Gillian Proctor

An incredible amount of food for thought, at once validating my preferred therapy approach (client-centred) while challenging some of my assumptions about the counsellor-client relationship. For example, while client-centred therapy (CCT) emphasises the client's internal power to effect change in their life through the concept of the actualising tendency, this does not fully deal with a person's limitations in exercising internal power in the face of external sources of oppression, such as interpersonal realtionships and societal forces. Although these have been examined by others (Smail in respect hidden political power; Mearns and Thorne in respect of social mediation of the actualising tendency; Mearns and Cooper in respect of interpersonal relationships), Proctor's examination of power dynamics has, more than the that of others, made me think about how I place myself with a client.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) takes a beating from Proctor, and Psychodynamic Therapy is given more than a few kicks - both for having ignored and/or made assumptions about power relations in therapy, at least in their original framing. CCT, having been developed as a reaction against the authoritarianism of psychoanalysis and behaviourism, has considerations of power dynamics built into its core formulation, but still has areas which Proctor argues need examining.

I'm left with a long list of books I want to read about power relationships from Proctor's reference list, though when I'm going to find the time is an entirely different matter!

I have the feeling that many of the issues raised in this book will occupy my time in supervision and in self-reflection. This has been a powerful book for me (the pun only partially intended).… (mehr)