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The Challenge of the Other: Towardsdialogical person-centered psychotherapyand counseling / Die Herausforderungdurch den Anderen: Auf dem Weg zueiner dialogischen PersonzentriertenPsychotherapie und Beratung / El desafíodel Otro: Hacia una psicoterapia dialógicacentrada en la persona / Le défi de l'Autre:Vers une approche dialogique de lapsychothérapie et du counselling centrés surla personnePeter F. Schmid a b ca Sigmund Freud University, Viennab Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Franciscoc Institute for Person-Centered Studies, Vienna

Version of record first published: 11 Aug 2011.

To cite this article: Peter F. Schmid (2006): The Challenge of the Other: Towards dialogical person-centeredpsychotherapy and counseling / Die Herausforderung durch den Anderen: Auf dem Weg zu einer dialogischenPersonzentrierten Psychotherapie und Beratung / El desafío del Otro: Hacia una psicoterapia dialógicacentrada en la persona / Le défi de l'Autre: Vers une approche dialogique de la psychothérapie et ducounselling centrés sur la personne, Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 5:4, 240-254

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

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© Schmid 1477-9757/06/04240-15

Peter F. SchmidSigmund Freud University, Vienna

Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San FranciscoInstitute for Person-Centered Studies, Vienna

The Challenge of the Other:Towards dialogical person-centered

psychotherapy and counselingDie Herausforderung durch den Anderen: Auf dem Weg zu einer dialogischen

Personzentrierten Psychotherapie und BeratungEl desafío del Otro: Hacia una psicoterapia dialógica

centrada en la personaLe défi de l’Autre : Vers une approche dialogique de la psychothérapie

et du counselling centrés sur la personne

Author note. Revised version of an invited paper presented at the Conference on Relational Depth to Honor theWork of Professor Dave Mearns, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, May, 2006.Address correspondence to Peter F. Schmid, A-1120 Vienna, Koflergasse 4, Austria. Email: <pfs@pfs-online.at>.

Abstract. How can we understand an other person? If we try to understand the other person from one’sown perspective we finally end up at something we know already (this is termed “epistemology of thesame”). The opposite way is to be receptive to what the other shows and wants to beunderstood (constituting a Thou–I relationship and an “epistemology of transcendence”). This is possibleonly when acknowledging both the fundamental commonality (“We”) and the fundamental alterity(“Other”). For the person-centered therapist this means facing the challenge of the otherness of theOther, to be called to respond existentially to the existential disclosure of a person in the very moment ofmeeting. A phenomenological exploration of intersubjectivity in therapy leads to a “pro-vocative”understanding of dialogue as primary occurrence. Dialogue is not a consequence but an — essentiallyasymmetric — precondition of a person to person or encounter relationship. The task is to realize thedialogical quality in the relationship to each client as the constitutive basis for psychotherapy.

Zusammenfassung. Wie können wir eine andere Person verstehen? Wenn wir den anderen aus unserereigenen Perspektive heraus zu verstehen versuchen, landen wir letztlich bei etwas, das wir bereits wissen(das wird als „Epistemologie des Selben” bezeichnet). Der entgegengesetzte Weg ist, dafür empfänglichzu sein, was der andere zeigt und worin er verstanden werden will (was eine Du-Ich-Beziehung und eine„Epistemologie der Transzendenz” konstituiert). Das ist nur möglich, wenn man gleichzeitig dasfundamental Gemeinsame („Wir”) und die fundamentale Verschiedenheit („der Andere”) anerkennt.

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Für den Personzentrierten Therapeuten und die Therapeutin bedeutet das, sich der Herausforderungdes Andersseins des Anderen zu stellen, aufgerufen zu sein, auf das existenzielle Sich-Öffnen einer Personim Augenblick der Begegnung existenziell zu antworten. Eine phänomenologische Untersuchung derIntersubjektivität in der Therapie führt zu einem „pro-vokativen” Verstehen von Dialog als primäremGeschehen. Dialog ist nicht eine Konsequenz aus der Beziehung, sondern eine — grundsätzlichasymmetrische — Vorbedingung einer Beziehung von Person zu Person bzw. einer Begegnung. DieAufgabe ist, die dialogische Qualität in der Beziehung mit jedem Klienten und jeder Klientin alskonstitutives Element der Psychotherapie zu begreifen.

