Gianina Frediani, Leen Krieckemans, Alexandra Seijnaeve, Siebrecht Vanhooren
{"title":"Engaging with the client’s existential concerns: the impact on therapists and counselors","authors":"Gianina Frediani, Leen Krieckemans, Alexandra Seijnaeve, Siebrecht Vanhooren","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2133000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2133000","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study examined which themes therapists identify as existential and explored what happens when therapists engage with their clients’ existential concerns. Over two simultaneous studies, 19 participants were interviewed about working with existential themes. The first study consisted of experienced person-centered and existential psychotherapists and the second study of counselors or therapists working in a setting that would evoke existential themes. The data were first analyzed separately for both groups using Consensual Qualitative Research. Subsequently, a general cross analysis was conducted to achieve a meta-synthesis. Four existential themes were identified: Death and boundaries of life; Freedom, choice and responsibility; Connection and isolation; and Meaning and meaninglessness. In addition to providing a descriptive model of these themes, this study suggests that existential training might help therapists notice more implicit existential dynamics in the therapeutic process. Furthermore, engaging with clients’ existential concerns might make therapists more aware of their own existential reality which would help them to relate to existential themes differently. Experienced therapists can identify existential themes in their clients’ stories. However, specific existential training and personal reflection can deepen therapists’ openness towards existential issues and expand insight in existential processes.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"42 1","pages":"283 - 302"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89026405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Experiences of the step-out technique in emotion-focused therapy for clients with autistic process","authors":"A. Robinson, Juan Pablo Kalawski","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2115941","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2115941","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Lower levels of experiential processing are associated with poorer therapeutic outcomes. Clients with autistic process are reported to experience sensory-body awareness processing problems which is recognized as an interoception marker. The Step-Out is a simple bodily technique, used within the Alba Method, to achieve an emotionally neutral, relaxed, and alert state. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of clients with autistic process with the Step-Out. Eleven clients learned and spoke about the technique. A thematic analysis of clients’ responses produced an overall theme ‘In sensing me to connecting to you’. This contained three broad themes: In-and-out of interoceptive contact, letting go of tension and beyond self-experience. Clients were able to verbally describe their internal sensations and perceptions following the task. Responses ranged across an experiential continuum from emotional overwhelm, to no felt change to experiences of relational connection. Preliminary findings provide promising support for the utility of the Step-Out as a mini experiential task to help clients with autistic process shift their attention from an externalized to an internalized process, and to recognize, express, and regulate their internal states. Findings are tentative due to the exploratory nature, limited participants, and lack of assessment measures.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"26 1","pages":"265 - 282"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82073965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Pillai, Allison Connolly, Natalie Hession, L. Timulak
{"title":"’Why Mutilate Me Before I Die’: An Emotion-Focused Conceptualization of Breast Cancer Clients’ Experiences of Anxiety and Depression","authors":"S. Pillai, Allison Connolly, Natalie Hession, L. Timulak","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2104750","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2104750","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The study set out to study the experienced distress of clients with breast cancer who also meet criteria for comorbid anxiety and depression (CAD) from the perspective of emotion-focused case conceptualization. A theoretically informed qualitative case analysis of 15 recorded psychotherapy sessions across three women was conducted using an emotion-focused case conceptualization as domains of inquiry and an interpretative framework. Experiences of mastectomy-related shame appeared to be maintained by cancer side effects, whereas social identities relating to gender and class triggered self-blame for cancer and shame at not functioning as well as expected. Existential fear, worry, and hypervigilance were indicative of cancer as an ongoing trauma. Unmet needs for safety were related to unclear communication with the medical team during treatment, while triggers relating to childhood adversity and insecure attachments perpetuated present-day distress. The findings suggest that emotion-focused treatments in psycho-oncology include a trauma-informed lens that allows for greater processing and integration of past trauma. Future research should explore breast cancer distress in women across different social identities for a broader and more inclusive understanding of distress presentations.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"140 1","pages":"243 - 264"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74233942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Focusing with images","authors":"Stephanie Aspin, Judy Moore","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2110147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2110147","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The practise of Focusing with images was the key element of six workshops held for postgraduate research students at the University of East Anglia, UK. Participants were invited both to respond to extant images (including those from the university’s art galleries) as well as to create their own images through working with paint and other art materials. Changes in this highly anxious group’s ability to access and manage inner experiencing as a result of their participation in these workshops was recorded and assessed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Participants completed the Focusing Manner Scale (FMS) at the beginning and at the end of their participation in the workshops and improvement (p = 0.063) was seen in 6 out of 7 participants, indicating a shift in their ability to find ways of processing difficult experiencing. The FMS findings are supplemented by reconstructions of Focusing sessions based on field notes taken during the workshops. Images not only offer external representations of inner experiencing but also provide material for experience to be carried forward.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"45 1","pages":"171 - 190"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79157111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Family-centered therapy: Implications of Pacific spirituality for person-centered theory and practice","authors":"Julia Ioane, Keith Tudor","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2100812","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2100812","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Based on the authors’ different backgrounds and experiences of working in Pacific communities and with Pacific people as clients, supervisees, trainees, and colleagues, and taking a critical perspective informed by Talanoa research methodology, mainly Samoan and by Southern theory, this article examines person-centered theory and practice. The article firstly reviews Rogers’ theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships; and second deconstructs Rogers’ original ‘general structure’, offering a reconstruction of the theory that accounts for placing the family and spirituality at the center of psychological practice and theory. The article concludes with identifying three epistemological shifts necessary to make person-centered psychology more relevant to the Pacific context.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"38 1","pages":"58 - 76"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80865739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. M. Vieira, F. Pinheiro, Jacqueline de Oliveira Moreira, Iago Cavalcante Araújo
