I am a Rogerian person-centered psychotherapist, who believes the primary goal of therapy is deep empathic listening and nonjudgmental acceptance. Along with many other professional I am against the “medical model” being applied to mental health treatment. I feel an important role of a psychotherapist is to avoid biases and the imposition of values, and to appreciate that each person is the best expert on his or her life. Therefore, I strive to offer psychotherapy that: promotes equality and honesty, that is based upon what I see as solid scientific evidence, and that consistently considers the actualizing potential of each person.
It is my belief that what we, in the Western World, consider to be “mental illness” is in fact a result of the industrial revolution where extended family size has consequently decreased thereby reducing the availability of loving extended family to help each other understand and express emotional conflicts. In other words, it is my belief that if we have loving others see us through emotional conflicts they are less likely to grow and to morph into perverted reactions such as mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical depression to name a few. There is research which suggests people living 3rd world counties where family size is still large and extended throughout the community do not have long-term epidemics of mental illness, like schizophrenia, in their communities.
Instead citizens of these communities will have emotional breakdowns and then members of their extended family will stay with them and support them until the conflicts pass, not allowing emotional conflicts to fester over the long-term. Some may argue this is do to the lack of medical resources in these counties, and I agree with this also. Yet, I agree only in that the lack of medical resources does not allow the medicalization of emotional conflicts to override the community’s natural and ancient healing methods.
Consequently, it is my goal of offer a form of psychotherapy that understand the actual origin of mental illness and attempts to draw upon the basic healing capacities of each human, family, and group. While it might sound too touchy-feely, I do believe that have people who love us and by being able to love, is the greatest healing force there is.
To learn more about my struggle to become a Person-Centered practitioner, please read the following paper I have written (to download a printable version, click here):
Discovering the Person-Centered Approach while in Psychoanalytic training.Abstract
This paper represents an attempt to describe my personal experience of discovering the psychological philosophy founded by Carl Rogers and known as the “Person-Centered Approach” while immersed in psychoanalytic training. In addition to my personal experience, I will outline a parallel professional experience working with a psychotherapy client who presented reactions to my new and developing way of being with him. It is my hope that my description of discovering the Person-Centered Approach may help others to follow their personal inclinations to explore approaches that might seem foreign from the paradigm of their training.Discovering the Person-Centered Approach while in psychoanalytic training.
Let me state that I come from a broken home. My parents were divorced when I was six years old. From age six until age eighteen my parents held joint-custody over me and consequently every two weeks I would pack up all my needed belongings and go live in the opposite parent’s home. I believe my parents did not communicate honestly with each other and they harbored a great deal of anger and hurt towards each other. Additionally, I feel my parents, because of their own traumatic family histories, were unable to provide positive parental support to me, and to this day I do not believe I grew up in healthy homes. I do not believe I had a healthy childhood, and I feel I was forced to be my own parent and often behave like the adult around my parents. As I grew up and found the need to pick a profession, considering my background, psychology was the obvious choice.
As is often the case today, I was first introduced to the psychotherapeutic process through the media’s representations of the mental health session room. Specifically, I was first introduced to psychotherapy through the actor/film maker Woody Allen’s portrayal of psychotherapy as dominated by psychoanalytic technique with couches, silent therapists, and raging Oedipal conflicts. While I always assumed Allen’s portrayal of the psychotherapeutic process was overly dramatic, as an impressionable young person, another part of me made the association that because Woody Allen was interested in Psychoanalysis and because I identified with Woody Allen as a “frustrated-Jewish-intellectual,” Psychoanalysis appeared to me to be the method of choice for the “intellectual elite.” Consequently, from an early age I was aware of and was interested in Psychoanalysis. Eventually, when I chose to become a psychologist and then began to study psychology, I consistently paid particular attention to the work of Freud and anyone who I believed had expanded upon his theories. Then, at the age of 18 I began my own analysis, and as soon as I became professionally able I began psychoanalytic training.
