The main virtue of this book is that it shows that it is possible to both work within the client's frame of reference in a highly empathic manner *and* systematically (not haphazardly) deploy a range of structured humanistic interventions that allow clients to engage with their difficulties without having their agency usurped by the therapist.
I found this book in my first year of grad school, and it has basically been my roadmap of therapy ever since. The book is extremely practical: it is not 400 pages on the "spirit" of person-centered work but a very detailed account of how focusing-oriented, existential, and gestalt techniques can be artfully incorporated into a person-centered way of relating to clients so that they can have the best of both worlds.
A word for the new reader: if you have only ever been exposed to behaviorally oriented and psychodynamic therapies (in school or in personal therapy), the book will likely be a bit difficult at the beginning as it will take time for the "vibe" and rationale of the therapy to sink in. The emphasis in this therapy is much more on felt experience in the moment, and this requires a very different attitude toward intervening. More generally, the *content* of client's problems is significantly counterbalanced by an interest in the *process* of how clients are engaging with their feelings, difficulties etc. in session. The aim is to *facilitate processes* and not to mastermind explanations or solutions—which is frequently what grad programs emphasize.
I should say again (circling back a bit): you didn't know it, but the humanistic tradition *has* interventions!—and a very important one you should look up, whether you buy this book or not, is focusing. "Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy" is a whole tradition of person-centered practice that few students know about. Learn about focusing: it will improve your practice as a humanistic therapist, will make this book much easier to understand, and may even improve your life personally (it did for me...).
I'm now in my third year of school and am starting my internship, having had a practicum in my second year. Primarily because of this book, I feel like I "know what I'm doing" when I enter the therapy room significantly more than other students, based on what they say to me. I have a plan (with flexibility), a reason for why I'm doing what I'm doing, a set of skills that I can work on refining in the long term, and the pleasure of having a sophisticated way of helping clients that aligns with my value of allowing them to be maximally in control of what happens in therapy and to be the final authority on what they experience.
To reiterate, what is awesome about this book is that it lays out a systematic way of working as a person-centered therapist. This book gives the lie to claims that "we're all person-centered now" or "being person-centered just means being warm" or "person-centered therapy has no interventions." Wrong, wrong, wrong. Learn EFT and see just how powerfully and distinctively you be of service to your clients as a person-centered therapist.
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2023
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Top reviews from other countries
- ShuChuRyokuReviewed in Canada on October 22, 2014
and this one is the best in my view
- Irene MacDonaldReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 1, 2008
A complex topic made clearer
