PCE2006
7th World Conference for
Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling

July 12–16, 2006, Potsdam, Germany

 

Topic:
Social, Intercultural and Political Aspects (Minority Groups included)

 

 

Symposia, Paper Sessions, Workshops, Round Table Discussion Groups:

 

Symposium: Politicizing the Person-centered Approach: An Agenda for Social Change

Mick Cooper, University of Strathclyde
Gillian Proctor, North Bradford Primary Care Mental Health Team
Pete Sanders, PCCS Books

Abstract:

This symposium explores the interface between the Person-centered approach and progressive political activity. Drawing on material from the recently published Politicizing the Person-centered Approach: An Agenda for Social Change (2006, PCCS Books), three of the volume’s co-editors will present their views on how progressive political thought can inform the person-centered field and vice versa. The symposium begins with a paper by Pete Sanders, who will map out key areas of intersection between the political and therapeutic arenas. These include the politics of the helping professions and their institutions, the politics of helping theories, the place of politics in helping practice, the contribution that helping makes to contemporary life and the helper as citizen. Gillian Proctor will then present a paper entitled "Opium for the masses or help for those who need it least?" which looks at the issues of power, powerlessness, and inequality in therapy and society and asks whether Person-centered Therapy serves to liberate its clients or disempower them. The third paper by Mick Cooper examines the interface between the person-centered approach and socialist thought and activity. Developing a "socialist-humanist" agenda, Cooper argues that person-centered therapy is severely limited without a socialist politic, just as progressive political thought is limited without a humanistic input. In his paper, Cooper will also outline a model of psychological development that can incorporate both intrapersonal and social obstacles to psychological growth. Following the papers, there will be substantial time for discussion and dialogue.

Lecture: Migration, stress, coping and mental health: Turkish familys’ intentions to stay in Germany or return to their home country

Leyla Ercan Esentürk
Dr., Gazi Universitat, Gazi Paedagogische Fakultat, Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaften, Ankara, Türkei, e-mail: leyla@gazi.edu.tr

Abstract:

Migration and its accompanying stressors affect migrating individuals and their families. The process of migration is not simple or straightforward. The scale of movement of turkish Families has increased in the last years. Despite the large number of turkish migrants in Germany, little research has been done about this group. Turkish migrants face different stressors. Stress-coping strategies may vary for each family as well.

The aim of this study is; (n=150 turkish Families) using focus group interwievs, analyse the factors that motivate family to stay in Germany or return home; comparing relationships among perceived stress,stress-coping strategies and mental health. The results of the study will be given later. Conclusions:Migration is and can be very stress-inducing phenomenon.

Workshop: Our nine years experiences of multi-cultural encounter group in Japan

Naoki Fukuoka, The First High School, Kansai University,

Minoru Hatase, PhD., Kansai Human Relations Research Center,

Yuko Sakaki, Chikusi Jogakuenn University,

Mikio Shimizu. Hosei University,

Motoo Shimoda, Kan-agawa University,

Satoshi Takamatsu, Kyusyu University, Japan,
Makiko Mikuni, Hosei University, joining as an interpreter for our presentation.
Responsible coordinator: M. Hatase (Ph.D.)
URL: http://mceg.hp.infoseek.co.jp/

Abstract:

There are increasing numbers of long period residential foreigners in Japan now. However, very few communications exist between the foreigners and Japanese people. So we have started four days residential encounter groups for non-Japanese and Japanese since 1996. We are going to share our experiences. Main topics, the outline, and the presenters are as follows:

  1. The overall schedule of four days workshop (M. SHIMODA)
    The four days residential encounter group process. Since the 6th, the schedule has been stable with the combination of community meetings and small groups.
  2. The large(community)group facilitation (S. TAKAMATSU) 
    In order to get over some unusual group situation of language difficulties and culture differences, we spend most of the times as community group setting with 5 to 6 facilitators for about 20 participants. Facilitators need more genuine personal contact to other members.
  3. The translation problem (Y. SAKAKI) 
    As we provide no professional translator in the group, we need more facilitation or care to the attendants isolated because of language and cultural barrier.
  4. The degree of satisfaction (N. FUKUOKA)
    Numbers, nationalities, and sex of the participants of each workshop. The contentment degree is based on their questionnaire at the end of the each workshop.
  5. Follow-up interviews with three most frequent participants (M. HATASE)
    Research report of the follow-up interviews with the three frequent participants, one English teacher from USA, one graduate student living from her birth in Japan as other nationality and one Japanese, handicapped with his eye.
  6. Conclusions and the future tasks (M. SHIMIZU)
    Deep self-understanding and growth in the multi-culture. Function of inconvenient language situation. How to facilitate the isolation from the multi-culture and language barriers?

