In this event Beth presents her perspective on Congruence and demonstrates how she feels it has been misunderstood and therefore used inappropriately in therapeutic relationships. Beth’s commitment to rigorous theoretical thinking and it’s application in service of the client is both inspiring and deeply challenging!

As a result of researching on the Venezuelan episteme (along with Dr. Alejandro Moreno), it was found that Venezuelans perceive themselves as “in-relationship”; they do not conceive themselves as individuals.
In consequence, as a Clinical Psychologist, I started thinking about the implications of these findings on the therapeutic relationship and the way empathy is established.

Rogers considered empathy and relationship concepts from a modern paradigm where the person is an individual self; but Venezuelan therapists need to overcome the phenomenology and take into account what has been lived and shared in the same life-world and hermeneutic horizon.

Kel is in the unique position of being able to bring together her own experience of an Eating Disorder with best practice in mental health and psychotherapy. In this interview she will talk about how not to begin a therapeutic relationship when working with someone who has an Eating Disorder – which may feel counter intuitive to us as practitioners. She will also discuss how during therapy the practitioners own fears may inhibit the clients ability to thrive.

When the IAPT (Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies) funding was announced it caused an initial ripple of delight- which soon became a dreadful shock as surgery’s lost their counsellors and CBT seemed to be the only choice for free on delivery ‘psychological therapy’ in the NHS.

Then Counselling for Depression (CfD) emerged and when I read the manual I was excited to recognise the person-centred approach throughout. It was then I decided to do my best to support its development as it was clear the funding allocated to it was temporary and unless it was taken up, the person centred approach in free on delivery services would not survive.

In recent years, Mick Cooper has been working with John McLeod to develop a ‘pluralistic’ approach to therapy, which Mick has described as a person-centred ‘metatherapeutic’ approach. That is, a person-centred way of thinking about the therapeutic field as a whole.

This dialogue will explore the concept of pluralism and its implications for person-centred theory and practice: introducing research and theory on client preferences, therapeutic goals, and ‘metatherapeutic communication’: talking with clients about the process and focus of therapy.

The world faces substantial challenges: from globalization to climate change and the planet’s limited resources, from religious warfare and terrorism to new ways of inter- and intra-national relationships and community, partnership and ‘family’ building – to only name a few.

This calls for a considerable change in the self-understanding of us humans. I am convinced that we have the potential to deal with the encounters ahead constructively, if we indeed understand and approach them as encounters, we have to face and are able to do so.

Today, it takes just an instant to be electronically connected to human suffering half way around the world. Amidst endless streams of variously sourced information, we absorb the world, and make choices in response. Amidst cynicism, corporate dominance and competing narratives, how is it possible to “be the change we want to see in the world?” What are we to do?  How is it possible for us to have hope for this hour in which we live?

Our theme, ‘Going Global’, can easily arouse anxiety and helplessness when we consider the scale of the challenges facing the world today. However, “we start from where we are”, even when that includes despair and panic, by endeavouring to approach our experience with compassion and acceptance. The Person-Centred community has much to contribute here and now, especially if we can reach out beyond the confines of therapy into the world.

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Unable to resist shouting ‘I told you so!’ from the front of a room somewhere in the Royal Agricultural University, Pete Sanders, does just that.

He revisits some old stuff, brings some new stuff, and asks whether the end has come for diagnosis. Again!

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Over the last decade the world of psychology science and practice has been changing. One mainstream development that person-centred psychologists need to be more aware of is positive psychology – the science of optimal human functioning and well-being.

The big idea of positive psychology is that we should be interested not only in distress and dysfunction but also in what makes life worth living. Does this sound like a familiar idea? It should.

As part of the preparation for Going Global 2013 Carol has agreed to participate in an interview with the same title as her presentation at the conference.

Carol invites us to engage with the question “How do we bring ourselves?” when we live in relationships and national groups that find themselves in crisis.

Rory talked to us about the philosophy of the Person Centred Approach and why even though the core conditions are almost universally accepted in the therapeutic world the approach is still a radical paradigm challenging societal norms.

Psychologist Maureen O’Hara who was a long time colleague of Carl Rogers, and Graham Leicester, Director of International Futures Forum, conversation with John Wilson about the central ideas in their new book Dancing at the Edge: Competence, Culture and Organization in the 21st Century.

Allan Turner is about to begin his 18th course training Counsellors and Psychologists to work with Couples using a Client Centred Perspective.

Allan very generously spent an hour with us taking questions and offering his perspective on the relevance of Carl Roger’s 6 conditions for Therapeutic Change.

Terry has been in Encounter groups from the age of 14 and has experienced much ‘magic’ in the moments of connection with other human beings in this unique and radical context.

Terry is passionate about the need for difference to be spoken and heard in all walks of life and feels that even after more than 40 years of history the Encounter Group is still a relevant context to make contact with others while being authentically ourselves.

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