Inter-Personal Congruence - The Social Contracts of Client-Centered and Person-Centered Approach

Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies
ISSN: 1477-9757 (Print) 1752-9182 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpcp20
Inter-personal congruence: the social contracts of

client-centered and person-centered therapies
Marvin Frankel, Mary Johnson & Roxane Polak
To cite this article: Marvin Frankel, Mary Johnson & Roxane Polak (2019): Inter-personal
congruence: the social contracts of client-centered and person-centered therapies, Person-
Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, DOI: 10.1080/14779757.2019.1571435
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2019.1571435
Published online: 08 Mar 2019.
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PERSON-CENTERED & EXPERIENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2019.1571435
Inter-personal congruence: the social contracts of

client-centered and person-centered therapies
†
Marvin Frankel , Mary Johnsona and Roxane Polakb
a
Department of Psychology, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, USA; bNew York City, NY, USA
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Persons are inter-personally congruent to the extent that their Received 13 July 2018
behavior is consistent with their social contracts with others. This Accepted 24 July 2018
view is contrary to Rogers’ intra-personal view of congruence, which
holds that a person is congruent to the extent that there is no KEYWORDS
Social contract; congruence;
discrepancy between ‘the self as perceived and the actual experi- loneliness; category mistake;
ence of the organism’. The differences in the social contracts of client-centered therapy;
these two perspectives are spelled out in considerable detail in the person-centered therapy;
context of client-centered, person-centered and relational depth relational depth therapy
therapies. The paper also discusses the complexity in establishing
mutually satisfying social contracts, and, in that light, presents
a client-centered therapy transcript of a father and daughter who
have very different notions of what constitutes a father/daughter
social contract. The transcript and commentary show that the cli-
ent-centered therapeutic relationship is no less deep than other
therapeutic relationships that emphasize their depth, no less colla-
borative than other non-coercive therapies that emphasize the
extent of their collaboration, and no less authentic than therapies
that underline the alleged authenticity of the therapist.
La congruence interpersonnelle: les contrats

relationnels de la thérapie centrée sur le client
et de la thérapie centrée sur la personne
Les personnes sont interpersonnellement congruentes dans la
mesure où leur comportement est consistant avec les contrats
relationnels qu’elles entretiennent avec les autres. Cette perspec-
tive est contraire à la vision interpersonnelle de la congruence,
telle que la conçoit Rogers, entre « le soi perçu en tant que tel et
l’expérience réelle de l’organisme ». Selon ces perspectives, les
CONTACT Mary Johnson mjohnson@gm.slc.edu Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY 10708-5999, USA
†
Marvin Frankel died in January 2018, just after completing his revisions of this article. Though—we must note, smiling—it is
very possible that he may have had just one more quotation or example to include on second thought. As coauthors, we
were accustomed to receiving his drafts followed an hour or so later by another email, bearing the note ‘Don’t scream, but I
made two additions.’ It seems appropriate that he would leave us in media res, working to revise this article. Though his
points of view were remarkably specific and consistent, and never articulated more clearly than they are in this article, he
delighted in finding new ways to explore, explicate, and exemplify them. Marvin’s joy in following the complexities and
consistencies of the interpersonal ‘with a flashlight’ (as he often quoted Rogers) was unflagging. His final note to the editors
of this journal read: ‘I must say, I believe the revised text is a vast improvement and am thankful to have had the opportunity
to see how the former paper was understood.’ This gratitude for the challenge of revising encapsulates Marvin perfectly.
After all, as he would say, all human interactions are problem-solving endeavors. While this is his final published piece, his
influence is undoubtedly at work in hundreds of other writers who have and will be published. To know Marvin was to learn
from him, and we hope that the readers of this journal will enjoy the gift of knowing him through his words. He wouldn’t be
at all surprised if you disagreed with him.
© 2019 World Association for Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counseling
2 M. JOHNSON ET AL.
différences entre les contrats relationnels sont expliquées dans le

