Person-Centred Therapy: The Focusing-Oriented Approach by Campbell Purton

Author:Campbell Purton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2004-02-10T16:00:00+00:00

Avenues of therapy

In any effective therapy something new needs to come, which is not part of the client’s normal consciousness (Gendlin, 1980, p. 282). Freud had the procedure of asking clients to lie on a couch and free-associate. The procedure opened the client to whatever might come when they were in this unusual frame of mind. Jung worked much with clients’ dreams. Dreams are of great therapeutic potential because they bring a perspective on the client’s problem which is different from the waking perspective, yet still comes from the client (Purton, 1989). Even in cognitive-behavioural therapy something similar applies; the client and therapist together work out a programme of action which the client will try out, but then the client has to go out into the world and encounter new situations. Something new has to come in if there is to be change. In classical client-centred therapy what is new is the therapeutic setting in which the therapist listens and reflects in the way Rogers discovered. This encourages a novel mode of experiencing for the client, in which they are open to their own experiencing in a way that is new and different.

In his early work Rogers was interested in psychotherapy generally. Given that there were different ‘schools’ of therapy, including his own newly developed ‘non-directive’ form of therapy, Rogers wanted to find out what it was that made any form of therapy effective. His conclusion was that it is a matter of whether the therapist’s attitude to the client embodies the familiar Conditions. Given that these Conditions are present, it does not matter much what procedures are used or what theoretical views the therapist holds. Rogers was primarily concerned not to set up his own school of therapy, but with how therapy should be conducted irrespective of the particular theories and procedures being used. In the same way, Gendlin sees the different ‘schools’ as enshrining different theories and different procedures, but believes that almost any theory or procedure can be helpful if it is employed in an experiential way.

Gendlin and Rogers have an approach to therapy which is radically different from that found in other schools. In Gendlin’s view it does not matter much what theoretical views the therapist has; what matters is whether framing the client’s experience in those terms is helpful to the client. The important question is not whether the client is suffering from an ‘unresolved Oedipus complex’, or has ‘introjected certain conditions of worth’, but whether, when their difficulties are formulated in those terms, there is any shift in the client’s experiencing. The only theoretical formulations which are relevant for the client are those with which the client’s experiencing ‘resonates’. This is not an anti-theoretical stance. Theories are important, but not in the sense of ‘corresponding with reality’; they are important in the impact which they can have on clients. The more theories with which the therapist is familiar, the more likely it is that they may find ways of putting things which can resonate with the client’s experiencing.

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