Due to my early belief that the work of Freud and the world of Psychoanalysis offered tools that can help direct the positive evolution of the human race, I wholeheartedly took part in my psychoanalytic training program. I considered myself a true devotee with my own complete copy of Freud’s twenty-four volume Standard Edition. However, in the middle of my second year of training something unexpected happened to me that shook my theoretical foundations to their roots. At the recommendation of the director of a clinic where I was working, I began group supervision with a person I only later came to know as a long-time and well respected Person-Centered psychologist. Over the course of the next year this experience not only widened my psychotherapeutic scope, but, because it occurred while I was in the midst of psychoanalytic training, it gradually put me at odds with both my colleagues and with clients whom I began slowly to change the fundamental nature of our interactions.
Beginning Treatment with Robert
The following clinical material took place as I was in the process of expanding from a psychoanalytic to a Person-Centered way of conducting psychotherapy. Robert is an African-American male who was in his late 20's and who lived alone in an apartment in one of the outer boroughs of New York City. His mother raised Robert and his younger brother; his father having abandoned the family shortly after his younger brother’s birth when Robert was one and a half years old. Prior to our beginning a psychotherapeutic relationship Robert attempted suicide by trying to jump out of a window. At that time Robert had recently moved from his mother’s home (where he had lived since childhood) into an apartment with his girlfriend. Robert’s younger brother, whom he adores, had married and recently moved out of the New York City area. At the time of his suicide attempt Robert felt that neither his mother nor his girlfriend truly cared about his happiness and following his brother’s move he felt alone in the world. Additionally, around the same time, Robert dropped out of college having experienced social isolation and racial prejudice. Following the attempted suicide and consequent week-long stay in a psychiatric hospital Robert began weekly psychotherapeutic treatment with me in an outpatient setting.
At the time I began working with Robert I was already immersed in my psychoanalytic training and consequently I had quite specific expectations of myself as a “psychoanalytic-psychotherapist.” At that time it was my belief that the role of a psychoanalytic-psychotherapist was: to understand transference, to recognize resistance, to utilize free association, to value dream interpretation, to recognize the importance of the unconscious, and to recognize the importance of early childhood events (Webel & Weinraub, 2000; Weinraub, 2000, 2003). For the first eight months of treatment the psychotherapeutic progress, especially the establishment of the “therapeutic alliance,” moved extremely slowly. Even though Robert appeared to have chosen freely to work with me, during the first eight months he showed little openness to sharing his life story with me and he openly stated mistrust of me as a representative of the “medical system” that would judge and condemn him.
During this period our sessions were quite difficult for me because I could not find a way to embody my self-appointed role of psychoanalytic-psychotherapist. I would ask Robert what I now see as “directive questions” which I justified as clarifications of statements he made, and I was horrified when he would give me what I now see as “equal responses” such as, “why should I tell you, you don’t care just like the rest.” Consequently, for the first eight months of treatment I found myself struggling to listen and understand Robert, and I could not figure out how I would enact my self appointed role of revealing his unconscious conflicts through my directive and insightful interpretations. Because Robert and I never seemed able to form a “therapeutic alliance,” and due to his perception of me as a “necessary judge” of his life, I found Robert unwilling to acknowledge and often hostile towards any kind of interpretation or comment of empathy I might offer him during the sessions.
At times, after thirty minutes of hearing him say how bad his life is, how no one cares for him, and how he blames his mother and girlfriend for his miserable situation, I would attempt to do what I thought any good psychoanalytic-psychotherapist would do and think about ways I could offer him interpretations. I was aware, from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, an interpretation of Robert at that point may have been premature. Nevertheless, I privately interpreted Robert’s belief he was unwanted as relating to his early abandonment by his father. And while I never directly stated my interpretation to him, I did hold this interpretation in my mind when I was with him. At times I found myself thinking about this interpretation when I would make small statements like “it must have been difficult for you growing up,” or even the statement “I hear that your childhood was painful.” However, again, to my dismay, as this interpretation became more clear to me, I found Robert became more confrontational and unwilling to recognize the empathy I felt was behind my interpretation. Often during the sessions he would became angry with me for “saying things I know nothing about,” and for “not being able to comprehend his circumstances.”
Finally, after almost a year of sessions in which I felt that, as a result of my offering interpretations which he was unwilling to accept, Robert and I were growing further apart, I decided to change tactics. Instead of interpreting his comments I tried to respond to his stated “feelings of misery” with what I believed at the time was “empathy.” Now I would say things like “it must have been difficult for you when you were a child,” without having an interpretation of his childhood conflicts in mind while I was saying it. However, again, even these statements were met with anger and mistrust, and he would say things like “how can you know what it was like for me when your life is so perfect.”