contexte de la thérapie centrée sur le client, de la thérapie centrée
sur la personne et de la thérapie de profondeur relationnelle.
L’article discute la complexité présente pour établir des contrats
relationnels mutuellement satisfaisants, et expose la retranscrip-
tion d’un extrait de thérapie centrée sur le client entre un père et
une fille qui ont des notions très différentes de ce que constitue
un contrat relationnel père/fille. La retranscription et le commen-
taire montrent que la relation thérapeutique centrée sur le client
n’est pas moins profonde que les autres relations thérapeutiques
qui accentuent la profondeur comme les caractérisant, pas moins
collaborative que les autres thérapies non-contraignantes qui pla-
cent l’accent sur l’accroissement de la collaboration comme les
caractérisant, et pas moins authentique que les thérapies qui
soulignent l’authenticité présumée du thérapeute.
Interpersonale Kongruenz: die sozialen Verträge

Klientzentrierter und Personzentrierter
Therapien
Personen sind interpersonal insofern kongruent, als ihr Verhalten
mit ihren sozialen Kontrakten mit anderen konsistent ist. Diese
Sicht steht im Gegensatz zu Rogers’ intra-personaler Sicht von
Kongruenz, die davon ausgeht, dass eine Person in dem Maß
kongruent ist, wie es keine Diskrepanz zwischen „dem Selbst,
wie man es wahrnimmt und der tatsächlichen Erfahrung des
Organismus“ gibt. Die Unterschiede in den sozialen Kontrakten
dieser zwei Perspektiven werden detailliert dargelegt und zwar
im Kontext der Klientzentrierten, der Personzentrierten und der
relationalen Tiefen-Therapie. Der Artikel diskutiert auch die
Komplexität, gegenseitig zufriedenstellende soziale Verträge zu
etablieren und präsentiert aus diesem Blickwinkel ein
Klientzentriertes Therapie-Transkript eines Vaters und seiner
Tochter, die sehr verschiedene Ansichten darüber haben, was
einen sozialen Kontrakt zwischen Vater und Tochter ausmacht.
Das Transkript und der Kommentar zeigen, dass die klientzen-
trierte therapeutische Beziehung nicht weniger tief ist als andere
therapeutische Beziehungen, die ihre Tiefe betonen, nicht weniger
zusammenarbeitend als andere nicht-zwingende Therapien, die
das Ausmaß ihrer Zusammenarbeit betonen, und nicht weniger
authentisch als Therapien, die die angebliche Authentizität des
Therapeuten unterstreichen.
Congruência Interpessoal: os contratos sociais

da abordagem centrada na pessoa e das
terapias centradas no cliente
As pessoas são congruentes entre si na medida em que o seu
comportamento é consistente com os seus contratos sociais com
os outros. Esta visão é contraditória com a perspetiva Rogeriana da
congruência intrapessoal, que afirma que uma pessoa é con-
gruente na medida em que não exista discrepância entre ‘o self
percebido e a verdadeira experiência de organismo’. As diferenças
nos contratos sociais destas duas perspetivas são explanadas com
bastante pormenor no contexto das terapias centradas no cliente
e a pessoa e nas terapias de profundidade relacional. Este artigo
PERSON-CENTERED & EXPERIENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPIES 3
também discute a complexidade no estabelecimento de contratos

sociais mutuamente satisfatórios e, nessa perspetiva, apresenta
a transcrição de uma terapia centrada no cliente de um pai
e uma filha que têm noções muito diferentes do que constitui
um contrato social entre pai e filha. A transcrição e o comentário
demonstram que uma relação terapêutica centrada no cliente não
é menos profunda do que outras relações terapêuticas que colo-
cam a tónica na sua profundidade; não é menos colaborativa do
que outras terapias não-coercivas que se focam na importância da
sua dimensão de colaboração; nem menos autêntica do que as
terapias que sublinham a alegada autenticidade do terapeuta.
Congruencia interpersonal: los contratos

