Pcandexistential
Working as a counsellor from person-centred and existential perspectives
Kaarel Tamre
Introduction
The following is an attempt to compare two different approaches to counselling, person-centred and existential, and to highlight some important similarities and differences between them. My intention has not been to give an exhaustive overview of both theories with all their differences and similarities, rather I have tried to describe and analyse those aspects of both theories which to me personally seemed to be of greatest importance, and also which seemed to bear greatest relevance to my own experience of counselling, both as a client and as a student-counsellor. The emphasis in this essay will be more (although not exclusively) on the similarities than the differences between these two approaches, the main reason to this being my attempt on the first year of my PgDip course to integrate both approaches into my own way of practicing. As long as I have known about either existential or person-centred approaches I have always felt that they both miss something important, and this ‘something important’ seemed in both cases to be exactly something that the other of these two theories has. But to fit them both together – as comfortably as possible – it seemed to me necessary first to try to look ‘past’ or ‘through’ the very different language they often use and to map the areas where those two approaches actually overlap. I was sure that after mapping out the similarities it would become much easier to see the main differences between those two approaches, and to decide which of these to accept and which to reject. But as most of the material in this essay still comes from the first part of this process – mapping the similarities – this essay will inevitably concentrate more on the similarities, and therefore also more on the first part of Ernesto Spinelli’s notion about existential and person-centred approaches that “… at the level of practice what both
Kaarel Tamre
Introduction
The following is an attempt to compare two different approaches to counselling, person-centred and existential, and to highlight some important similarities and differences between them. My intention has not been to give an exhaustive overview of both theories with all their differences and similarities, rather I have tried to describe and analyse those aspects of both theories which to me personally seemed to be of greatest importance, and also which seemed to bear greatest relevance to my own experience of counselling, both as a client and as a student-counsellor. The emphasis in this essay will be more (although not exclusively) on the similarities than the differences between these two approaches, the main reason to this being my attempt on the first year of my PgDip course to integrate both approaches into my own way of practicing. As long as I have known about either existential or person-centred approaches I have always felt that they both miss something important, and this ‘something important’ seemed in both cases to be exactly something that the other of these two theories has. But to fit them both together – as comfortably as possible – it seemed to me necessary first to try to look ‘past’ or ‘through’ the very different language they often use and to map the areas where those two approaches actually overlap. I was sure that after mapping out the similarities it would become much easier to see the main differences between those two approaches, and to decide which of these to accept and which to reject. But as most of the material in this essay still comes from the first part of this process – mapping the similarities – this essay will inevitably concentrate more on the similarities, and therefore also more on the first part of Ernesto Spinelli’s notion about existential and person-centred approaches that “… at the level of practice what both
References: Adams, M. (2001) ‘Practicing Phenomenology: Some reflections and considerations’. Existential Analysis 12, 1 (Reprinted at http://www.existentialanalysis.co.uk/ 071106_resources.htm) Bozarth, J Deurzen, E. van (2002) Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in Practice. London: Sage Guney, H Mearns, D. & Thorne, B. (1999) Person-Centred Counselling in Action. London: Sage Ram-Prasad, C Rogers, C. R. (1957) ‘The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change’ in Kirschenbaum, H. & Hendersen V.L. (eds.) (1990) The Carl Rogers Reader. London: Constable Rogers, C Sanders, P. (2006) The Person-centred Counselling Primer. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books Spinelli, E Spinelli, E. (2005) The Interpreted World: An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology. London: Sage Spinelli, E Yalom, I. (1980) Existential Psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books Yalom, I Yalom, I. (2001) The Gift of Therapy: Reflections on Being a Therapist. London: Piatkus Books