Abstract
Though known today mostly as an approach to individual psychological healing and growth, the person-centered approach (PCA) has always carried a larger theme of social transformation. The practice of encounter groups based on PCA practices and philosophy has fostered social transformation through deep learning and community building. The large group community encounter led to a shift toward a holistic systems paradigm in Rogers’ thought and distinguished PCA from other systems of therapy and counseling. The history of this evolution and the philosophy of practice are discussed. Most of the problems facing humanity are beyond the scope of individual actors. Person-centered encounters may have potential as sites where a new worldview can be developed and where faith in the wisdom of the life force can be restored and strengthened.
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Notes
- 1.
This contrasts with team building, communication skills, Tavistock training, organizational development applications in vogue at the same time.
- 2.
The La Jolla Program (LJP) was the first PCA project that used large group encounters. It began as a “leadership training institute” at Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in 1968 and moved to the Center for Studies of the Person in 1970. The book The La Jolla Experiment: Eight personal views (1978) Coulson, B., Land, D., Meador B.(Eds.) offers first-hand case stories.
- 3.
It was after the first of these events in 1974 that the team realized the term “client-centered” was inappropriate in a process where everyone was both participant and facilitator, so subsequent workshops were called “person-centered approach” workshops. The term PCA stuck.
- 4.
- 5.
A “holon” is any entity that is differentiated from others by some kind of boundary. Holons have one aspect which maintains and expresses their uniqueness, wholeness or integrity, identities, and boundaries, and an aspect that transcends these to participate in and become part of a larger entity. Koestler calls configurations that are bounded and that define identity, “self-assertive,” and those configurations that are porous, easily entered, and permit participation into an entity or system with a higher order of complexity, “self-transcendent.”
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O’Hara, M. (2013). PCA Encounter Groups: Transformative Learning for Individuals and Communities. In: Cornelius-White, J., Motschnig-Pitrik, R., Lux, M. (eds) Interdisciplinary Applications of the Person-Centered Approach. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7144-8_20
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