Self and Society Volume 34 Issue 3

The following lists the contents of Self and Society, Volume 34 Issue 3.
Each article can be downloaded as a PDF, but only if you are logged in as an AHP subscriber.
The table of contents for this issue can be downloaded as a PDF file.

Editorial:
Author: Keith Tudor
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Article:
Being Person-Centred
Author: Paul Wilkins
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Abstract:

One of the most striking things about the method of psychotherapy originating with Carl Rogers and his colleagues—and which has variously been referred to as ‘non-directive therapy’, ‘relationship therapy’, ‘client-centred therapy’ and ‘person-centred therapy’ – is that it, or rather the ideas underpinning it, gave rise to something described as an ‘approach’. Thus, the ‘person-centred approach’ (PCA) is not only a way of doing psychotherapy but a way of being in relationship, a relationship which can be with another individual, a group, a nation, or even the planet (see Wilkins, 2003).

Non-Directivity: A Quality of Relationship
Author: Clare Raido
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Abstract:

Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place…Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself. (Lao Tzu)

What Does it Mean to be Person-Centred?: Researching Practitioners' Understandings
Author: Seamus Nash
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Abstract:

As a former member of a religious community and a student of philosophy, I have always been interested in ‘meaning’. It can be said the Church ‘taught’ me to think and maybe, paradoxically, to question. Thus, when someone passes a remark which arouses my curiosity, I often wonder what they mean by that. As someone who identifies as a person-centred therapist, I am particularly curious when a counsellor or therapist says that he or she is person-centred. It is then I really want to—and usually do—ask: ‘What do you understand by that term?’ This interest has led me to pursuing a doctoral project on this very subject: what do ‘person-centred’ practitioners mean, and what do they understand when they employ the term ‘person-centred’?

Why Person-Centred Therapists Must Reject the Medicalisation of Distress
Author: Pete Sanders
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Abstract:

What logic determines that to be frightened, overwhelmed or confused is to be ‘ill’ or have a ‘disease’? The place of ‘mental illness’ in Western culture is not a story of scientific discovery. It is a story of social control, political expediency, and professional imperialism (see, for instance, Parker et al, 1995), and associating the treatment of distress with medicine has concealed the element of social control by bestowing on it scientific objectivity and respectability. The illness metaphor for distress has become installed in Western culture to the extent that it is an idea which most people can hardly think about—it is an idea which most people can only think from. The medicalisation of mental distress has, according to Moncrieff (1997), ‘served to obscure the social processes that produce and define deviance by locating problems in individual biology. This obfuscation lends itself to the perpetuation of the established order by side-stepping the challenge that is implicit in deviant behaviour.’ This complaint is not new (see for example, Szasz, 1961; Read, Mosher & Bentall, 2004).

The Regular COLUMN
Author: Julian Nangle
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Shelf Life
Author: Nick Duffell
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AHP(B) Chair's Page
Author: Tony Morris
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Book Review:
Reviews
Authors: Keith Tudor, Geoff Lamb, Nick Totton, John Rowan
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Letter:
Letters
Author: Maivor De Young
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Article:
Raising Your Game By Undoing The Nots
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