Lecture: The importance of "intuition, trust, and a trusting systemic context" to the practitioner

Harald H. Gassner

Dipl.-Psych., psychotherapist in private practice, Friedrichstr. 17, 71665 Vaihingen, Deutschland, E-Mail: harald@h-gassner.de

Abstract:

These three further "conditions" are to be explored in our round table. Mainly advocated by Ruth Sanford (1995. 2002) and John Vasconcellos (www.politicsoftrust.net), current approaches (e.g. the mirror neurons as a biological Basis of intuition, Joachim Bauer (2005) could enrich the discussion, as well as the participant's own experiences.

Finally, all three conditions will be explored in their interconnectedness with the "basic" attitudes empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence. They arise as "interactive" results, when the three attitudes are present and perceptible in the relationship.

Interestingly, we are facing cultural limits, if not academic withdrawal and hesitation in dealing with concepts like "trust" and "intuition". However, they are of greatest importance to the practitioner and deserve the greatest efforts in research. Self-disclosure certainly correlates with trust, which is the main feature of a good therapy. Additionally, in our present economy we can study the devastating effects of misused and missing trust in an employee's motivation, creativity, social, and communication skills.

The challenging question in our culture is: how much is our health threatened by the absence of "intuition, trust and a trusting systemic context"? How can we maintain enough health to carry a healthy vision facing the client's problems and suffering? Does the absence of trust and intuition in public acknowledgement and practice indicate a cultural "sickness"? And how can the helping profession "survive" – and still promote health – in this cultural climate of mistrust?

Lecture: Psychological approach to university students in buddhism city in Japan

Takeshi Harada
Kouyasan University, Senrioka 7-10-32-502 Settsu City Osaka Prefecture Japan, 566-0001, Settsu City Osaka Prefecture, Japan, e-mail: HARADA4875@aol.com

Abstract:

I would like to present a psychological approach to a special region at PCE. I am working as counselor for university students at buddhist university called Koyasan University. Koyasan (Mount Koya) is the main headquarters of a sect of buddhism called Koyasan Shingon-shu and is a place of ascetic exercises for a probationary priest. It is located on a mountain that is 900 meters high in Japan. Koyasan is registered the world heritage in July 2004.

Many of the students are probationary priests and their father is a priest in big temple. So they practice asceticism to succeed to their father’s big temple every day regardless of his intention. Moreover other students who may not become a priest come to request the side of healing from Koyasan too.

I would like to discuss it about an adolescent student who request the religion in presenting about various students at PCE. Moreover, I would like to discuss it about a psychological problem of present Japan.

Lecture: Psychological Problems of Japanese Koreans – Through the psychotherapy process with an Adolescent Japanese-Korean girl

Akira Kanazawa
Graduate School of Human Science, Osaka University, e-mail: akira-z@d6.dion.ne.jp

Abstract:

I discuss the psychological problems of Japanese-Koreans through the psychotherapy process with an Adolescent Japanese-Korean girl. She initially seemed to be psychotic judging from her complaints. During psychotherapy processes, it became clear that her psychotic state partly derived from her mother who is emotionally unstable, lacking confidence, and difficult to communicate with. She had come from Korea before her daughter got married, so she has had difficulties with making herself understood in Japanese and has experienced disruption of her identity. In Japan, Korean-Japanese have experienced discrimination and persecution simply because of their Korean heritage and have had difficulties with adaptation to Japan but how this fact influences them and the children who care for them has not yet been caring children is not yet investigated psychologically. I discuss this issue in detail through a review of the psychotherapy process in this case.

Lecture: Whiteness, "difference" and diversity: A significant silence in person-centered therapy?

Colin Lago
e-mail: colin@lago7380.fsnet.co.uk, webside: www.colinlago.co.uk

Abstract:

"The Power of silence is so massive... there is a value calling it 'black issues' because it is a re prioritising something, highlighting the fast that everything taught are white issues. We don't actually say that, we just call it theory and practice. We don't actually say everything we are talking about is white, because it's invisible." (A white counselling/psychotherapy tutor interviewed in "A Study of Black Issues in Counsellor Training" Doctoral submission by Isha McKenzie-Mavinga to Metanoia/Middlesex University)

This proposal is being written at a time when violent civil unrest has taken hold in France in recent weeks and where the British Parliament is fiercely engaged in creating new legislation "to fight terrorism" which will severely impact upon civil liberties. The contemporary world is today, more than ever before, multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial. Many countries have populations that reflect both ancient and more recent movements of peoples across national boundaries. There are majority and minority ethnic groups in Bach society. Accompanying there geo-political factors, there are considerable evidences of racism, discrimination and stereotyping across a wide range of social, health, educational, housing, employment and justice systems. These social injustices are also, sadly, reflected in mental health systems. For example, within the U.K., people of African heritage are six Limes more likely to be compulsorily sectioned (hospitalised) and persons of Asian origin four times more likely to commit suicide than their white counterparts.