A Critical Place in My Training
At the time my conflicts with Robert began to reach their peak I was at an unusual place in my psychoanalytic training. As is standard practice in most psychoanalytic training programs, you are required to have your own personal analysis (at least 3 times a week) and then you are required to have between one to two ongoing psychoanalytic supervisors with whom you discuss cases. At this point in my training I had one personal psychoanalyst, one psychoanalytic supervisor, and then, due to the separate requirements of my job, I underwent group supervision with a senior supervisor that originally I thought was “just another psychoanalyst.” At the same time, due to a sudden major illness, my personal psychoanalyst was hospitalized. It was unclear if she would ever return to her practice. My psychoanalyst was eclectic and she had been my major source of support surrounding my growing theoretical debates up until the time of her illness. Consequently, following her illness and eventual death, I was left alone with my two supervisors. Without the help of my psychoanalyst to help me keep inner peace, immediately the theoretical understanding of my clinical work began to take on an “either/or” stance. I found myself constantly battling with what I had learned from Psychoanalysis and what I was learning from my new supervisor and the Person-Centered Approach.
My psychoanalytic supervisor was an experienced clinician, probably in his late 70s, Jewish, smoked a pipe, and his office was on the upper Eastside. Interestingly, my Person-Centered supervisor was also in his late 70s, Jewish, but did not now smoke a pipe. Therefore, from the outside, these supervisors seemed to be quite similar. In fact, if you were sitting and watching the behavior of both these supervisors I believe their outward behavior towards me would seem almost exactly the same. However, the major and fundamental difference between them was that my psychoanalytic supervisor appeared to have a definite agenda for me while my Person-Centered supervisor did not. In other words, when I was with my psychoanalyst supervisor I had the consistent feeling I should be doing specific activities with my “patients” and he wanted to hear I was doing those activities or he would tell me there was something wrong with my therapeutic work. While my Person-Centered supervisor would have responses for me if he felt I was hurting myself or hurting one of my “clients,” but he was not judgmental of my behavior as being good or bad, only leading to one outcome or another. Nevertheless, at that time I often thought my analytic supervisor had some great truth and my Person-Centered supervisor was in fact not offering me the best supervision. At one point I imagined my Person-Centered supervisor had entered the world of Psychoanalysis and then at some point had been rejected, and so he was now on a crusade to prevent all young practitioners from finding a use for Psychoanalysis due to his own history of professional rejection. Therefore, at this time I felt stuck between these two men, as if I had two fathers offering me different ways of being and I had to choose who the real father was and who the fraudulent father was. Coming from my background of not having a consistent and active father figure, and now being presented with two active fathers, my world was shaking.
At this time of significant personal crisis, many previously unconsidered clinical questions became of great concern. At that time it was my belief that the psychoanalytic-psychotherapist’s job was to closely listen to the patient, to make formulations of the patient’s mental state, and then to guide and direct the patient through interpretations of their underlying unconscious conflicts in order to help bring those unconscious motives into consciousness. While I was relatively new to the profession, at the time of my discovery of the Person-Centered Approach I did have significant experience as a therapist and I felt I had a number of patients with whom progress had been made and hopefully would continue. Yet I also had the growing sense I really did not know how to work with unconscious motives, especially when it came time for me to interpret these unconscious motives. Intuitively I felt, more than any therapeutic technique I was offering, it was my relationship with my clients that fostered the positive results I was experiencing. At the same time, what kept me connected to psychoanalytic theory was my constant enjoyment of psychoanalytic texts which I felt offered many successful case studies where analysts were able to create amazing and truly meaningful changes in their patients through their fundamental belief in the “psychoanalytic frame.” Consequently, at that time I believed if I could continue to hold my psychoanalytic frame, then eventually I would become the kind of psychoanalyst I had read about.
However, as time went on I found my adherence to the psychoanalytic frame was in stark contrast to my growing understanding of the Person-Centered Approach which I was beginning to understand as a logical and humane theory of psychotherapy. Also, at this time, after being in psychoanalytic training, I had not yet met a psychoanalyst whom I felt actually embodied the image of a psychoanalyst I held as a consequence of my reading. Therefore, with time my theoretical conflicts grew stronger and now instead of questioning Person-Centered theory I found myself focusing solely on previously unrecognized concerns I had with psychoanalytic theory.
