Personal growth: Rogerian paradoxes

The path and price of personal development

“…This conclusion is at variance with the optimism of Rogerian thinking which sees self-actualization as socially advantageous (Rogers 1980), since positive outcomes are far from inevitable (Williams and Irving 1996). Yet many subscribe to this belief.…”

Straddling the contradictions: Understanding and conceptualising the role of attachment status in counselling psychologists’ accounts of personal therapy

“…Slade (2000); Obegi and Berant (2008) -and more in beginning to examine what insecurely attached participants actually say about their therapy -for example, their descriptions about feeling coerced or bullied -to interrogate the long-held and much-cherished professional view that personal therapy is an indispensable part of psychotherapeutic training (Freud, 1910(Freud, , 1937Fromm-Reichmann, 1950). Indeed, our research had initially been motivated by growing dissatisfaction in the psychotherapeutic field with the lack of transparency within psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic training institutions (Tuckett, 2005) the ongoing lack of a clear rationale for undertaking a personal therapy in training (Atkins, 2006), and the manifest lack of any pedagogic aims or clinical functions such an emotionally and financially costly undertaking is supposed to fulfil (Williams & Irving, 1996). The results of our study, particularly in terms of the finding a differential impact of power structures within psychotherapeutic training on secure versus insecurely attached participants, suggest that some of its more provocative 'warrants for action' include questioning and changing cherished perspectives on the aims, function and integration of a personal therapy within training.…”

Utilising Reflective Practice Groups as pedagogy in ordination training and theological development

“…All of these groups appear to be tutor-led, or tutor-facilitated, which potentially establishes a difficult dynamic within the participants of being able to express honest reflection, whilst knowing that they are being 2008; 2012). However, they only sometimes lead to positive outcomes (Gubi 2017a;Williams and Irving 1996) and can sometimes be destructive and dysfunctional (Lennie 2000). Benson (1987) observes these 'negatives' as:…”