A State of Readiness: An Exploration of the Client’s Role in Meeting at Relational Depth

Knox, Rosanne; Cooper, Mick

doi:10.1177/0022167810361687

Cited by 27 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 22 publications

(27 reference statements)

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“…Dialogic formulations of empathy (Schmid, 2006) would be representative of this and include the client's empathic awareness of the therapist's empathic awareness of the client's initial experience. This process is similar to the notion of mutual empathy proposed within the feminist relational psychotherapy (Jordan, 2000) and of the mutual understanding described in experiences of relational depth (Knox & Cooper, 2011;Mearns & Cooper, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 69%

“…Relational depth has been evidenced in recent studies that concluded both clients (Knox, 2008;Knox & Cooper, 2011;MacMillan & McLeod, 2006) and therapists (Cooper, 2005;Knox & Cooper, 2010;Mearns & Cooper, 2005) reported experiences of moments of relational depth. There is also now a newly developed measure for capturing experiences of relational depth within therapeutic encounters (Wiggins, Elliott, & Cooper, 2012).…”

Section: Dialogic and Mutual Aspects In Person-centered Therapymentioning

confidence: 95%

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Mutuality in person-centered therapy: A new agenda for research and practice

Murphy

Cramer

Joseph

2012

Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies

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Rogers (1957) hypothesized that, if two people are in psychological contact, and when the client is incongruent and minimally perceives the therapist's empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence, this would be necessary and sufficient for constructive personality change. In this paper we propose that this research hypothesis, while a helpful one for testing theory, has inadvertently resulted in only a partial exploration of the process of person-centered psychotherapy insofar as it conceptualizes the therapeutic relationship as the provision of empathy and unconditional positive regard from the therapist to the client. Therefore, research has tended to focus only as far as client perception of the therapist conditions and little attention has been paid to the process of and requirements for ''receiving'' the conditions. In other writings, however, Rogers (1959) described the therapeutic relationship as consisting of bi-directional, reciprocal, and mutual interaction between client and therapist. Receiving the conditions is a worthwhile area for research and study and can inform the development of practice. We suggest that for the conditions to be actively received the contribution of the client to the therapeutic relationship has to be considered. The result is a new hypothesis in which experiences of mutuality are realized as a result of the client, in addition to the therapist, experiencing increasing levels of empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard. The paper concludes that person-centered psychotherapy is inherently relational and we highlight the potential and implication for mutual relating within person-centered psychotherapy.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Dialogic and Mutual Aspects In Person-centered Therapymentioning

confidence: 95%

Mutuality in person-centered therapy: A new agenda for research and practice

Murphy

Cramer

Joseph

2012

Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies

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“…Neither do we mean to imply that therapists are unimportant. In concert with the observation by Knox and Cooper (2011) that moments of relational depth reflected clients' readiness and initiative as well as those of the therapists, our participants' testimony suggests that a realistic clinical understanding of the process and outcome of therapy requires considering both clients' and therapists' plans, intentions, and will. These studies demonstrate that there is scope for continuing research in the area of client agency.…”

Section: Limitations and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Client experiences of agency in therapy

Hoener¹,

Stiles²,

Luka

et al. 2012

Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies

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This study sought an understanding of clients' experiences with psychotherapy from clients' own points of view. Eleven 18-23-year-old clients or former clients participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews about their experiences and opinions of therapy. The interviews were transcribed, and themes were extracted, drawing on techniques from Grounded Theory. From the themes that emerged in this analysis, we focus in this paper on the major theme of client agency, by which we mean clients actively making and enacting choices regarding their therapy. Agency was consistently salient and highly valued by the participants; it encompassed participant accounts of (a) doing the work of therapy, (b) informing themselves about therapy, (c) different manifestations of agency in different therapeutic approaches, (d) their valuing of accomplishment and empowerment, (e) how experiences in therapy differed from expectations, and (f) experiences of compromised agency. Klienten erfahren sich als selbstwirksam Handelnde in der TherapieDiese Studie zielte darauf ab, die Erfahrungen von Klienten mit Psychotherapie aus deren eigener Perspektive erfassen. Elf 18-23 Jahre alte Klienten oder fru¨here Klienten nahmen an halbstrukturierten Tiefeninterviews u¨ber ihre Erfahrungen und Meinung zu Therapie teil. Die Interviews wurden mit Hilfe von Techniken der Grounded Theory transkribiert sowie dann Themen extrahiert. Von den Themen, die in dieser Analyse auftauchten, konzentrieren wir uns in diesem Artikel auf das Hauptthema des Klienten als selbstwirksam Handelndem. Damit meinen wir Situationen, in denen Klienten bezu¨glich ihrer Therapie aktiv eine Wahl treffen und dementsprechend handeln. Selbstwirksames Handeln beurteilten Teilnehmende als etwas Besonderes und es wurde sehr gescha¨tzt; es umfasste Berichte der Teilnehmenden zu (a) die Therapiearbeit tun, (b) sich u¨ber Therapie zu informieren, (c) verschiedene Manifestationen des selbstwirksamen Handelns in den verschiedenen therapeutischen Ansa¨tzen, (d) dass sie es scha¨tzten, etwas zu erreichen und bewirken zu ko¨nnen, (e) wie Erfahrungen mit Therapie sich von den Erwartungen zuvor unterschieden und (f) Erfahrungen, wo das selbstwirksame Handeln gesto¨rt wurde.Experiencias de los consultantes de ser su propio ''agente'' en terapia Este estudio busco´comprender las experiencias de psicoterapia de los consultantes desde sus propios puntos de vista. Once consultantes o ex consultantes de 18 a 23 an˜os de edad participaron en entrevistas en profundidad y semi estructuradas acerca de sus experiencias y opiniones de la terapia. Las entrevistas fueron transcritas y se *Corresponding author.

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“…These factors include counselor presence (Mearns, , ; Mearns & Cooper, ); transparency and immediacy (Cooper, 2013b; Mearns & Cooper, ; Mearns & Schmid, ); self‐awareness (Cooper, 2013b; Mearns & Cooper, ); care for the client (Cooper, 2013b); fearlessness (Mearns, , ); ability to create a safe environment, ability to forgo preconceived notions of clients or the desire to fix clients, ability to let go of specific techniques, and ability to listen deeply (Mearns & Cooper, ); acceptance of the client (Cooper, 2013b; Mearns & Schmid, ); willingness to be affected by the client and invite this deeper encounter (Mearns & Cooper, ; Mearns & Schmid, ); and commitment to the client, openness to the experience, existential‐level communication, emphasis on the relationship, willingness to have an impact the client, and awareness of the environment and the power differential (Mearns & Schmid, ). Qualitative studies of therapists' (Cooper, ; Macleod, ) and clients' (Knox, , ; Knox & Cooper, , ; McMillan & McLeod, ) experiences of relational depth also shed some light on this question. However, there remains a dearth of empirical research exploring the specific counselor factors that contribute to the ability to invite and facilitate these moments of relational depth.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%