I could not deny the positive and secure feelings I had both for myself and for my clients when I removed the goal of making interpretations. With interpretations gone I felt I became free to actually be with the person in the moment. Instead of looking for conflict I found myself attempting to experience the presence of my clients and to attempt to follow their expressed feeling. Yet this was both an exciting and freighting new way of partaking in psychotherapy. Because I was no longer searching for conflicts to interpret I found myself confronted with the basic question “what is my job as a psychotherapist?” I realized, if I do not apply techniques with my clients then all I have left to offer is myself and I was not sure if “I was enough?” Just being myself felt potentially dangerous because I could not understand how my seemingly young and newly trained “person” would be enough to help people and I was afraid I might damage my clients with my naivety. However, I did have the positive experience of feeling safe and feeling free to be “real” in my own supervision and it was this positive experience that gave me the courage to continue rejecting interpretation and challenge myself to be in the moment with my clients.
Learning to Respect Robert’s Needs
Because I had the feeling if I did not try something different I would not only lose my client but I might hurt him further, and with the aid of my growing interest in the Person-Centered Approach, I decided to change my psychotherapeutic manner. After numerous failed attempts to interact with Robert in a positive way that would strengthen our “therapeutic alliance,” I decided to take the approach of refraining from making any unnecessary comments during the sessions and simply following his interests and staying with his mood and present state. In other words, I had a sense that Robert might respond better to passive listening as opposed to the more directive therapeutic stance I had been taking with him. Consequently I decided to become quiet during the sessions; often welcoming him and then letting him know our time had ended were the only comments I would now make. For Robert, my silence seemed to be the necessary approach, giving him the freedom to come alive and now he began to use the sessions to talk openly and endlessly about his painful life. Our sessions became speed races where he would enter, sit, and then he was off talking about his pain, and he would not stop until I stepped in and told him our time had ended. Now Robert did not want to leave and I often had to stand up and walk to the door, physically letting him know I needed him to leave. It was as if I had finally provided Robert with the freedom and safety he had always wanted and now he was going to take full advantage of it. His emotional dam had finally burst open.
After two month of this approach I found Robert responded positively in that he seemed to begin to trust me more and this was evident through his slow but growing attempts to acknowledge my presence through asking me questions or through using me as examples in his stories. Robert would now say “my life sucks, but I want to have more stability, like you must have.” However, while Robert was taking full advantage of the sessions a new problem arose: my inability to stay completely focused during the sessions. I now found myself losing my attention with him and getting very tired during our sessions. I realized something positive was happening with Robert and I did not want to disturb it, yet at the same time I found his interactions with me to be monotonous, where every session sounded the same to me. I found I could easily predict what Robert would discuss during our sessions. Each session would begin with him saying he had nothing to talk about, I would remain quiet, and then slowly he would build into a full bout of anger and frustration focused on his mother and girlfriend who he said did not respect him and were slowly destroying him. I badly wanted to stay completely present with Robert but I just could not stay interested, the steady stream of his painful complaints was overwhelming me.
A Breakthrough: Learning to Respect My Own Needs
At this point I felt Robert was making progress and was benefiting from the psychotherapy, however, now it was me who had the problem, I just could not get myself to listen to him, and I began to feel there was something wrong with me. Consequently, I began to evaluate and criticize my professional life. I felt I could not find a way to be in either the psychoanalytic or the Person-Centered worlds, and I was honestly scared I might not survive this professional crisis and consequently I might be forced to pick a new profession. I felt maybe the psychoanalysts were right and I was simply experiencing deep unconscious conflicts which were beginning to overtake me. At the same time I was afraid to address this fear with my Person-Centered supervisor. Likewise, I did not trust my psychoanalytic supervisor and I knew if I showed any hint of theoretical interest outside of psychoanalytic theory he would judge me as “acting out,” and furthermore he could instigate my removal from the psychoanalytic training program. Yet every time I had a session with Robert I felt my inner battle grew, and I could no longer prevent myself from sharing this debate with my supervisors.
