Why is ‘Person Centred’ counselling not called ‘People
Centred’? And what’s this got to do with class?
The definition of ‘A Person’ is ‘A human individual, an autonomous being.’ In law, a person is ‘An individual guaranteed of equal protection of laws and Due Process of Law.’ “A human being considered as capable of having rights and of being charged with duties; while a "thing" is the object over which rights may be exercised.”
Being an individual, being autonomous,
is absolutely fundamental to the Person Centred model. It means that we aim to be with the people we meet as equals, both of us self-governing, free persons and as a matter
of principle we aim to meet every single person in the same manner. We meet
persons, not patients or clients and whilst most of us will use shorthand to
avoid torturing language therapists, health care workers
and social workers have very different understandings of the Person Centred
Model.
As therapists we understand that the
person in front of us knows what is best for them. That we do things for
reasons that make good sense to us. Whilst that may be a philosophical
foundation for social workers and nurses and (god help us) businesses who are
trying to use this model to increase their profits, nurses and social workers require
levels of compulsion that therapists will be opposed to in their own work.
All therapy models recognise that
culture is king. We know that the idea of free will is a
bit of a red herring: we may think we’re making choices based preferences but
those preferences are seldom our own. They will be different from home to home,
country to country and change over time. It’s why older people across cultures
tend to think that younger people are not doing things properly and why we
don’t hang criminals any more.
However open and liberal a culture we
all treat each other differently depending on our culture. We are, after all, just mammals responding to pheromones and other
unconscious cues as well as cues that we have become aculturated to. It’s
something that many Person Centred therapists can get a bit defensive about
because our own culture can tend towards the cheery in ways that the
psychodynamic model tends not to. We can be inclined to prefer optimism over
pessimism: many of us think about Rogers’ potatoes in terms of an unstoppable
urge for growth rather than a desperate struggle to survive, and forget that
the actualising tendency is just that, a tendency: a predisposition rather than
an absolute fact.
So how is our own culture affecting us
as therapists?
Have you noticed how EU nationals who
are currently feeling threatened by deportation are described? Do a search for
“Hard working deportation.”
Do you care how hard anyone works? If
you just go to work but don’t break a sweat are you less valuable? What about if you’re not employed but have a spouse that supports you? What if you work
hard but don’t earn enough to pay tax? Are you still as valuable as a Hard
Working Tax Paying EU National?
Fear and loathing has spread
across the Western world blossoming into Brexit and Trump after steadily growing for 40 years. We know that working class communities were destroyed
and their remnants abandoned in the 80’s and a majority of the country voted for that. A majority of
us voted to buy our own council houses and were shocked when a broken boiler or
an old roof forced us to sell the home we were born in and move to somewhere
that would need even more upkeep – with no hope of return to social housing.
Most of us voted to scale unions down and have accepted steadily worse terms
and conditions. When I first entered employment in 1983 the average working
week was 37.5 hours; 34 years
on it’s 43.6. We voted for that.
What on earth made
us vote this way?
It used to be that
living on the dole was a way for people who could not or did not want to work
regularly to survive. Artists, musicians, writers, people who frankly were a
pain in the arse in conventional employment could function happily, if
frugally, on benefits. With bullying a normal part of working life
you’ve got to wonder how many very miserable people are now forced into shapes
they hate and take it out on everyone around them. It’s become taboo to say
that living on benefits could be a valid choice for some people, absolutely
outlawed.
Over time it’s been
acceptable to brand the poor, to put hot pokers through their ears, to whip
them, to confine them to their parish, to starve them, to prevent them from
sleeping, to separate husband and wife, parents and children and make them work
in degrading, harmful jobs for no pay. Their deaths were not much mourned, if they were noticed at all. Today it’s much the same other than the
physical assault, and instead of confining them to one area we will force them
to move far from their homes, schools and communities.
“An individual
guaranteed of equal protection of laws and Due
Process of Law.” “A human being
considered as capable of having rights and of being charged with duties; while
a "thing" is the object over which rights may be exercised.”
Discuss.