person-centered therapists meet these challenges? What is it that makes a therapistthe kind of person with whom a client — any client — would be prepared to risk anengagement at relational depth where they would enter these areas experienced as fundamentalto their existence? The answer we have been developing is that such a therapist is someonewho is not trapped into relating only at the presentational level of self but can respond to theclient from their own depths. They can offer empathic resonance and also personal resonance.They can be both receptive and expressive: they can take people in and they can reach out topeople. In both these activities they are not deterred by clients’ various systems of self-protection.They honor these, but they do not collude with them. They can receive a wide range ofothers — the client who is incredibly fragile (Warner, 2000), another who protects himselfby seeking to put down the other (e.g. Bobby), and even clients who have essentially retreatedfrom the world (e.g. Rick in chapter 6 of Mearns & Cooper, 2005). As well as being able toreceive, this therapist can also reach out to the other. In reaching out they are not deterred byfear — fear of the other; fear of how they are seen; fear of getting it wrong; fear of losingthemselves. They are utterly committed to congruence — to being transparent as well as self-aware — to show the other what is going on in the therapist; why they are trying; and thefeelings they are experiencing in the act of trying. In all of this, the aim is to offer somethingtruly different to the client, something that the client might begin to accept as moments ofrelational depth and, as these moments add up, accept in terms of the continuing relationshipwhere they can more easily dip into material from the depths of their self-experiencingwhether that material is already symbolized or is at the dimmest edge of awareness.

How can we help therapists to become this kind of person? Certainly, we cannot do it bygiving them a manual of interventions, treatment plans and therapeutic tools. The endeavor

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is so firmly tied to who the therapist is as a person — their personal awareness and security —that it is their self that must be the developmental agenda. We want the therapist to be able touse their self fully, in the sense of personal resonance, with their clients. Furthermore, we wantthem to be able to do this with a wide range of clients, including many that will be hard toreach for a variety of reasons. So, the self of the therapist that is likely to achieve this is onethat has both breadth and depth and is accessible to being used by the therapist in thetherapeutic endeavor. Many human beings have a considerable breadth and depth of self-experiences and self-configurations, but these are not necessarily safe places. The developmentalagenda for the therapist is discovering these self-experiences and configurations, graduallyintegrating them in the sense of overcoming the fear that may initially be associated withthem and coming to accept them as actual or potential strengths that may offer breadth anddepth in relationship with clients.

This developmental agenda may challenge the person-centered therapist to integratethe different configurations within their own self so that these become accessible for usewithin the therapy room. So, a therapist in their early development might readily employtheir confident part, but can they also come to accept their diffident part to the extent that itcan potentially be useful in some therapeutic encounters? Many clients will find easy uses for“confident” but there will be some that at times can also benefit from an engagement with“diffident”. Similarly, a therapist will readily find that her “grown-up woman” is a majorplayer in the therapy room but are there also times when her “little girl” is useful too —perhaps for the particular acuity she has for parts of the client that struggle to be grown-up?

It is not only full-blown configurations of self that add to the breadth and depth thetherapist can offer the client. Each therapist will have a range of self-experiences that potentiallycan become what we call existential touchstones (Mearns & Cooper, 2005) that can be used tomeet clients. The interesting feature of existential touchstones is that some of them may starttheir life as negative or even damaging experiences for us, but with the process of self-acceptancethey become integrated and offer us powerful aspects of our self to use as bridges into theexperiencing of our client. For example, a therapist’s earlier intense experience of powerlessnessin the face of abuse would not obviously be regarded as a potential strength for her as atherapist. Nor would it be a strength while she was still racked by fear or anger from theexperience. But if her development takes her to a point beyond that fear or anger then she haswon a potential touchstone that could broaden as well as deepen what she can offer as atherapist. That self-experience of fear or anger could now be a part of her self she can enter asa bridge into her client’s experience of fear or anger. It is not the same as her client’s experiencingbut it is in the direction of the client’s experiencing — it has the same flavor. By this meansthe therapist can more fully enter her client’s world and offer a powerful depth of relating.This phenomenon is qualitatively different from the exercises of projective identification (Rowan& Jacobs, 2002, pp. 41–46) or cognitive social perspective taking as challenged by Binder(1998, pp. 219–220) where there is an effort to imagine the world of the other but it is apurely cognitive reach rather than an affective/cognitive one. This personal resonance — actuallygoing into different aspects of our sense of our own existence as stepping-off points into ourclient’s experiencing — might seem dangerous to those who are concerned about losing the

