Series 2 Episode 5. This ‘learning’ we call therapy

Is it even possible to imagine alternatives to a ‘medical model’ of therapy? What if person-centred therapy wasn’t a form of health care, but a particular kind of learning? This encounter explores the implications of this idea for the person-centred approach. Can it help create a world in which distress isn’t pathologised?

Rachael speaks to David Murphy (he/him), a therapist, supervisor and researcher in the person-centred approach.

Rachael writes: Reading David’s chapter (in publication with PCCS Books) on therapy as a learning/pedagogical practice articulated something I had instinctively known yet did not have the words for. 

Central to our encounter was Carl Rogers’ concise words, ‘this leaning we call therapy’, from Client-centred Therapy (1951). From the outset, we explored David’s experience of discovering the quotation (within Rogers’ exploration of student-centred learning) and how the quotation captures the new and familiar. The curious paradox, to further paraphrase Rogers, has always been in plain sight: clients in person-centred therapy are positioned as capable learners with potential for self-direction given a welcoming learning environment free of threat. Moreover, therapists are perpetual learners given the importance of working with not-knowing in person-centred practice.

We had a lively exploration of ‘medical model realism’, inspired by David’s reading of Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism. Since its inception, person-centred therapy has been at odds with the medical model’s conceptualisation of psychological experiencing/distress. Equally, I appreciate how embedded all therapy practice is within the medical model. We also cannot deny the diverse ways in which clients respond to the medical model and the need for therapist economic survival, my own included. Rather than one-dimensional condemnation, nuanced empathy towards the incongruence of having to operate within such a system alongside considering the varied meaning it holds for clients is integral. 

‘This learning we call therapy’ has proved to be a transformative statement for me. Before, during and after the podcast, I have felt fascinated with the long-term impact of Rogers’ decision to go into battle with the psychiatric establishment. Historically, this was a crossroads moment that pulled the approach away from being firmly situated within an educational paradigm. We are now at an emerging crossroads with the real possibility of an alternative future. Situating and describing the person-centred approach as a learning practice rather than a healthcare practice is an act of radicalism that I hope more therapists will engage with as the years pass. 

David speaks at length about the various influences on Rogers’ intellectual development e.g. Otto Rank, Jessie Taft and John Dewey. As well as engaging directly with these authors, I would recommend Howard Kirschenbaum’s excellent and detailed biography of Rogers. It took me almost a year to read during my training years ago (a busy time in life!) yet provided me with a very helpful grounding in the origins of the person-centred approach.