sociales de terapias centradas en el cliente
y centradas en la persona
Las personas son inter-personalmente congruentes en la medida
en que su comportamiento es consistente con sus contratos
sociales con otros. Esta visión es contraria a la visión intra-
personal de congruencia de Rogers, que sostiene que una persona
es congruente en la medida en que no hay discrepancia entre ‘el
yo percibido y la experiencia real del organismo’. Las diferencias
en los contratos sociales de estas dos perspectivas se explican con
bastante detalle en el contexto de las terapias centradas en el
cliente, centradas en la persona y de profundidad relacional. El
documento también analiza la complejidad para establecer con-
tratos sociales que se satisfacen mutuamente y, en ese sentido,
presenta una transcripción de la terapia centrada en el cliente de
un padre e hija que tienen nociones muy diferentes de lo que
constituye un contrato social padre/hija. La transcripción y el
comentario muestran que la relación terapéutica centrada en el
cliente no es menos profunda que otras relaciones terapéuticas
que enfatizan su profundidad, ni menos colaborativa que otras
terapias no coercitivas que enfatizan el alcance de su
colaboración, y no menos auténticas que las terapias que subra-
yan la supuesta autenticidad del terapeuta.
Human relationships are, broadly speaking, problem-solving engagements. Which is to

say nothing more than: human relationships have a function. For example, John and
Mary decide to get married to enjoy their companionship, raise children, and experience
the deepening of their relationship over time. Their single lives did not afford the
possibility of these satisfactions. But a number of challenges must be met and resolved
in order for John and Mary to succeed in their goal. Kegan presents what some of these
problems are:
In our roles as intimate partners we are called upon to (1) be psychologically independent
of, but clearly connected to, our spouses; (2) replace an idealized, romanticized approach to
love and closeness; (3) set limits on children, in-laws, ourselves and extra marital involve-
ments to preserve the couple; (4) support our partner’s development; (5) communicate
directly and fairly; (6) have an awareness of the way our personal histories incline or direct
us (Kegan, 1998).
4 M. JOHNSON ET AL.
The couple confronting these problems must come to a fundamental agreement on

a number of complex issues. Just one example: how does one respect the independence
of his/her spouse and show a deep concern for his/her welfare? What may be
a suffocating love for one person may be a compassionate love for another. John and
Mary must come to a collaborative understanding of their social contract or rules of
engagement (Frankel & Johnson, 2015).
Social contracts
The function of social contracts is to enable relationships to resolve the problems under
consideration and create the conditions for optimal functioning. The social contract is an
unwritten understanding of what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate behavior in
the context of human relationships. If we cross paths with a fellow colleague whom we
do not know well, we might say ‘good morning’ and expect a smile and perhaps a ‘good
morning’‘on her end’. We would be taken aback if the colleague asked us an intimate
question such as ‘How is your love life?’ Such a comment does not, for most of us, seem
appropriate for colleagues who pass each other on a path. Social contracts have
a function and, in the case of colleagues who know each other only in a professional
setting, it is to safeguard the privacy of each person. On the other hand, if one colleague
collapses, the social contract allows the other to come to his/her aid and even do
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Such an act is viewed as impersonal, and thus not an
intimate invasion of the life of the afflicted colleague.
The use of the term ‘problem’ is not meant to be understood in its narrow everyday
usage, as when we might say, ‘I have a particular problem.’ The problem also need not
be undesirable or aversive in nature. For example, two people may agree to play a tennis
game in the hope that it will result in a highly competitive and exciting match. Each
player enjoys the challenge of emerging as the winner of the competition, which
compensates even the loser who may also enjoy his/her defeat. Social contracts, in
the case of athletic competition, serve as the rules that govern the engagement of the
competing parties. Unlike the tennis game where the rules are explicitly clear and
agreed upon, the social contracts that guide human relationships are implicit and
more variable both between cultures and within a culture.
Social contracts as collaborative enterprises