Person-Centered theory offers a well researched (and developing) theoretical base for the establishment of sound therapeutic relat1onships. However, (with a few exceptions, e.g. Holdstock, Proctor, Sanders, O'Hara, Lago), what the theory has not taken into account sufficiently is the implication of the social, cultural and political contexts within which both therapists and clients live and are deeply affected by.

What reassurances do we have, as therapists, that we will not repeat these pernicious and discriminatory behaviour patterns that are reported regularly in all other sectors of social life? Focussing on the personhood of the client is absolutely necessary. Ibis is conventional person-centered practice at its best. However, this author argues that IF we ignore the wider sociological context in which:

  • you, as therapist, inhabit,
  • your client lives,
  • you both meet
  • and the different experiences you both may have had through your differential situational locations in society.

THEN we severely limit, if not waste the potential of the therapeutic contact and merely- repeat the discriminatory Status quo. If we are truly interested in empowering the client, we have to address power differentials in society and in ourselves. This is where our own therapeutic and educational work is necessary. The aspiration towards congruence is part of any P.C. therapist's journey. We have to personally extend our own Sense of authenticity into the arenas of social, ethnic, cultural, "racial", national and gendered identities. Only in grasping such entities might our capacity for empathy be truly extended towards these clients who are deemed "different" and "diverse".

This is not a paper advising on how to counsel the "different" or "diverse". It is, rather, an invitation to action; an Invitation to truly consider the implications of your social positioning and what that symbolises and means in terms of power and powerlessness, inclusion and exclusion, privilege and poverty. What use is therapy if social injustice is not impacted? Is our task only to assist (minority group) clients exist in an unjust society? Or can we truly contribute to their empowerment? Can the profession be truly inclusive in its training programmes? What is it we, as a dominant group, are not seeing and urgently need to see and move forward with? Can we even face these questions?

"The silence is massive..."

Lecture: We manage Japanese "Ibasho" space in Kansai University

Naoto Mochizuki
Toyonaka Educational Center, Kansai University, Japan

Abstract:

It’s not only very basic but important in clinical psychology and counseling services to provide a cozy feeling place. However, we Japanese call the cozy feeling space for living, staying, speaking, and meeting "Ibasho". It means not only "having physical space to stay" but "having a space to belong" when one feels like it "for Japanese to feel having Ibasho". So the concept of "Ibasho" means not only physical space but psychological meaning for Japanese. And it’s very influential for people’s ease of body and mind whether one has an "Ibasho" or not. In contrast, we can’t find the word which fits for Japanese" Ibasho" in English dictionary. When you come right down to it, it seems that Japanese "Ibasho" is in English "place". Here we will introduce a Japanese culture based cozy space, made for students as a psychological service, and we’ll debate about "Ibasho" in different cultures and introduce its psychological effects.

Symposium: Past, present, and future of PCA around the world – creating a sustainable vision of PCA through international dialogues

Shoji Murayama, professor, Kyushu Sangyo University
Elke Lambers, Ph.D., chair of the WAPCEPC
Beate Hofmeister, Dipl.-Psych., director Institut fuer Personzentrierte Psychologie Heidelberg
Claudio Rud, director of Casabierta Institute in Buenos Aires
Tatsuya Hirai, assistant professor, Kyushu Sangyo University

Abstract:

More than a hundred years have passed since Carl Rogers was born. A number of practice, education, and research studies related to Person- centered Approach (PCA) have been accumulated around the world during the past 60 years, and now is the best time to collaborate internationally so that PCA can take a significant leap forward to a new era of PCA. The purpose of this symposium is to better understand the current situation of PCA around the world, and create a new vision for PCA through international discussion and collaboration. The symposium invites current important figures of PCA around the world, and each panelist is asked to report 1) the current situation of PCA, including practice, research, and education, 2) issues and problems they face regarding PCA, and 3) future vision of PCA. Then, active and creative discussion among panelists and audience will be facilitated in order to together craft 1) creative solutions to solve issues and problems in different parts of the world 2) strategic plans to further activate PCA in the world, and 3) sustainable vision for international collaboration. PCA practitioners, researchers and students from different continents and cultures are invited to join in this symposium.

Lecture: Social perspectives of person-centered and experiential psychology

Yukishige Nakata
Kansai University, Faculty of Letters, 3-3-35 Yamate-cho, Suita, Osaka 564-8680, Japan, e-mail: ycynaka@ipcku.kansai-u.ac.jp, website: http: http://www2.ipcku.kansai-u.ac.jp/~ycynaka

Abstract:

It is important to add social perspectives to PCE. One of the great contributions of Rogers is "Peace Project", which implies that PCE could potentially deal with social problems. Great efforts have been made by many PCE researchers to show its uniqueness by comparing its psychotherapy outcomes with those of other orientations. However, PCE can also be employed on a social level.