Resumen. ¿Cómo podemos comprender a otra persona? En oposición a la epistemología de lo mismo (unateoría de la cognición que razona desde el Yo al Tú) la epistemología de la trascendencia (¿cómo es que elOtro nos hace comprender y saber?) se abre hacia la revelación del Otro (que constituye una relación Tú–Yo). Esto es posible solo cuando se reconoce tanto la comunión fundamental (“Nosotros”) como laalteridad fundamental (“Otro”). Para el terapeuta centrado en la persona esto significa enfrentarse aldesafío de la otredad del Otro, a ser llamado a responder existencialmente a la revelación existencial deuna persona en el mismo momento de encontrarse. Una exploración fenomenológica de la intersubjetividaden la terapia lleva a una comprensión “pro-vocativa” del diálogo como ocurrencia. El diálogo no es unaconsecuencia sino una precondición — esencialmente asimétrica — de una relación persona a persona ode encuentro. La tarea es concretar la cualidad dialógica en la relación con cada consultante, el fundamentoconstitutivo de la psicoterapia.

Résumé. Comment comprendre l’autre? Si nous essayons de comprendre l’autre à partir de notre proprecadre de référence, nous arrivons à quelque chose qui nous est familier (cela s’appelle “l’épistémologie dumême”). L’autre manière de comprendre l’autre est de se rendre réceptif à ce qu’il manifeste et souhaitecommuniquer (ce qui constitue une relation “Toi–Moi” et une “épistémologie de transcendance”). Pourcela, il est nécessaire de reconnaître à la fois une communauté fondamentale (“Nous”) et une altéritéfondamentale (“l’Autre”). Le moyen de faire face au défi de l’altérité de l’Autre demande au thérapeutecentré sur la personne de répondre sur le plan existentiel à partir duquel la personne s’ouvre et se révèle dans“l’ici et maintenant” de la rencontre. Une exploration phénoménologique de l’intersubjectivité dans lathérapie conduit à une compréhension “pro-vocative” du dialogue en tant qu’évènement primaire. Ledialogue n’est pas une conséquence, mais une pré-condition essentiellement assymétrique dans la rencontrede personne à personne. Pour le thérapeute, “dès le début” de la relation avec le client, le dialogique représentela tâche inhérente à toute psychothérapie.

Key words: Dialogue, alterity, epistemology of transcendence, Thou–I relationship, intersubjectivity,encounter, co-presence

ALTERITY: THE NEED FOR A GENUINELY PERSON-CENTEREDEPISTEMOLOGY

The coconut trap

Certain species of monkeys — most of the Asian monkeys living on the ground — can easilyget trapped in the coconut or monkey trap and other species — particularly those living ontrees — cannot.

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The South Asian coconut trap works as follows. A coconut is hollowed out and attachedby a rope to a tree or stake in the ground. A small slit is made into the coconut and somesweet food is placed inside, something the monkeys cannot resist. The hole in the coconut isjust big enough for the monkey to slide in its open hand, but it does not allow a closed fist tobe passed out. The monkey smells the food and reaches in with his hand to grasp the desiredobject. In trying to get hold of it the animal forms its hand into a prehensile hand. With theclenched fist around the sweet the monkey is unable to withdraw the hand, because it doesnot pass through the opening. When the hunters come, the monkey becomes frantic butcannot get away. There is no one keeping that monkey captive, except the force of its ownattachment. All it would have to do is to open the hand. But so strong is the force of greed inthe mind that the monkey cannot let go — it must have the delicacy — and now the delicacyhas the monkey.

The tree monkeys, our ancestors, however, cannot be caught in the coconut trap. Theyare able to let go — not in order to forget but in order to better grasp, perhaps by using a tool(see Slunecko, 2000; Nikaya, n.d.).

Evolutionary biologists distinguish the two types of monkeys. The evolution to thehuman hand is the evolution from a prehensile hand to the ap-prehending and com-prehendinghuman being — yet still well able to remain stuck to delicacies, desired objects and ideas ofall kinds. It is the desires and clinging in our minds that so often keep us trapped.

To let go in order to better grasp is an evolutionary achievement. All we need to do is toopen our hands, let go of ourselves and our attachments. The second grasp is the preconditionfor development, for trying something new instead of repeating old procedures over and overagain. It is the precondition for human evolution, for knowledge and scientific development.To let go of customs, habits, traditions and well-established procedures and ways of life.

It means not to be trapped by our desire to understand, for instance. Usually our desireto understand leads us to try to classify and categorize new things by comparing them withold ones and noticing the difference, which means reducing the new to something old witha slight variation. When a group of tourists goes by bus from the airport to their hotel in aforeign country, it is very likely that somebody looking out the window remarks, for example:“This is like at home, except that we do not have palm trees.” We are bound to experiencesand fixed to traditional ways, so we grasp the new by grasping at the old, the unfamiliar bythe familiar, the strange by the well known, the Not-I by the I — and thus remain in the trap.