It took some courage, but over a number of sessions I explained my situation to both my supervisors. My Person-Centered supervisor immediately seemed able to relate to my struggle and in fact he explained to me he had also been involved in the psychoanalytic community at the beginning of his career, and therefore he had firsthand knowledge of the struggle I was experiencing. As for my psychoanalyst supervisor, it seemed to me he could not completely understand my struggle and instead of understanding me he attempted to interpret my concerns and to relate them back to earlier issues in my life I previously alluded to which he now felt should be handled with my personal analyst. Unfortunately, as I explained my struggle to both supervisors, and while they both did their best to offer me support using the tools they thought were appropriate, it seemed I was left with the same struggle. I felt no one could solve this for me. I still felt this great conflict inside and it continued to feel as if it were eating me up.
Then, early one morning I had a breakthrough. I was feeling horrible, sitting on the subway having just left my psychoanalytic supervisor’s office, heading to my job where, later that day I would meet with my Person-Centered supervisor. It felt as if I could no longer hold these two opposing viewpoints within my mind. I felt scared, as if I might not recover from this inner conflict. I honestly recall thinking because I could not overcome this conflict I might have to stop working as a psychologist and I began to think of ways I could begin to refer out my clients. But then, just at the breaking point, the image of my father came into my mind. I recall seeing my father standing between both my psychoanalytic supervisor and my Person-Centered supervisor. As if my father was a tennis ball, I kept bouncing him between my two supervisors and I began to think about my father in greater detail and the memory he was basically absent during my youth overwhelmed me. I felt a deep sadness and this was followed by a deep longing. I recall longing for my father to be there for me and with me, and to give me unconditional support and acceptance. I thought of both my supervisors in comparison to what I wanted from my father, and then, suddenly, this sharp, fast, and really meaningful thought hit me. My psychoanalytic supervisor was continuing my history of me being ignored and feeling rejected by my father, while my Person-Centered supervisor was not ignoring or rejecting me, and, he was not becoming father-like but an equal partner in my life. It occurred to me, within the psychoanalytic world rejection of the son and his capacity to be a father is standard because in fact no one in the psychoanalytic world can ever be as good as Freud was, therefore, no one can ever take the place of the father. In other words, I realized, inherent in the psychoanalytic ideology is the willingness to be subservient to Freud as the ultimate father. As I sat there it became clear to me that, at that point in my life, I no longer wanted or could any longer handle having a rejecting father. At that moment I saw I wanted a loving and accepting father and I wanted to be seen as equal in my loving and accepting capabilities. So, immediately I found myself with a choice, do I go on putting myself in a world that rejects me and most likely will never receive me as an equal adult, or, do I choose a world where I feel I am accepted and I believe I am seen as an equal human being? Emotionally speaking, this internalization of acceptance was difficult for me. It felt as, by choosing unconditional acceptance I would be forced to give up my own needs. I would lose the hope that my father would love me unconditionally, and, I would be used by others. Just the thought of letting go of my need for my father to love me unconditionally felt very scary and debilitating. Yet, the inner turmoil stemming from this conflict now seemed stronger than my fear of losing my father’s love. I was determined to resolve this conflict, and so, right then, I made my choice. I chose to begin to let go of my attachment to psychoanalytic theory and to begin to embrace the Person-Centered Approach.
I recall this thinking took place in a matter of seconds, but once I made my choice I suddenly and instantly felt I had changed forever. I was no longer the same person when I got off that subway. For that day and for the next few weeks I was high from the energy that grew in me following this choice. This does not mean it was an easy choice or I did not try to second guess myself later because I did try. But, I then found it was too late, for me the change had occurred and there was no going back.