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as if quality of empathy and getting lost in their own self-experiencing. In fact this is the kindof worry that evaporates in the reality of the events. What does “getting lost” actually mean?If it means finding our own tear for ourselves and that being shared with our client whileacknowledged as our own, then that can be a most powerful moment in relationship.

The developmental challenge to the therapist is to convert earlier self-experiences, many ofwhich would initially have been difficult, into aspects of their self that actually strengthen theirspirit and broaden the self they have to offer their clients. In person-centered language we talkabout this in terms of increasing self-acceptance. Many self-experiences detract from our relationalfunctioning perhaps because we feel bad about ourselves in relation to them or we have doubtsor even fears about ourselves in relation to them. The gradual process of self-acceptance duringthe person-centered therapist’s development reviews and re-evaluates these self-experiences,gradually removing the fear and doubt and obtaining a realistic appraisal of the self.

Initial training in person-centered therapy faces this self-acceptance agenda, creating anintense relational environment where trainees find themselves encountering each other in aclimate of shared learning. Gradually, self-doubt is challenged by the review of old self-experiences and by new self-experiences reinforced through the challenge and feedback fromothers. By this process the intrinsic negativity is chipped away under the challenge of realitytesting and replaced by a growing self-acceptance. But initial training is only the beginning ofthe developmental process for the therapist. That development goes on, ideally supported bycontinuing supervision. Such developmentally oriented supervision is qualitatively differentfrom casework supervision. Instead of the primary focus being on the client, it is on thetherapist and their ongoing development (Lambers, 2006).

So many of the clients we meet have become damaged in relationships or by the loss ofrelationship. So much of our poetry, our music, our drama and our literature is grounded inthe centrality of relationship. Yet we have an ambivalence towards our use of relationship inpsychotherapy — we sense its value but we also worry about how we can be professional inour use of relationship. That ambivalence is what we have been seeking to challenge in thisand our previous paper. Rather than allowing our practice to become ever more relationallydetached and reliant on observations, analyses and techniques, might we take up the challengeand explore how we could more fully harness the power of human relationship whilesimultaneously laying down the ethics for its professionalism?

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Lambers (Eds.), Person-centred therapy: A European perspective (pp. 216–230). London: Sage.Buber, M. (1923). Ich und Du. Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 8th ed. 1974; orig. 1923.Carkhuff, R. (1969). Helping and human relations: A primer for lay and professional helpers. New

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Thorne, Person-centred therapy today: New frontiers in theory and practice (pp. 196–211). London: Sage.Lambers, E. (2006). Supervising the humanity of the therapist. Person-Centered and Experiential

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Rogers, C. R. (1971). On facilitating encounter groups. The American Journal of Nursing, 71, 275–279.Rowan, J. (1990). Subpersonalities: The people inside us. London: Routledge.Rowan, J. & Jacobs, M. (2002). The therapist’s use of self. Buckingham: Open University Press.Schmid, P. F. (1994). Personzentrierte Gruppenpsychotherapie: Ein Handbuch. Vol. I: Solidarität und

Autonomie. Cologne, Germany: Edition Humanistische Psychologie.Schmid, P. F. (2002). Presence: Im-media-te co-experiencing and co-responding. Phenomenological,

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Schmid, P. F. (2003). The characteristics of a person-centered approach to therapy and counseling:Criteria for identity and coherence. Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, 2, 104–120.

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Schmid, P. F. (2005). Facilitative responsiveness: Non-directiveness from an anthropological,epistemological and ethical perspective. In B. Levitt (Ed.), Embracing non-directivity: Reassessingperson-centred theory and practice in the 21st century (pp. 74–94). Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

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