In order to be able to really understand we must let go. We need to see the other — be ita thing, be it a person — as a strange one, something or somebody that cannot be grasped, if wewant to understand them. We must let go if we want to approach. We must face the essentialalterity, the fundamental Not-I. We must let go of the same to find the other in the Other.

While this is true for all relationships, in this paper I focus on the therapeuticrelationship. Accordingly I invite the reader to let go of their familiar notion of psychotherapyand counseling and risk a second grip. In this paper I am going to attempt to investigatephenomenologically in what way therapy is dialogue by examining the nature and meaningof dialogue.

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The trap of the same

In his keynote address to the Person-Centered and Experiential World Conference in Egmondaan Zee Dave Mearns (2003) demanded a “new epistemology” for person-centered therapy.Indeed, for the therapeutic enterprise we need the readiness to undertake new ventures that leadus beyond the trap of the same. This paper is a further attempt towards such a genuinelyperson-centered epistemology (i.e. how we perceive and understand each other and how wegain knowledge). It is part of my ongoing attempt to grasp, let go and grasp anew, thus morefully exploring the foundations of the person-centered enterprise and advancing its theory further.

What we experience becomes our experience and our knowledge — regardless of whatit is that we experience: what we see, hear, feel, sense; our awareness, perception, self-reflection,action and contemplation, objectification, identification, empathy, whatever. (For example,when we experience another person, this experience influences us, our way of perceiving,thinking and feeling; the relationship to this person becomes part of ourselves.) All this is thecogito of Descartes which finally makes the unity of our ego. In all this we bring the objects ofour cogito in, into ourselves. Thus knowledge always has the ambivalence of the other and theself. Knowledge, informed by experience, brings the exterior, the other, that which we thinkabout into the immanence and makes it part of ourselves (see Levinas, 1989, p. 65f).Consequently, we finally learn only what we in a way already know and can fit into our bodyof knowledge from where we can retrieve it and make it present. In a way we ultimately askquestions whose answers we already know.

All such learning is like grabbing. With this grasp we take possession of the worldoutside of us, we seize it. In ap-prehend-ing and com-prehend-ing we approach (“ad/ap-”)something to take it in, to embrace and include (“cum/com-”) it. (The underlying meaningof “to get” in “to apprehend” and “to comprehend” becomes clear by taking into account theLatin meaning of the noun “apprehensio” = “understanding, comprehension” deriving from“prehendere” = “to seize, to get”. The meanings of the prefixes are = “towards (ad)” and “with(cum)” [Hoad, 1986]. Compare the term “prehensile hand”.)

In taking and apprehending we come to terms, we form a concept, a conception (inGerman: “wir bringen auf den Be-griff, was wir ergreifen, worauf wir Zu-griff haben”).“Concept” also comes from “to take” (deriving from the Latin “concipere” which is “cum”and “capere”, i.e. “to take, to grasp, to comprehend”): what we comprehend is what we take— with all the risk of being trapped. So we come to terms. “Term” originates from the Latin“terminus” with the meaning “boundary stone, finishing post, finish”: terms have to do withlimits. If we come to terms, we set limits.

Apprehending, comprehending is a possessive action: we overcome the difference andmake the other a part of our own, we take it in thus making it known and owned. Synthesisand synopsis become stronger than dispersion. Harmony and cohesion become moreimportant than diversity and variety.

With getting hold of, we get trapped in the “coconut trap of understanding”: in the trapof the same.

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The epistemology of transcendence

Actually, however, in encountering and facing something unknown we have a choice: eitherto start from what we know and can or from what we do not know and cannot. (“Can” and“know” originally belong together, deriving from the Indo-German root “gn”; for details seeSchmid, 2005, p. 13).

This is illustrated by Emmanuel Levinas’ (1963, pp. 215–216) favorite metaphor for thetwo different etymologies. I repeatedly refer to Levinas, because I have been finding his thinkingmost inspiring in re-thinking the nature of psychotherapy and re-understanding it. He helpedme to gain a fresh look at what we do in therapy. I do not intend to interpret him and do notclaim that my understanding of person-centered therapy (PCT) is an application of hisphilosophy. The metaphor refers to the difference between Abraham, who started his journeyto an unknown country without expecting to return, and Ulysses, who made every effort toreturn at the end to his starting point. Levinas (1959) spoke about the task of a movementwithout return, pulling down the bridges behind, into an other, an unknown future. He nevertired of insisting on this new philosophy. Instead of Ithaka (Ulysses’ hometown) as a symbol ofhomecoming, of returning to what we know, he demanded a philosophy of getting ready to setoff (see Vergauwen, 1993, p. 296; Schmid, 1994, pp. 136–155).

