Inauthentic and Authentic Developments of Person-Centred Theory

A School of Education event hosted by the Centre for Research in Human Flourishing

Presented by Dr Ivan Ellingham

Abstract

My seminar will focus on contemporary developments of person-centred theory, developments which are mainly to be found in the recent third edition of The Tribes of the Person-Centred Nation. I will be arguing that while all such developments are attempts to contribute to the construction of a paradigm of psychotherapy from a person-centred base, some are inauthentic and some authentic: that is to say, some contribute to its demise (e.g. those associated with pluralism); some contribute to its growth (e.g. those associated with organicism).

Biography

In common with Pete Sanders and Windy Dryden, my initial counsellor education was at the University of Aston, where Richard Nelson-Jones was the course director. During the year I was there the course was heavily client-centred, thanks to the presence on sabbatical of C. H. ‘Pat’ Patterson, who had been trained by Carl Rogers. Pat had later become a professor on the ‘counselor education program’ at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

I followed Pat back to Urbana and enrolled on that programme, receiving my PhD after an extended period thanks to being introduced to the ideas of the US philosopher Susanne Langer.

Returning to the UK, I worked on the counsellor education programmes at the colleges of Harrow Weald and North Hertfordshire and at the University of Hertfordshire. I also worked in Hertfordshire for 14 years as an NHS secondary-care counselling psychologist.

I now am mainly retired and live in North Norfolk with my wife Derryn, our three dogs and three cats.