It is not uncommon for two people who believed they shared an understanding of their
social contract to discover that they have different and perhaps incompatible under-
standings. For example, in the novel ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ Tomas does
not see anything wayward about being married and indulging in impersonal, external
sexual engagements. Unfortunately for him, his wife is appalled by his understanding of
the marital social contract. Their failure to establish a mutually satisfying social contract
is the source of their great unhappiness.
Social contracts are collaborative in nature. They may or may not change over time,
and may reflect or fail to reflect existing social norms. Friends may become lovers and
lovers may become friends. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the psycho-
analyst generally sat behind the patient, who reclined on a couch. Today, the majority of
analysts and their patients face each other in chairs. In any case, social contracts are
always open to revision and replacement. A close friend of mine related the following
humorous incident, which was subsequently published:
Last week I was riding in a car with my wife and (adult) daughter. Out of the blue, my
daughter asked, ‘Dad, how come you never say, ‘I love you’ to me?’ Then my wife added, ‘He
never says it to me either.’ I insisted that ‘I love you’ is a trite and overused, and therefore
meaningless phrase. I added that if they didn’t know I loved them from my behavior,
nothing I said would make them believe it. My wife said, ‘Well, say it anyway.’ I refused,
and added, “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll say, ‘You love me,’ which is neither trite nor
meaningless, but based on behavioral observation. Then we exchanged ‘You love me’ all
around. Cognitively we were in the same place as we would have been if we had said ‘I love
you.’ That is, we all indicated that we love each other. However, in terms of emotion and
meaning, we were in a much better place. We each had unmistakable evidence for what we
said, and could be truly believed (Rachlin, in press, emphases our own).
In this example, we are able to see that social contracts are behaviorally defined and
thus observable. We see that they are open to discussion and resolution, and do not
always reflect social norms. My friend, a happily married man of some 50 plus years
who certainly loves his daughter, has never stated that he loves them. The absence of
those statements is inconsistent with his wife and daughter’s understanding of how
a loving family should behave. They discuss this particular point of their different
views of the script for a loving family. They are trying to resolve the problematic but
light nature of their present social script. And in fact, a subsequent note from my
friend stated that his wife and daughter were still questioning his understanding of
the social contract.
There may be conflicts between our social contracts so that in adhering to one social
contract, we may violate another. Frankel and Rachlin (2010) offer an example of
a person’s social contracts in conflict with each other. In an aria from the opera ‘Carry
Nation’ by Douglas Moore, an ex-Union physician sings plaintively of a decision he made
at one unforgettable moment during the war:
At Fisher’s Run I found a young boy lying by a stream. He was my enemy. His tunic told me
so. The cloth of the Confederacy, but stained with universal blood. He looked at me with
prayer in his eyes and pleaded, ‘Please don’t let me bleed away! Kill me, doctor, kill me!’ He
was my enemy, his tunic told me so. I was a soldier. The war said death. I was a doctor, the
oath said life. I was a man… The boy said ‘kill me, kill me’… Once to every man there comes
a time to decide, I let him bleed to death.
In this aria, the doctor is dealing with his social contract to humanity and/or God as well
as his social contract as a soldier. The decision to be congruent to his duties as a soldier
is, for the doctor, an unforgivable betrayal. He is sensitive enough to experience the
weight of his social contract with God/humanity that transcends his roles as soldier or
doctor. But, in the end, he acts as a soldier allowing the enemy to bleed to death. In the
opera, the doctor can never forgive himself and turns to alcohol to drown the memory.
Whiskey alone offers him refuge from his guilt (Frankel & Rachlin, 2010).
Rogers might posit that the doctor was maladjusted:
Psychological maladjustment exists when the organism denies to experience, or distorts in
awareness, significant experiences, which consequently are not accurately symbolized and
organized into the gestalt of the self-structure (Rogers, 1959, p. 204).
6 M. JOHNSON ET AL.
Rogers is offering an intra-personal view of maladjustment. The soldier in this formula-