If we start from the body of knowledge we already have, we are captured in the totality,as the order of the whole is called by Levinas. In it the individual is measured by theirperformance for the whole thus doing violence to them. The perspective is to assess theindividual with regard to a closed system of thinking. The radical opposite is infinity — thetranscendence of the totalitarian status quo (Levinas, 1961). As the opposite of the totalitywith its boundaries, “in-finity” is without boundaries, limits, purposes, finishing posts.

This requires completely changing perspective and beginning the movement of thinkingat the other instead of the same, at the Not-I instead of the I. Only if the other, be it a thing, beit a person, is perceived in its or their otherness, does it become possible that this otherness isshown without being assimilated or absorbed into the already known. We need not to includebut to distance the Other, not to comprehend but to alienate, not to grasp but to let go.

Then the new must not be understood by the old; the other one must not be understoodby the same. The Other must not be viewed like a text by its context, like an individual by thegroup they belong to, but as themselves. The challenge is to let them disclose themselves.Levinas calls this a visitation (i.e. going to see someone; see Schmid 2002b, p. 62): the Otheris coming towards me. This requires abstention from analyses, explanations, interpretationsand questions about the Other, even from questions towards the Other. It demands listeningas a person, it demands opening up to be touched. In Levinas’ (1959) words: the “visage”, the“face” is addressing us. The face has the word. We are called to listen.

If we take the otherness of the Other seriously, it is not Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum (I thinkand therefore I am)”, it is rather “videor, conspicior, tangor ergo sum (I am seen, looked at, I amaddressed, touched, welcomed, therefore I am)”. This is the leap from I–Thou to Thou–I(Schmid, 1994, pp. 143–144; 2003): The starting point of relationship and understanding isnot me, looking at the other person; rather it is the disclosure of the Other.

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This change of perspective marks a fundamental being-dependent-on-each-other, havingto rely on each other. It indicates an existential nearness which reminds us of a basic togetherness,a fundamental We (Schmid, 2003). The proverb What we have in common is that we are alldifferent from each other correctly expresses this dialectic of essential togetherness and essentialseparateness, commonality and diversity.

As a consequence of the paradigm change from egology (to see, apprehend andcomprehend everything from my point of view) to alterity, as opposed to the epistemology ofthe cogito, of “grabbing”, the appropriate way to understand, to come to know, rests on theepistemology of transcendence. As opposed to understanding oneself by oneself, this is theepistemology of dialogue.

Dialogue: The occurrence of the original We

Accordingly, the word “dialogue” means “mutual conversation, interchange in talking,discourse” (stemming from the Greek “δια−λεγειν [dialegein]”, i.e. “to put something apartby thinking it over”, the verb “λεγειν” means “to pick up, gather, collect; talk, speak”). Andso, traditionally and commonly, dialogue is defined as human conversation face to face,mutual exchange, statement and objection, message and contradiction, question and reply.And it is thought to be the expression of the category of symmetry and equality.

I and Thou: Dialogue as the unfolding of interpersonality

But dialogue is much more than a meeting of the one with the other, more than interchange,as a closer look to the philosophers of dialogue (or encounter philosophers or personalisticphilosophers) and foremost their radical advocate, Emmanuel Levinas, shows. Buber, Ebner,Rosenzweig and others called their approach “new dialogical thinking”. This stance is opposedto the philosophy of the unity of the ego or the system, to self-contendedness or immanence(Levinas, 1989, p. 64).

For Martin Buber (1974, 1982, 1984), who discerned between genuine dialogue (eachof the partners really addresses the other partner in their being and aims at mutuality),technical dialogue (as a variant of I–It in order to come to a functional agreement), and thedisguised, masked or covered dialogue (where each of two or three people in a strange waytalk with themselves without noticing it), dialogue is what follows from interpersonality:“The sphere of the interpersonal is the opposite-to-each-other; its unfolding is what we calldialogue” (Buber, 1982, pp. 275–276). Its significance is not in the one and not in the otherpartner and not in both together, but in their exchange. On the one hand, dialogue keeps theabsolute distance between the Thou and the I thus preserving the uniqueness of both; on theother hand, the “dia”, the “between” goes beyond the distance without removing it. Dialoguepreserves diversity and transcends it. It is distance and intimacy. It is not a synthesis, notThou and I: there is no “and” between them, they are not an assembled or composed unity,as a result of joining.

