Kafka's experiencing in text: A person-centered reading of Letters to Felice.

Abstract

Franz Kafka's (1967/1999) Letters to Felice is instructive for the therapist/reader because it provides a first-person narrative of Kafka's immersion in a fundamentally relational-experiential process. It is argued that the underlying We of Kafka's letters implies that their correspondence expressed and constituted their relationship. Significant aspects of his experiencing are discussed from a person-centered perspective. It is argued that his experiences were initially subceived prior to awareness, in the moment, bodily felt, and process-like. The parallels that exist between the experience of reading Letters to Felice and being in a person-centered therapeutic relationship are discussed. Both endeavors are experiential and phenomenological, and from a contemporary person-centered perspective, are based upon a refinement of Carl Rogers' original formulation.