Assimilating My New Knowledge
That same day I recall telling my Person-Centered supervisor of my experience on the train and of my decision. I found his response to be respectful, as if he was right there with me during my transformation, and I felt our relationship changed following my subway ride. I now felt more comfortable and open in his presence and more equal with him. I attribute this change in our relationship to my growing awareness of my internal need for a loving father which, in turn, helped me to better understand what I need from those who are close to me and offer me guidance. For the next few weeks our discussions turned to my work with Robert and together we understood I had personal negative reactions to Robert that I needed to be more willing to acknowledge. As I looked closer I discovered it was my own “fear” of his situation that kept me unable to hear Robert’s constant statements of distress. After coming to terms with my own feelings of fear, that his expressed hopelessness might in some way overwhelm and hurt me, I found myself better able to hear Robert and to be fully present during the sessions. In turn this seems to have helped Robert open up. He continues to trust me more and to offer new details of his early life, his present life, and his underlying rage towards his mother that manifests with his girlfriend. The work with Robert continues and is not easy. Often I perceive a similarity between our fathers and I believe we both suffered similar kinds of abandonment during our early childhoods. Yet I try not to burden Robert with my history. Instead I take note of my reactions to him and I do my best to remain fully present with him and with my feelings. Currently our relationship is quite strong and I feel the future of our psychotherapeutic relationship is promising.
Following my transformation on the train, consistently my professional and personal life began to change. After four months I ended my supervision with the psychoanalyst. Then, after another six months I decided not to go further with my psychoanalytic training. At the time, most of my friends who were psychoanalysts saw the changes I was going through and I believe they thought I was having some kind of an emotional breakdown. Yet, from my viewpoint I was now thinking and living in a more honest world than they were, as I was no longer willing to hide behind interpretations or other techniques. Unfortunately my new way of being has isolated me from many of my old colleagues and friends. Consequently, my professional circles have become more limited. Yet, internally I feel more confident, aware, and free to make my own choices. And, with the help of my Person-Centered supervisor I began to make connections in the Person-Centered world and these new relationships have given me much needed social support.
While I still often feel I do not have the kind of support and professional opportunities I would have if I were active in the psychoanalytic world, I find the Person-Centered colleagues I have grown to know are more open and available to me than any of my psychoanalytic colleagues were. I particularly notice this difference when I attend Person-Centered workshops. In the psychoanalytic world, personal and professional interactions at workshops and scientific meetings are often highly structured and limited by one’s outwardly perceived professional status. Senior psychoanalysts rarely relate to junior candidates, and vice-versa. Additionally, at psychoanalytic meetings the analysts often create barriers between professional theories and practices and personal feelings in relation to those professional theories and practices. In other words, it is rare to find a psychoanalyst publicly talk about the ways their work with a client has personally moved them because to do so would open them up to interpretation and possible rejection by other analysts. Additionally, I have often seen junior analysts, or candidates, who attempt to share their personal feelings about a case, met with cold interpretations meant to remind them of their role as a “objective” professional. Consequently, when I took part in my first Person-Centered workshop I was amazed at how openly and respectfully others treated me. Both young and old, professional or lay person, seasoned or new to the approach, I felt equal among all present, and, coming from the psychoanalytic world, this experience felt like a breath of fresh air.
Conclusion: Readings That Helped Me During This Transition
In conclusion I would like to discuss some of the psychoanalytic and Person-Centered literature which have aided my transition to the Person-Centered Approach. While there are growing signs of separate schools developing in the Person-Centered Approach (Sanders, 2004), within Psychoanalysis there is a long history of pluralism that can be traced back to Freud’s death in 1939. Currently there is a great deal of debate about what is and what is not Psychoanalysis, and, it should be acknowledged that for many psychoanalysts the core conditions of the Person-Centered Approach are in fact considered fundamental aspects of their version of psychoanalytic theory. At the same time, it has been my experience that most psychoanalysts who do state they follow a version of the core conditions, also add other concepts and practices to their beliefs that I feel clearly separates them from Person-Centered practitioners. Specifically, I am speaking about the application of interpretations that are generated in order to direct the client’s thinking and the overwhelming acceptance of transference as something other then an honest way of relating that needs to be overcome.