tion suffers because he is threatened by some thought or experience that is being
denied or distorted. If he could be open to this threat, then the maladjustment would be
resolved. There would cease to be a discrepancy between his perceived self and his
experience. Conversely, we will argue below that psychological maladjustment exists
when there is a discrepancy between the behavior of the individual and the social
contract that s/he endorses. This is an inter-personal definition of maladjustment. In the
opera, the soldier violated his social contact with God, which shows that social contracts
may be forged with abstract figures living or dead, fictional or nonfictional. The soldier
suffered because he was aware of his actions which so violated his moral convictions.
A former client of one of the authors forged an imagined relationship with Howard
Roark, a character who embodied independence of thought and action in Ayn Rand’s
The Fountainhead. The client failed in his life to live in this independent manner and thus
felt unworthy of Roark’s respect. What is often called identification may be viewed as
imagined social contracts.
Social contracts and psychopathology

Despite the complexities that may confound our cultivation of collaborative social
contracts, they are nevertheless the life force and defining feature of our relationships,
inspiring feelings of belonging, reciprocity, and mutuality. Any violation of the social
contract marginalizes the individual from that relationship. A person who violates the
social contract of his/her marriage is likely to feel less worthy of the love his/her spouse
offers. Since all social contracts require honesty within the context of that relationship,
lying either by omission or commission is a major violation of that contract and is
a source of alienation and psychopathology (Frankel & Rachlin, 2010). J.H. Van den Berg,
the noted existentialist, states that the common theme of the psychopathological state
is the terrible sense of loneliness:
The psychiatric patient is alone. He has few relationships or perhaps no relationships at all.
He lives in isolation. He feels lonely. He may even dread an interview with another person.
At times, conversation with him is impossible. He is somewhat strange; sometimes he is
enigmatic and he may, on rare occasions, be even unfathomable. The variations are endless
but the essence is always the same: the psychiatric patient stands apart from the rest of the
world. This is why he has a world of his own: in his world, houses can sway forward and
flowers can look dull and colorless. This is why he also has a special sort of body: his heart
aches, his legs are weak and powerless. His past, too, is different. His rearing has failed, and
this in turn causes his difficulties with other people – difficulties that summarize, as it were,
all his other complaints. He is alone. He is a lonely man. Loneliness is the central core of his
illness, no matter what his illness may be. Thus, loneliness is the nucleus of psychiatry. If
loneliness did not exist, we could reasonably assume that psychiatric illness could not occur
either (Van Den Berg, 1964).
It is the inability to establish satisfying social contracts with others that constitutes the
client’s loneliness. The maladjusted individual suffers from what Van den Berg calls
‘sociosis,’ a deepening chasm between the self and others rather than a discrepancy
between the self as perceived and experienced (Van Den Berg, 1964, Chapter 3).
Social contracts and congruence