Dialogue is an ontological category. According to Buber, the dialogical is to be seen

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opposite to the psychological, radically attacking psychologism (see Friedman, 1985). Truedialogue is not transmission of information; it is participation in the being of the other whichis only possible if it includes metacommunication (see Rennie, 2006), i.e. mutual reflectionof the communication.

Thou and I: Dialogue as a primary occurrence

Emmanuel Levinas went a crucial step further. He was heavily influenced by Franz Rosenzweig’sDer Stern der Erlösung (The Star of Redemption) (1988) and his program of the transitionfrom conversation with oneself, from monologue, to dialogue face to face. Accordingly,Levinas emphasized that dialogue is not simply abstention from violence towards each othernor is it merely understanding each other, expressing mutual empathy. Dialogue, rather, isthe place where transcendence happens. “To transcend” literally means “to make a step beyond”— beyond the finishing post of coming to terms, of resigning oneself to the limits, to theobvious, to the traps of understanding.

Dialogue is a step beyond the thinking of the one and the other. Dialogue is not theexperience of a meeting of persons talking with each other (Levinas, 1989, p. 72). It is not aconsequence of knowledge; the cogito is not prior to dialogue. In contrast to the cogito — thatthinks according to its own measure, that takes, apprehends the object — dialogue is oforiginal im-media-cy, is not media-ted.

Buber (1974) emphasized that the I–Thou is a “primary word”. To address anotherperson as Thou and thus enter dialogue is not dependent on a previous experience of theother nor derives this “Thou” from an experience. Dialogue is not a consequence of anexperience, not the cognition, the discovery of sociality. On the contrary, dialogue is anoriginal, primary occurrence. As Levinas (1989, pp. 73–77) puts it, it is the interpersonalrelationship, “the original sociality” that occurs in dialogue; it is original humanity to endorseMearns’ (2006) notion of and plea for humanity. It is encounter — and encounter isqualitatively different from “having” an experience (see Schmid, 1994, 1998b).

I-for-Thou: Dialogue is essentially asymmetric

So far Levinas is in line with Buber. But in his view, dialogue is not a circularity of I and Thou(as he expresses his criticism of Buber’s philosophy). Such is dialogue that it is not aboutsymmetry, as stressed by Buber, but dissymmetry in the relationship. “It is precisely becausethe Thou is absolutely different from the I that there is — from the one to the other —dialogue” (Levinas, 1989, p. 76).

The fundamental We is not a symmetric We. It is asymmetric by nature. The Othercomes first. The Other calls me, the face of the Other addresses me; it is a pro-vocation, it“demands” (Levinas, 1963, p. 222). Therefore dialogue constitutes responsibility, solidarity,a commitment. The Thou calls the I into service. “The Other orders me to serve him”(Levinas, 1986, p. 74). Hence diacony (i.e. service) is not a result of dialogue; it is thefundamental essence of the human relationship.

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In the famous interview with Philippe Nemo, Levinas (1986, p. 75) explained theradically new notion of subject: “I am subjected to the Other” in the meaning of “I amsubjugated, I am submitted to the Other — what a challenging view for our Western worldof self-determination and yet what illuminating characterization of “sub-ject”! In beingsubjected I become a subject. Subjectivity is not I-for-Me (which would be merely substantial),subjectivity itself is relational, it is I-for-the-Other, I-for-Thou. Substantiality and relationalitycoincide, with relatedness being (at least developmentally speaking) the first. Hence, being aperson is not being-for-me but originally being-for-the-Other (Levinas, 1986, p. 168; Schmid,1994, p. 145). This is what distinguishes us as human beings.

Dialogical conversation is speaking for, in favor of the Other, interceding on someone’sbehalf (in German: “Sprache wird zur Fürsprache”; see Schmid, 1994, p. 146). Solidarity isnot a second-order category deriving from experience but a first-order category, a basic humancondition. It is the turn from mono-logue to dia-logue, from thinking about the other toaddressing the concrete fellow person out of the “dia”, the between. It is the willingness andreadiness to simply say: “Here I am.” In the radical language of Levinas, this is the willingnessto be a hostage. To express it in more familiar terms: to be for the other, not simply be withhim. Thus dialogue precedes freedom (Burggraeve, 1988). Consequently, the good is not atthe end of our efforts; it is at the beginning, it is the beginning, as the French Alain Finkielkraut(1987, p. 42) of the nouvelle philosophie puts it, meditating about “sagesse de l’amour”, thewisdom of love.