Within Psychoanalysis it is the more recent schools that seem to offer a greater openness to humanistic ideals. Some of the major psychoanalytic schools that offer humanistic philosophies are: Self Psychology, Object Relations, the Interpersonal Psychoanalysis, the Intersubjective Psychoanalysis, and the Relational Psychoanalysis. However, as I have previously stated, each of these schools continue to adhere to the six basic categories of Psychoanalysis that ultimately separate them from humanistic approaches. Yet, individually, there have been papers written by current psychoanalytic practitioners who, possibly without intention, seem to break free of the six basic categories and do offer a truly humanistic view of psychotherapy. In relation to my personal journey of discovery, I find it interesting that, even before I discovered the Person-Centered Approach, I recognized the uniqueness of theses psychoanalysts and I understood their views as marking a new chapter in psychoanalytic theory. I want to mention two of these psychoanalysts, Evelyn Schwaber (Schwaber, 1981) and Herb Rabin (Rabin, 1995). Reading Schwarber, before I discovered the Person-Centered Approach, helped me to begin to question the standard psychoanalytic belief that transference is the “patient’s enactment that needs to be fixed” (Schwaber, 1981, p. 392). Schwaber goes on to say, “empathic listening then implies the analyst’s capacity to view himself as being used and responded to in the context of the patent’s immediate intrapsychic experiences” (Schwaber, 1981, p. 392). Schwaber’s description of empathetic listening helped me to recognize the role of the psychotherapist as being in the here and now with the client, as opposed to addressing the client from some other preconceived paradigm.
Herb Rabin (1995) who received classical/Freudian psychoanalytic training, documents his own personal discovery of learning how Psychoanalysis has expanded to include more humanistic approaches. In an addendum to his paper Rabin does what few psychoanalysts are willing to do, he discusses his personal reaction to his theoretical shift.
Rabin writes:
I have shared with you the excitement, challenge, and clinical benefits of my metamorphosis from an older metatheory of a classical-ego psychological orientation to the newer constructivist metatheory. However, I have omitted one crucial part of the story, that is, the angst that I experienced in my metamorphosis. When challenging the basic clinical assumptions that had guided me for over 30 years, there were moments and hours when I felt intensely anxious, ungrounded, as if my professional underpinnings were gone. If I, the analyst, am not the arbiter of reality regarding transference, what interpretive functions do I have?…During these difficult times, I was tempted to criticize severely the newer ideas and go back to my comforting older assumptions. In retrospect, I believe I was challenging my accommodation to the older metatheory and experiencing the terror of fundamental change. (Rabin, 1995, p. 479-480)
I read Rabin’s paper before my experience of the Person-Centered Approach, and then, following my transformation I re-read it and realized that he was describing the same process that I underwent in reorienting my ethical understanding of psychotherapy. I met Rabin in person and asked him about this paper. He told me that most people state they are moved by his “Personal Addendum” and request that he had expanded upon it in greater detail.
I am not sure if most Person-Centered practitioners, realize that there is a small body of literature that I understand as representing a bridge between the worlds of Psychoanalysis and the Person-Centered Approach, certainly most Psychoanalysis pay it no mind. Yet, for me, this is a new and important area of investigation that I believe will one day be recognized as significant. The leading writer in this area is Edwin Kahn. Kahn has written a number of papers that describe this bridge and discuss the similarities and differences between Psychoanalysis and the Person-Centered Approach, yet two of his papers in particular helped me during my period of transition. Kahn’s 1996 paper The intersubjective Perspective and the Client-Centered Approach: Are they one at the Core, and his 2000 paper Carl Rogers and Heinz Kohut: A Historical perspective, both helped to clarify the conflicts I was experiencing between my psychoanalyst and Person-Centered supervisors. With statements like, “self psychology is defined by its methods of investigation; that is, it is a scientific study of mental life using the tools of introspection and empathy. Client centered psychology, in addition to its interest in mental life and psychotherapy, is committed to broad social change” (Kahn, 1996, p. 40), Kahn’s writing has helped me to organize my understanding of these two conflicting worlds and this clarity gave me hope and empowered by feeling I am not alone with my conflicts and a bridge between these two worlds does exist. In his paper on Rogers and Kohut, Kahn states “Kohut and Rogers were able to free themselves from the early overemphasis on interpretation in Psychoanalysis... Rogers, with more freedom (but also Kohut), emphasized the human quality of the therapeutic relationship” (Kahn, 2000, p. 309). It was this kind of bridge between Psychoanalysis and the Person-Centered Approach, that respected both viewpoints while also clarified their differences in a logical manner, and without judgment.
