Outcomes

“Only as the therapist is completely willing that any outcome, any direction, may be chosen – only then does he realize the vital strength of the capacity and potentiality of the individual for constructive action”

(Rogers, 1951, page 49)

It's a little bit hard, sometimes, to know whether Rogers is recommending a methodological attitude, here, or really making a statement about 'acceptable outcomes'. Particularly as he follows up with this slightly gnomic qualification:

"It is as he is willing for death to be the choice, that life is chosen; for neuroticism to be the choice, that a healthy normality is chosen. The more completely he acts upon his central hypothesis, the more convincing is the evidence that the hypothesis is correct."

Maybe it doesn't matter, from a practice point of view - except that there is always an element of incongruence in the 'methodological' position. Surely I must really believe that any outcome is acceptable in order to "completely  ... [act] upon [my] central hypothesis"?

References

Rogers, C. R. (1951). Client-centered therapy : Its current practice, implications and theory Constable.

Autonomy and Relationships

It is in the loneliness of our autonomy that we find the integrity that makes real communication possible.

It is the task of a parent to allow this autonomy to develop by participating in our communication experiments with the same integrity.

Teaching

"Perhaps I should start with a negative learning. It has gradually been driven home to me that I cannot be of help to this troubled person by means of any intellectual or training procedure. No approach which relies upon knowledge, upon training, upon the acceptance of something that is taught, is of any use. These approaches seem so tempting and direct that I have, in the past, tried a great many of them. It is possible to expJain a person to himself, to prescribe steps which should lead him forward, to train hirn in knowledge about a more satisfying mode of life. But such methods are, in my experience, futile and inconsequential. The most they can accomplish is some temporary change, which soon disappears, leaving the individual more than ever convinced of his inadequacy."

(Rogers, 1961, pp 32-33)

The Socrates of Plato's 'Meno' dialogue can be represented as believing that teaching was sometimes about revealing something to the student that they already knew - something they could almost have worked out for themselves, given time and opportunity.

When I find myself trying to explain something to a student, I have to try to inhabit their failure to understand - to see it, in a sense, as rational. This includes trying to see how something that seems obvious to me - something I'm so familiar with that I have forgotten why it might seem puzzling - might not be obvious. I have to kind of 'unlearn' it, in order to enter the student's world.

If I don't do this, I can't pass on anything much better than rote learning - a capacity to recite a rule, or superficially 'perform' a calculation without really understanding it.

In counselling, I find that my confidence that I know something that the client does not - even when the client colludes in this - is often misleading. I think this is part of what Rogers is pointing to.

I can give a student a kind of performative capacity - e.g. to pass an exam, or fit into a repetitive administrative role - without really visiting their failure to understand. But I cannot bring them to any real understanding. In order to do that, I need to stand beside them with a flashlight, so to speak, hoping that we both find something in its beam.

And I must be prepared to be as surprised and informed as they are by the experience.

No matter how many times I have 'taught' something - however apparently trivial or basic - I always learn something new about it with each new attempt. If I don't, then I can generally be sure that the student hasn't either...

Reference:

ROGERS, C.R., 1961. On becoming a person; a therapist's view of psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Empathy

To be empathic, we must try, without reserve, to enter into the world of another person - all the while knowing that this is impossible. All the while knowing that when we are sure, we are most prone to error; that when we think we can see most clearly, we may be looking in the mirror; that we must be sceptical of signposts and maps, but that even the most careful scepticism is not foolproof.

A therapeutic relationship is built out of a sincere attempt at empathy. The moments of  'success' are less important for their content than as evidence of that sincerity.