RELATIONAL DEPTH

Relational Depth

Relational Depth

Carl Rogers, through his development of what is now called person-centered counseling, deserves most of the credit for bringing the third wave of counseling theories to the fore. With his emphasis on people's emotions and his deep respect for people's ability to grow and change in positive ways, Rogers humanized the counseling profession. He believed that counseling would be more effective if counselors could join with their clients on an emotional level, feel appreciation and empathy for them, help them express their emotions fully, and use their own resources to enhance their self-esteem and improve their lives. Rogers's work brought attention to the importance of the human potential and actualization, self-esteem, and the client-counselor relationship. Most counselors now appreciate the importance of the therapeutic alliance and the facilitative conditions that enhance that relationship. In addition, Rogers's deep respect for each person led to an appreciation of the importance of phenomenological approaches, those that seek to understand people's views of the world and their unique perspectives.

Working at Relational Depth in Counseling and Psychotherapy is a groundbreaking text which goes to the very heart of the therapeutic meeting between therapist and client. Focusing on the concept of 'relational depth, ' authors Dave Mearns and Mick Cooper describe a form of encounter in which therapist and client experience profound feelings of contact and engagement with each other and in which the client has an opportunity to explore whatever is experienced as most fundamental to her or his existence.

Drawing from their own practice, interviews with therapists and a diverse range of theoretical and empirical sources, the authors address the key question of how therapists can meet their clients at a level of relational depth. They show how different aspects of the therapist combine to facilitate a relationally-deep encounter, highlight the various personal blocks??? which may be encountered along the way, and introduce new therapeutic concepts ??? such as ???holistic listening??? ??? which can help therapists to meet their clients at this level.

As per my experience with my client, which presents an existential, phenomenological, dialogical approach at its best, and highlights the power of encounter relationship. This book does not only portray the state of the art of person-centered and experiential psychotherapies. Since many modalities develop in this direction - it is foundational for the realm of psychotherapy and counselling as such. The experience I had with my client related to Dave's work as it is of enormous international interest; not only the international perspective on literature and development in the field, but also the cross-links of different views contribute to the development of psychotherapy and counselling and will be fruitful for interdisciplinary dialogue.

Also my experience with my client rellates to Carl Rogers' Oter Characteristics. Rogers originally developed his theory to be the foundation for a system of therapy. He initially called this "non-directive therapy" but later replaced the term "non-directive" with the term "client-centered" and then later used the term "person-centered". The first empirical evidence of the effectiveness of ...