Turning to Person-Centered literature that aided my transition, certainly Rogers chapter on “Three Questions raised by Other Viewpoints: Transference, Diagnosis, Applicability,” in his 1951 book Client-Centered Therapy, was helpful. I remember being shocked when I read Rogers’s statement that “as we examine our clinical experience in Client-centered therapy and our recorded cases, it would appear to be correct to say that strong attitudes of transference nature occur in a relatively small minority of cases” (Rogers, 1951, p. 199).
Any discussion of literature that can help facilitate a transition from Psychoanalysis to the Person-Centered Approach must mention John Shlien’s 1987 paper entitled A Countertheory of Transference, which is, in my opinion, the most important paper, not written by Rogers, to be found within the Person-Centered literature. Shlien’s hypothesis is simple, transference is not a distortion, rather it is a word that doctors gave to feelings expressed by their patients that they didn’t want to take responsibility for. Thus, for Shlien, transference is a fiction since the reason a client gets angry at or falls in love with the therapist always has something to do with the way the therapist acted. Shlien states, “if transference is a theory, this is the counter: Personality and situation aside for the moment, the therapist is responsible for two fundamental behaviors, understanding and misunderstanding, which account for love, or for hate, and their associated affects” (Shlien, 1987, p. 44).
Finally, I wish to mention Kathy Moon’s 2002 paper entitled A Dearth of Suds for Davey: A Therapist’s thoughts during a Child Therapy Session. When I first read this paper it affected me greatly and, in many ways was the motivation for me to write this paper. In her article Moon bares all of herself openly. Following a segment of her transcribed session, Moon writes:
Where did that question of mine come from? I blurted it out from nowhere. As if Davey has not already been impinged upon enough in what was supposed to be nondirective client-centered therapy, I send him off on yet another detour away from his own intentions. (Moon, 2002, p. 124)
Most people I give this paper to either love it or hate it. When I first read this paper I thought Moon was a naive clinician who did not know enough to protect herself and was probably talked into baring all by some overbearing supervisor. Boy was I wrong. As I re-read this paper, and I do so often (I now offer it in a child therapy training course), I am consistently amazed by her openness and her willingness to follow her Client. Certainly, I recognize this paper as a crucial reading for any Person-Centered practitioner who intends to work with children.
As I stated at the beginning of this paper, I believe my childhood motivated me to become a psychologist. Behind that motivation was the basic need to heal my early emotional wounds. At the beginning of my training I thought Psychoanalysis could offer me and my clients the tools necessary to promote emotional healing. Then I was introduced to the Person-Centered Approach. I was now confronted with a choice between two paradigms that theorizes about and help overcome emotional conflict. I had been dedicated to one theoretical approach, but came to realize that the other supported the “way of being” and clinical practice that is right for me. It took a lot of courage but I chosen to forgo all my training and social support so I could follow my personal inclination towards human equality and respect for the intrinsic healing capacities of each human, often referred to as the actualizing tendency. To this day I feel extremely fulfilled with my choice.
References
Kahn, E. (1996). The intersubjective perspective and the Person-Centered approach: Are
they one at their core? Psychotherapy, 33, (1), 30-42.
Kahn, E. (2000). Carl Rogers and Heinz Kohut: A historical perspective. Psychoanalytic
Psychology, 17, (2), 294-312.
Moon, K. (2002). A dearth of suds for Davey: A therapist’s thoughts during a child therapy session. The Person-Centered Journal, 9, (2), 113-139.
Rabin, H. (1995). The liberating effect on the analyst of the paradigm shift in Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 12, 467-481.
Rogers, C. (1951). Client-centered therapy: Its current practice, implications, and theory. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Sanders, P. (2004). The tribes of the person-centred nation: An introduction to the
schools of therapy related to the person-centered approach. Llangarrin Ross-on-Wye, UK: PCCS Books.
Schwaber, E. (1981) Empathy: A mode of analytic listening. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 1, 357-392.
Shlien, J. (1987). A countertheory of transference. Person-Centered Review, 2, 15-49.
Webel, C., & Weinraub, S. (2000). Diversity and pluralism in California. Clio's Psyche, 7, (1), 18-20.
Weinraub, S. (2003). A comparative study of major psychoanalytic theoretical orientations in the United States. Unpublished Manuscript, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Francisco.
Weinraub, S. (2000). The current state of Psychoanalysis in Southern California. Unpublished Manuscript, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Francisco.