This asymmetrical relationship is the origin of ethics (Levinas, 1989, p. 78; on theconsequences for therapy as an ethical undertaking, see Schmid, 2002c, d). Ethics is not adeducted consequence of a principle: the person is the value in themselves. The I is constitutedby his or her responsibility to the call of the Other.

The human being is dialogue

To dialogue in order to understand the other person would mean to grasp in the coconut trap.We cannot grasp the other person. If we attempt to do so, we enter the “trap of understanding”— to put it precisely: the trap of seeming, of ostensible understanding, the trap of the self, ofthe same.

Therefore, to speak is not for the expression of my lonesome self; rather it is an occurrenceof transcendence and thus radically turns the usual order between self-consciousness anddialogue around: encounter in dialogue is the precondition for self-consciousness and self-confidence. To let this happen it is the responsibility of the I to part from the self and open upfor the Thou. Dialogue is the non-indifference of the I towards the Thou, or, to formulate itpositively, attention, care, unconditional positive regard. In other words, to put it in a nutshell:dialogue is an expression of love.

It is not the consequence of an insight or an action to be taken. Dialogue is a primaryfact in the human condition, an original occurrence. It follows: the human person is dialogue.This is more than a nicely put statement, because it places our understanding of our being inthe world and with each other on new ground: being in the world is being in dialogue. From

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a dialogical point of view, persons are not only seen as being in relationships — as personsthey are relationships (Schmid, 2004; Schmid & Mearns, 2006). They are dialogue. We justneed to let go to perceive. The same applies for psychotherapists and their clients.

CO-PRESENCE: THE ESSENTIAL DIALOGICAL NATURE OF THERAPY

It is particularly in therapy and counseling that we are confronted with the two essential andcontradictory phenomena of togetherness and separateness, the fundamental We and thefundamental Not-I, at one and the same time. We experience heartening comprehension,sympathy and interrelatedness and we experience an unbridgeable lack of understanding andexistential disconnectedness. It is diversity, the resistance of the Not-I, which is the challengeand the chance in any person-to-person relationship, all the more so in person-centeredrelationships. To face this challenge means to realize the dialogical situation of psychotherapy.

Various notions of dialogue in psychotherapy

Dialogue in psychotherapy is certainly not a new subject, as a glance into its conception invarious orientations shows. Besides a technical understanding (“dialogue as a means in orderto …”) and dialoguing as negotiating (as in systemic therapy) we find a wide range of moreor less existential meanings.

Hans Trüb, Ludwig Binswanger, Viktor von Weizsäcker, Rollo May, Irving Yalom, JamesBugental and many others from the domain of existential and humanistic therapies drewfrom Buber’s philosophy (for references and discussion see Schmid, 1994). Viktor Frankl(1978), founder of logotherapy, saw dialogue as a form of therapy, essential in the human’ssearch for meaning in their life.

In introducing a considerably different perspective as opposed to the traditional viewof the psychoanalytic relationship (and quite close to some humanistic positions)intersubjective psychoanalysts of different psychodynamic orientations (e.g. Otscheret &Braun, 2005) regard the interplay of the transference–countertransference liaison as adialogical one.

Buber left his traces mainly in dialogical psychotherapy. Its representatives explored themeaning of the “between” for “healing through meeting”. Maurice Freedman, Richard Hycner,James DeLeo, Reinhard Fuhr and Martina Gremmler-Fuhr (for references and discussionsee Schmid, 1994, pp. 169–171) contributed with their “psychotherapy of the interhuman”(Hycner, 1993) to value dialogue in psychotherapy. Its representatives did not want to founda separate therapeutic school but stressed that dialogue is a basic orientation for psychotherapyand aims at the enhanced relational ability of the client. In a catchy metaphor Hycner (1993)compared therapeutic encounter with a therapeutic dance (see also Mearns, 2000), stressingthat we are “apart and a part”. He criticized person-centered therapy, because it allegedlyviews dialogue only as an additional ingredient after encounter instead of an essentialfoundation of human existence and therefore an applied way of treatment itself. Friedman

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(1985), the moderator of the Rogers–Buber dialogue in 1957, saw dialogue as being possiblethrough confirmation in a Buberian sense, i.e. to unconditionally praise the uniqueness ofthe other which requires more than empathy — namely presence.