{"title":"An analysis of the initial non-directive phase of person-centered therapy from the perspective of Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy","authors":"E. M. Vieira, F. Pinheiro, Jacqueline de Oliveira Moreira, Iago Cavalcante Araújo","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2104749","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2104749","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The person-centered approach has been divided into five phases: non-directive, reflexive, experiential, collective or interhuman, and post-Rogerian, according to technical and epistemological criteria. We understand that each of these phases refers to a way to deal with alterity, or difference. This study aimed to analyze how difference may be explained in the non-directive phase of the person-centered approach. For a definition of alterity, we based our thinking on the work of Emmanuel Levinas. We found that denial of alterity was present in the objective search for regularities in the therapeutic relationship, emphasis on the technical, attempts at the social adaptation of clients, and the appreciation given to insight. We turned to the notion of ‘figures of alterity’: how a certain thought leads to a larger or smaller openness to experiencing a potential difference. We found that approaches to difference appeared through four figures of alterity: the Other of ignorance, the Other of the narrative, the Other of affect, and the Other of refraction.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"23 1","pages":"209 - 223"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83779636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On becoming a person-centered therapist: the effect of the process of “becoming” on the person’s self-concept","authors":"Alexandra Rizeakou, Maria Kefalopoulou","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2104753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2104753","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to explore how someone perceives the process of becoming a person-centered therapist, and if (and in what way) the person-centered approach changes their self-concept during this process. Six person-centered therapists were interviewed about the way they experienced their process of ‘becoming’, the way they perceive their self-concept with regard to this process, and how this perception changed during their training and practice. These semi-structured interviews were analyzed using Interpretative-Phenomenological Analysis. Four main themes were identified: perceiving themselves through the process of becoming a person-centered therapist, experiencing themselves as clients, relating to significant others, and comparing and differentiating person-centered therapy and other approaches.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"702 1","pages":"154 - 170"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76893875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Emotion-focused therapy for grief and bereavement","authors":"J. M. Sharbanee, L. Greenberg","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2100813","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2100813","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We present an Emotion Focused Therapy perspective on working with grief and bereavement. This perspective considers emotions as a fundamentally adaptive signaling system that provides people with important information about their needs and goals. Thus the focus in working with grief and bereavement in EFT is to access and symbolize people’s adaptive grief around their loss. When this grief is blocked by other emotional states, such as lingering resentments, guilt, or fear of emotional pain, it is important for these other emotions to also be accessed and differentiated from the grief. This emotional processing can be facilitated through an empathic relational stance and experiential interventions which are guided by emotion theory and process diagnosis.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"31 1","pages":"1 - 22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79537720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impacts of an intensive child-centered play therapy training workshop for school counselors","authors":"R. P. Maddox, Kara Carnes-Holt, Courtney McKim","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2104752","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2104752","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This mixed methods study examined the impacts of an intensive play therapy workshop that included a micro-practicum for 18 practicing school counselors. This study also explored school counselors’ experiences regarding their training for addressing mental health issues in schools and their experiences following the intensive play therapy workshop. Participants ranged in age from 28 years to 66 years. Fifteen (n = 15) participants identified as female while three (n = 3) identified male. Varying levels of clinical play therapy experience were represented in this study with 44.4% (n = 8) participants reporting having no prior clinical experience in play therapy, 33.3% (n = 6) reporting having under 1 year of clinical experience in play therapy, 5.6% (n = 1) reporting having 2 years of clinical play therapy experience, 5.6% (n = 1) reporting having 3 years of clinical play therapy experience, and 11.1% (n = 2) reporting having more than 3 years of clinical experience in play therapy. Results indicated that an intensive play therapy workshop with micro-practicum positively affects school counselors’ scores on the Play Therapy Attitude Knowledge and Skills Survey and School Counselor Self-efficacy scales.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"4 1","pages":"191 - 208"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74080522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Therapists’ perspectives on positive regard","authors":"Daisy Ort, C. Moore, B. Farber","doi":"10.1080/14779757.2022.2104751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2022.2104751","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study investigated multiple aspects of therapists’ provision of positive regard (PR), including their assessment of the importance of PR in their practice, their sense of which specific aspects of PR are most affirming, and their perception of which aspects they provide most frequently to their clients. A total of 269 psychotherapists, primarily female, White, residing in the United States, and representing a range of theoretical orientations, completed a web-based survey with three Likert-type measures that reflected an understanding of PR as a wider-ranging concept than unconditional positive regard (UPR). Results suggest that therapists acknowledge PR as central to treatment process and outcome, that there is significant thematic breadth to the ways they choose to convey PR, and that the behaviors and statements they perceive as most affirming are also those that they are most likely to express in therapy. These findings, in conjunction with the significant convergence between therapists’ and clients’ perceptions of the nature and importance of PR, suggest that PR is a far more widely adopted attitude across multiple theoretical orientations than has generally been assumed.","PeriodicalId":44274,"journal":{"name":"Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies","volume":"28 1","pages":"139 - 153"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82571605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}