Review of Practicing client-centered therapy: Selected writings of Barbara Temaner Brodley.

Barrett-Lennard, G. (2013) Review of Practicing client-centered therapy: Selected writings of Barbara Temaner Brodley. The Humanistic Psychologist, 41 (3). pp. 301-303.

Abstract

Reviews the book, Practicing Client-Centered Therapy: Selected Writings of Barbara Temaner Brodley edited by Kathryn A. Moon, Marjory Witty, Barry Grant, and Bert Rice (2011). This book is a generous and lovingly edited volume. Its voice is one of searching connection and mature conviction by a person who steadfastly tended and advanced the flame that Carl Rogers set alight in the 1940s. Barbara Brodley maintained her humanistic client-centered focus on the experiencing individuals in therapy—clients and therapists alike—throughout the 45+ years of her professional and always personal career. This book also reflects the work and voice of a dedicated teacher resourcefully demonstrating, documenting, and showing the way to client-centered practice in the Rogerian tradition. There are many very interesting passages with concise nuggets of meaning. The empathic process is a primary theme in the book, and in another place the author examines "criteria for making empathic responses". Interestingly, two of the criteria have to do with some felt uncertainty and desire to check whether the listener is on track and correctly understanding the client's experience and meaning. One chapter is devoted to extensive and close study of the verbal manifestations and self-correcting path in therapy of empathic understanding and following. Naturally, the focus is not always on receiving and understanding the client's felt experience, and a later chapter methodically offers a set of "guidelines for responses from the therapist's frame of reference".

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
Copyright:	© 2013 APA
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/57586

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