Quite a long time ago Rogers (e.g. 1962), with person-centered theoreticians andpractitioners, explicitly came to understand therapy and its necessary and sufficient conditionsin this interpersonal, relational way. In debates on and with Buber, Rogers was exploringdialogue as descriptive of the psychotherapeutic relationship. In his well-known public dialoguewith Buber (Buber & Rogers, 1960; for discussion see Anderson & Cissna, 1997; Arnett,1982; Beck, 1991; Friedman, 1985; Schmid, 1994, pp. 183–200), the Jewish philosopherchallenged him on the extent of the reciprocity of the relationship between client and therapist.(Interestingly, Mearns and Cooper [2005, p. 39] suggest that in the light of a Thou–Irelationship [see above] the difference between Buber and Rogers could be brought to afruitful solution.)

Within the person-centered approach a dialogical understanding was stressed by severalauthors. To name only a few: Pfeiffer (1989) examined person-centered therapy as a basicallydialogical process. Van Balen (1990) discussed Rogers’ development towards a more dialogicalunderstanding of the therapeutic relationship. Brazier (1993, p. 84), emphasizingintersubjectivity, argues that “the natural functioning of the person is other-oriented and notself-oriented”. Bohart and Tallman (1999, p. 18) stated that “therapy is two whole persons indialogue with one another”, “a co-constructive dialogue, a ‘meeting of minds’”. Tudor andWorrall (2006, p. 241) underlined that “person-centred relating is emphasized by dialogueand mutuality” based on intersubjectivity and co-creativity. They regarded dialogue as thepractice of constructivistic philosophy, intersubjectivity and co-creativity. Mearns developeda dialogical model of Self (Mearns & Thorne, 2000, chapter 7). Together with Cooper(Mearns & Cooper, 2005) he explored the therapeutic meeting between client and therapist.In the course of my own writings the fundamental notion of dialogue in therapy as outlinedbelow has only gradually become clear to me (Schmid, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1998a, 2001a, b,c, 2002a, 2006; Schmid & Mearns, 2006).

From a personalistic point of view dialogue in therapy is definitely not a means or aninstrument to communicate, nor a precondition, let alone a technique. But what does itmean in the framework of a person-centered anthropology? Is dialogue an expression ofequality, mutuality and reciprocity, as we are used to think? Does dialogue signify momentsof intensive exchange in therapy? Is it an outcome of therapy or a comprehensive descriptionof the therapeutic enterprise as such? Can therapy actually be dialogue? Or even: must therapybe dialogue?

Dialogue as realization of the fundamental We in personal encounter

After the period of overcoming expertism in psychotherapy in the form of prescribing, guidingand giving advice — in a word: directivity as healing — we entered the opposite phase, withan emphasis on non-directivity and an almost complete concentration on the autonomy ofthe client, thus finally discovering the possibility and value of self-healing (e.g. Bohart &

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Tallman, 1999) through meeting. Rogers and the scholars of the person-centered approachcontributed at a leading edge to this shift. It seems that at present we are regaining thebalance between being-with and being-counter (Mearns & Schmid, 2006; Schmid & Mearns,2006) and preserve and supersede both in a stage of the discovery or recovery of mutualityand commonality: the elementary We.

What can we learn from the radical humanism of dialogical philosophy (see above)? Wecan definitely learn that a superficial notion of dialogue ends in the trap of the self. Dialoguein therapy denotes much more: the persons engaged in therapy are dialogue which meansthat dialogue is at the very beginning of therapy.

Again, we need to take a second grasp and let the established notions go. Ourconsiderations lead to the conclusion that we must completely turn around our traditionalthinking in psychotherapy. We must not come into dialogue with the meaning of achievingit, or making it happen; we must come into dialogue with the meaning of coming to what isalready there. We have to realize that there is dialogue regardless of whether we are aware ofit or not.

This means that dialogue is not a consequence but a foundation of community (Schmid,1998a). Dialogue in therapy is not bringing the client or oneself into dialogue. Therapeuticdialogue is not about making community, it is about realizing it. It is about realizing thepreceding common We — in all its dissymmetry. It is about realizing the misery and thepower of interrelatedness. Therapeutic dialogue is realizing the healing and challenging qualityof the essential human We.

If dialogue is characterized as being beyond the thinking of the one and the other,beyond the finishing posts of coming to terms, dialogue in therapy does not only go beyondan understanding of what therapist and client have to do in order to bring about certaineffects in or for the client. It is also more than just acknowledging a fundamental equality ofthe persons and mutuality in interaction. Therapy is rather a joint enterprise out of thefundamental dialogical situation of the persons involved. It is asymmetric, acknowledgingthat the client as the Other “comes first” (Schmid, 2003, pp. 112–114). The client is theperson in the center and the therapist is at their service.