In a recent paper, Frankel, Johnson, and Polak offer a novel inter-personal understanding
of congruence based on the individual’s adherence to social contracts. The soldier above
violated his social contract with his understanding of God and was thus incongruent and
adrift. Congruence, in terms of our relationships to others, underlines the fact that our
individuality (or identity), our integrity, and our sense of wholeness are dialogical in
character: born, sustained, and changed in dialogue with others (Taylor, 1992). ‘The
individual [is viewed as having] as many selves as there are groups to which he belongs’
(Van Den Berg, 1964, p. 183). David Bowie declared that the society within himself was,
in effect, a wreck. In this formulation, human relationships are the medium of self-
definition just as water is the medium for fish life. Mearns and Cooper quote Winnicott in
this regard: ‘There is no such thing as a baby, only a nursing couple’. The social contract-
based conceptualization of congruence reverses Shakespeare’s statement that to be true
to others we must first be true to ourselves, and posits instead that to be true to
ourselves we must be true to our relationships with others.
One skeptical reviewer of the inter-personal approach to congruence wrote:
I would suggest that one could meet one’s social contract to go to the opera with one’s
spouse. One may smile through the endeavor while inwardly feeling bored. Thus the…view
of the social contract as requiring honesty seems to be problematic as a congruent inter-
action, since honesty/congruence may not be evident in both persons, though the social
contract was met (grudgingly).
By way of reply, if the social contract between the couple was such that each shows an
enthusiasm for the opera and no sign of boredom either during the opera or forever
after, and they indeed are true to that contract, then there is perfect congruence. If,
however, the social contract allows the spouse to express his/her ambivalence and
boredom, then again there is perfect congruence. Most social contracts among mature
people appreciate the presence of ambivalence in many human engagements.
Ambivalence is not necessarily a sign of incongruence. In fact, if the ambivalence is
never manifested and observed, we might question whether the ‘bored’ spouse in this
case is accurately stating his state of ‘mind.’ A more accurate description might express
his sense of satisfaction to be with his wife, as well as being quite bored.
The inter-personal social contract perspective of congruence is in sharp contrast to
Rogers’ intra-personal view. For Rogers, congruence exists when there is no discrepancy
‘between the self as perceived, and the actual experience of the organism.’ Conversely,
a state of incongruence exists when there is such a discrepancy between the self as
perceived and the actual experience of the organism (Rogers, 1959, p. 203). The
determination of such a ‘discrepancy between the self as perceived and the actual
experience of the organism’ is, however, not possible. The individual cannot through
introspective analysis determine whether he is congruent or defensively incongruent.
Indeed, the person ‘may even see himself as adjusted’ when, in fact, he is very incon-
gruent and maladjusted (Rogers, 1959, p. 204). The observer of such a person can only
guess what the ‘actual’ experience of the other may be. We must not forget that in the
first half of the twentieth century, many psychoanalysts inferred that their women
patients unknowingly repressed their envious wish for a penis. We may laugh at this
supposition today but it was no laughing matter for a number of decades of the
8 M. JOHNSON ET AL.
twentieth century. It is for this reason that Brodley, a leading scholar of the client-
centered school of thought, called alleged congruent communications at best a ‘fiction’
(Brodley, 2011).
Social contracts, however, imply observable, behavioral enactments and are thus
nonfictional. When we offer the social contract of love and confess to someone that we
love him/her, we are offering a variety of behaviors that are congruent with our (hopefully
collaborative) understanding of the word love (see Rachlin above). When we claim to be
betrayed, we refer to a behavioral violation of the perceived social contract. We experi-
ence guilt when we behaviorally violate our endorsed social contract. Gloria, in her famous
interview with Carl Rogers, suffered from considerable guilt because she lied to her
daughter, Pammie, regarding her current sexual encounters with men. She believed that
honesty was the best policy with her daughter but was fearful of the consequences.
Rogers cited the advantage of behavioral, operational definitions when he contrasted
his definition of self as the ‘perception one has of himself’ with that of Hilgard, who
‘defined self in terms of conscious and unconscious elements.’ He writes:
By including the unconscious, one includes an area in which probably, you can get no
agreement. The significance for empirical work is reduced. In contrast, if one limits one’s self
to those aspects of the individual and his relationships to others and to the world that…
there can be agreement as to whether or not you have a decent instrument for measuring it
(Rogers, 1964, pp. 133–134).
In this quote, Rogers is viewing the self in terms of his/her ‘relationships to others and to
the world,’ which we would amend by asserting instead that the self be viewed in light
of his or her social contracts with others. Nevertheless, by defining incongruence as the
‘discrepancy…between the self as perceived, and the actual experience of the organ-
ism,’ he has introduced ‘an area (experience) [in which] probably you can get no
agreement,’ whereas there can be agreement or even disagreement on congruence
and/or incongruence when viewed in the context of social contracts.
In this light, consider a recent dispute as to whether client-centered therapists
should offer self-disclosures. Brodley believes that under certain circumstances, self-
disclosures should be an aspect of the social contract between a client-centered
therapist and a client (Brodley, 2011). Frankel and Johnson challenge that argument
(Frankel & Johnson, 2015). Frankel, Johnson, and Brodley are eminently clear about
the differing, incompatible social contracts that they offer clients in a client-centered
therapeutic setting. If Frankel or Johnson answered a client’s question regarding their
judgment, they would be mistaken. In their terms, a reply would undermine the
independence and authority of the client. On the other hand, if Brodley failed to reply
to such a request, it would be a mistake on her part because she, in her terms, failed
to respect the authority of the client. Unlike the Rogerian view of experience, which
refers to all ‘that is going on within the envelope of the organism at any given
moment which is potentially available to awareness’ but is at best inferential, social
contracts are observable and arguable (Rogers, 1959, p. 197). Each year the Supreme
Court argues whether particular laws are in violation of the Constitution, which is the
social contract that binds each citizen to the nation. We must note that it is rare for
the justices of the court to unanimously agree.
Social contracts and relationship therapies

