Personality and experiencing in the context of experiential psychotherapy

Abstract

In the late nineties an international association was organized, bringing together representatives of the person-centered and experiential approaches, continuing the tradition of C. Rogers and E. Gendlin. The name of the association includes two key categories: personality and experience. In the paper, from the perspective of co-experiencing psychotherapy, the links between these categories are discussed, and options for the relationship between them are analyzed. The contours of the personal character of the experience and the experiential vision of the personality are outlined. In the theory and practice of co-experiencing psychotherapy, such characteristics of experiencing as its active mode, multilevel structure, dialogic way of being, cultural-historical mediation are revealed. This allows us to talk about the relation of the individual to his/her experiencing, about his active participation in the experiencing. Not an experience is doing experiencing, but a person. For psychotherapy, this raises the task of comprehending the criteria of the “desired” attitude of the individual to his experience and the search for methods to help the client to achieve the most productive personal position. The personal nature of co-experiencing as the activity of the psychotherapist is discussed from the point of view of the embodiment of “personal centeredness” in the experiential approach. The paper is written in the genre of theoretical dialogue.