Sarah Hawtin

Person-centred therapy is based on the fundamental belief that human beings are essentially trustworthy, social and creative.  The practical expression of this belief is the willingness of the therapist to vacate the position of expert and instead to work to enable a client to realize their own resources and self-understanding.  Person-centred counselling emphasizes our internal perceptual and emotional world as the source of understanding for our thoughts, feelings and actions.  The approach is humanistic and also contains existential elements.

Although person-centred therapy stresses the importance of individual experience, in essence it is a theory of relationships, it acknowledges our interdependence in a way which provides a route to deep and acceptant communication with others.  This is nowhere clearer than in person-centred group work.  This has included vast encounter groups and cross-cultural gatherings, for instance in South Africa and Northern Ireland.

Further information about this therapeutic approach written by the authors, can be found in "Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy: The Essential Guide", edited by Professor Stephen Palmer and published by Sage, London.  Price £18.99.

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