We should not be surprised, then, of the number of publications that emphasize the
importance of the therapeutic relationship (or, in our terms, the social contract between
therapist and client) in enabling the client to have more satisfying social engagements
with others (Farber & Lane, 2002; Norcross, 2002). Mearns and Cooper (2005) refer to the
task force established by the American Psychological Association to examine the corre-
lation between psychotherapeutic relationship and therapeutic outcome: ‘the principle
finding of the task force was that the “therapy relationship [social contract] makes
substantial and consistent contributions to psychotherapy outcomes independent of
the specific type of treatment.”’
What are the common factors of the psychotherapeutic social contract that may facilitate
positive change? First, the client brings a self-critical attitude to the psychotherapeutic relation-
ship. The client is declaring: ‘I am not what I ought to be but perhaps I can be.’ The self-critical
attitude of the client is the experiential context for all that occurs in psychotherapy. Second, the
client also bring a note of optimism and hope that the chasm between what s/he is and what s/
he ought, or could be, can be bridged. Third, clients are aware that truthfulness and honesty on
their part is an absolute necessity however vulnerable they may feel in the wake of their
confessions. Despite their vulnerability, clients must find a way to trust the benevolence of
therapists. Hope, truthfulness, trust, and self-criticality are vital common factors that are
reinforced in all successful psychotherapeutic relationships.
Most psychologists would agree that a self-critical attitude, optimism, honesty and trust
are essential to the foundation of optimal functioning and human relationships (Seligman,
1990). Psychotherapists offer behaviors that are likely to be novel to clients who have
unsatisfactory social contracts with others. First, they generally display an ability to
empathize with their clients. Second, they are able to convey their understanding in ways
that show evident respect for their clients. Third, many therapists are able to offer a critical
analysis of their clients’ experience and behavior in ways that enhance the relationship.
Finally, the vast majority of clients who seek psychotherapy from a psychologist or psychia-
trist believe, however wrongly, that there is a proven scientific base for their expertise. The
sense of acceptance from an expert in human conduct can only add considerable weight to
the client’s response to being so accepted. In brief, clients discover the value of empathy as
well as the value of critical feedback when given in the context of respect. Clients learn what
it is like to have an optimal social contract and the factors that compose that social contract.
The successful psychotherapeutic relationship shares many of the elements of any success-
ful relationship. These common factors may explain why there is little, if any, difference in
the effectiveness between psychotherapies (Dawes, 2009).
Despite these common factors, different schools of psychotherapy offer different
social contracts with their clients. Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapists offer a very
different social contract than a psychoanalyst or client-centered therapist. Even with
more closely aligned humanistic psychotherapies, there are considerable differences in
their respective social contracts. For example, while client-centered and person-centered
therapists would abstractly claim that their respect for the autonomy of their clients is
central to their way of conducting therapy, their behavioral manifestations of such
respect are quite different. In effect, the word ‘respect’ is defined in widely different
ways.
10 M. JOHNSON ET AL.
Respect for the client in the social contract of client-centered therapy of