If there is a way to go beyond the self, the only way possible is realizing that the Other istruly an Other. If there is a way to the Other, this way is realizing the already existing, thepreceding dialogue. Therapy is not about the self, therapy is about the person. The person isbeyond the self. He or she is dialogue. To encounter a person is to realize that we are indialogue. Accordingly, dialogue is the language of personal encounter (Schmid 1998a, p. 58)which is the realization of dialogue. It is only in dialogue that persons really are addressed aspersons.

A person-centered approach is an approach that unveils the dialogical quality alreadythere. Dialogue is unearthing and unfolding the interpersonal quality of what at a first glancemight seem a one-sided advice-seeking, helpless being at the mercy of somebody, stuckdevelopment, intellectual stammering, refusal of growth, whatever.

Dialogue is the way of being with — which correctly understood equals the way ofbeing for — another person, an essential quality of the human person, an existential

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fundamental. Being human is being diverse. Dialogue is an irreversible principle and conditionof being human. Humans do not only substantially rely on dialogue, they are dialogue.Therapy does not only substantially rely on dialogue, therapy is dialogue. (For criteria, seeMearns & Schmid, 2006.)

To summarize the consequence for a dialogical understanding of psychotherapy: dialogueis the authentic realization and acknowledgment of the underlying We. The client is theOther in this We. The restoration of the underlying We is the therapy in psychotherapy,because it is transcendence of the same. This is done by presence as the realization of the coreconditions (Schmid, 2002a). Hence presence is not a precondition for dialogue; rather it isdialogue that comes to the fore in presence. Presence is an expression of the fundamental We,of the fundamental “Here I am”. And to say “Here I am” is all that we have to do — all themore in therapy.

Psychotherapy is dialogue or it is not psychotherapy

This marks a break with psychology and ontology of substance and subject (in the traditionalmeaning of the word). It characterizes the mode of “dia”, of “between”, of “co-presence” (inGerman: Mitgegenwart) (Levinas, 1989, p. 79). It characterizes personal or dialogicalanthropology.

As opposed to the “totalitarian” epistemologies of those psychotherapies which rest onthe paradigm of analyses and diagnoses, genuine person-centered epistemology is an “infinite”epistemology. It is “parting from the self” (see above).

To realize this we need to let go our familiar, traditional understanding of person-centeredtherapy as mere exchange to realize its potential anew and to detect and explore what it reallymeans to be a person encountering a person (Schmid, 1994, 1998b) and face them at relationaldepth (Mearns & Cooper, 2005). This does not denote a topographical category (like depthpsychology, cf. Tudor & Worrall, 2006, p. 43), it rather denotes a foundation: “In thebeginning” there is relational depth, not “at the beginning” (see Schmid, 1998a: “In thebeginning there is community”), not topographically deeper, not chronologically earlier, butprimary, fundamental, basic, deeply rooted and thus seminal.

Therapists realizing the essential dialogical quality in therapy need to go beyond whatthey are used to doing. They need to go beyond what they are expected to do and to gobeyond what they can do without taking a risk. They need to go beyond the self and the same— or vice versa: they need to risk letting the Other come towards them, opening up for themcoming and disclosing.

Psychotherapy is dialogue or it is not psychotherapy. It might be skilful guidance. Itmight be sensible advice, cozy comfort, necessary social control, experienced behaviormodification, complex crisis management, highly developed leadership, sophisticated direction,whatever.

If therapy, however, means to facilitate the clients in their attempt to liberate themselvesfrom being caught in their totality, in their coconut trap of understanding themselves bythemselves, in their vicious spiral of coming to terms with themselves, in their getting stuck

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at finishing posts, then it is not only necessary to resist and withstand the temptation of theseemingly helping therapeutic grip, but to let go. It is, rather, fundamental to realize that weare already in dialogue and are challenged to do nothing else than to be present in the fullmeaning of the word. It remains an ongoing task to gradually explore and spell out what thischange of the perspective means in practical terms for our awareness and what consequencesfor our concrete way of doing therapy result — both, in general and personally for eachtherapist. (For practical examples, see e.g. Schmid & Mearns, 2006; Mearns & Schmid,2006.)

Encountering a person and facing them at relational depth as a person is neither thefinal stage nor the goal of therapy; it is the foundation, the outset, the start — the start of amost exciting and challenging dance out of dialogue.

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