I will talk about how I have reached this idea by citing psychological problems in Japan, because what is going on in Japan psychologically are not just individual client’s level, but should be called "socio-cultural pathology" which reflect social and cultural climate unique to Japan. Each region has its own pathology unique to the area.

But each society ought to have positive sides unique to the area, too. Very simple examples are that people in some country might be supported by Christian atmosphere, but those in other countries might be supported by Buddhism. People in some regions might be supported by rich nature but those in other regions traditional ceremonies.

PCE practitioners need to focus not only on individual’s internal frame of reference but on local uniqueness that people are supported by and disturbed by. With such viewpoint, PCE can be not just one among so many psychotherapeutic approaches but also an approach that intend to contribute to people in society with broad and rich spectrum of practice including psychotherapy.

Lecture: Rejecting the medical model and developing a social model: Person-centred therapy as a psychosocial therapy

Pete Sanders
PCCS Books

Abstract:

The presentation is an attempt to reclaim a "lost" revolutionary strand of person-centred theory and practice. It draws on person-centred and critical psychology literature to reject the medical model of mental illness as an appropriate tool for responding to human distress in the twenty-first century. The possibility of developing a person-centred social model of distress is explored using the social model of disability as a model, and the establishment of person-centred psycho-social practice is proposed. Strategies for resisting and rejecting the medical model in professional bodies will be generated and developed in the ensuing discussion.

Lecture: Psychotherapy is dialogue or it is not psychotherapy – The personal and political challenge of being a person-centered psychotherapist

Peter F. Schmid
University of Graz; Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Francisco; IPS Austria
Koflergasse 4, A-1120 Vienna, phone: +43 1 8123746, fax: +43 1 8124578, e-mail: pfs@pfs-online.at

Abstract:

"Each client is different and has the right to be acknowledged as a unique person" – easy to assert and hard to realize. To be a person-centered therapist means refusing to accept any ready-made answers to existential questions like: What is my personal challenge as a professional and as a human being? What is my risk in entering sincere dialogue with my client? What does it mean to be called to respond to the disclosure of a person in the very moment of meeting?

In questioning established paradigms and patterns any genuinely person-centered approach defies current trends towards problem- and solution-centeredness. It resists the temptations of expertise and the seductions and damnations of self-selected experts. Placing itself at the edge of human knowledge and at the frontier of the human’s search for self-understanding, it is an ongoing provocation to established science and the customary politics and policies of the helping professions, in a word: to the habitual conventions of society. Holding a clear stance with its image of the human being and its values it takes the risk of developing a truly human science, research and practice.

This Powerpoint presentation discusses the ethical, anthropological, epistemological and practical foundations of person-centered identity and person-centered relationship facing present day societal expectations towards psychotherapy. Thereafter we will take our time for dialogue among the participants.

Roundtable: What can person-centered approach possibly do for world peace? – Conveying the message from the okinawan war survivors wishing for peace to the world

Maiko Yoshikawa, Graduate School, Kyushu Sangyo University, 2-4-2 Kurieito #301, Munakata-shi, Fukuoka-ken 811-4184, Japan, email: cp02014@yahoo.co.jp
Tatsuya Hirai, Kyushu Sangyo University
Satoru Yamashita, Graduate School, Kyushu Sangyo University
Satoshi Takamatsu, Kyushu University
Shoji Murayama, Kyushu Sangyo University

Abstract:

In this round-table-discussion group, it will be mainly discussed what Person-Centered Approach (PCA) could possibly facilitate world peace. It is not a main purpose of this discussion to form a conclusion about possible contribution of PCA to world peace, but the presenters intend to promote a heart-to-heart discussion free from historical and political issues about world peace with people from all over the world. This discussion group is linked to the previously held paper session "Gently Warming the Frozen Feelings about Wartime Experience through Deep Relationships in 'PCA Groups': World War II Generation in Okinawa Now".

First, it will be introduced with visual images what the war survivors from WWII in Okinawa wish to speak out to the world now. Although 61 years have passed since the end of WWII, war, conflict, and violence are still everywhere throughout the world; therefore, they grieve "When would true peace come to us?" They are still suffering from unbearable war memories but not blaming anybody. They just want to bring word to people in the world that "Life is Dear".

Then, the presenters wish the participants to share what they feel about the survivors and discuss how PCA could contribute to world peace.

It has been 61 years since the Potsdam Conference, and the presenters feel that it is fated to have this opportunity here in Potsdam to talk about world peace with people from all over the world. Please feel free to join us in our openhearted discussion group about world peace.