1951
As a client-centered therapist, Carl Rogers offered the client an empathic understanding
in the context of unconditional positive regard. Congruence is not in the index of his
major book, Client-Centered Therapy. Nevertheless, in the context of social contract, the
therapist was congruent to the extent that s/he refrained from conveying disclosures of
any kind that emanated from his/her own frame of reference but instead was exclusively
empathic in his/her responses. Rogers writes:
To be of assistance to you I will put aside myself – the self of ordinary (conventional)
interaction – and enter into your world of perception as completely as I am able. I will
become, in a sense, another self for you – an alter ego of your own attitudes and feelings –
a safe opportunity for you to discern yourself (challenge) more truly and deeply, to choose
more significantly (Rogers, 1951, p. 35).
Rogers acknowledges that evaluative thoughts and judgments might occur to the client-
centered counselor, but in every case he believes such thoughts, if spoken, show an
absence of full respect for the client. Rogers offers example after example of what it
means to impose an external point of view on the client. In brief, self-disclosures are
antithetical to showing respect for the client. Rogers writes:
It would appear to be true that whether the theme is evaluative or self-concerned, there is
slightly less full of respect for the other person than in the thoroughly empathic under-
standing…When the counselor is concerned with himself and what he should there is
necessarily a decreased focus upon the respect he feels for the client (Rogers, 1951,
Chapter 2).
We shall see below that Mearns, in his therapeutic engagement with Dominic, is
evaluative (‘Don’t play fucking games with me’) and very self-concerned as he
engages in a self-focusing exercise during the therapy session to find out what he
is experiencing.
On whether the therapist should abandon empathic understanding and express his/
her own judgment to prevent a client contemplating suicide from doing so, Rogers
writes:
To me it appears that only as the therapist is completely willing that any outcome, may be
chosen – only then does he realize the vital strength of the capacity of the individual for
constructive action. It is as he is willing for death to be the choice, that life is chosen; for
neuroticism to be the choice, that a healthy normality is chosen (Rogers, 1951, p. 49).
On the importance of depersonalizing the therapist, Rogers writes:
The person of the counselor…the counselor as an evaluating, reacting person with needs of
his own – is so clearly absent. In this sense it (the therapeutic relationship) is ‘impersonal’…
The relationship is experienced (by the client) as a one way affair, in a very unique sense.
The whole relationship is composed of the self of the client, the counselor being deperso-
nalized for purposes of therapy into being ‘the client’s other self’… there will be no…
personal reaction by the counselor (Rogers, 1951, pp. 208–209; italics Rogers’ own).
We shall examine below a therapeutic transcript that follows to the letter and spirit this
version of client-centered therapy.
Respect for the client in the social contract of person-centered therapy

Twenty years later Rogers, as a person-centered therapist, came to a different realization
regarding the nature of the social contract between therapist and client. He describes
his work with a schizophrenic client:
The crucial turning point was when he had given up, did not care whether he lived or died,
and was going to run away from the institution. And I said: ‘I realize that you don’t care
about yourself, but I want you to know that I care about you, and I care what happens to
you’ (Baldwin, 2013, p. 28).
Rogers still respects his clients, but it is evident that the behavioral meaning of respect
has changed. Rogers does not feel as he once did, that by asserting his own feelings he
would be imposing conditions of worth and thus abridging the freedom of the client.
Indeed, it is the failure to offer personal judgment that may convey a lack of respect for
the client. Commenting critically on, and somewhat dismissively of, his former client-
centered stance as an exclusively empathetic counselor, Rogers states:
At that time, I was quite fascinated by the discovery that people did have much more
capacity to guide themselves than I’d give them credit for. I became sort of a tourist in that,
thinking ‘Let’s not any of me into the situation except just an understanding of the client’s
feelings.’ I gradually realized over the years that the tourist approach shakes the client out
of what might be a very close interpersonal relationship which is more rewarding (Evans,
1975, pp. 26–27).
We can only imagine the surprise of those graduate interns who were trained to be
client-centered therapists in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, only to discover that, in Rogers’ eyes,
they were being trained to be mere tourists in the client’s narrative landscape! In any
case, the personal presence and self-disclosures of the person-centered therapist are
viewed as a positive sign of engagement and a sign of respect. The social contract of
person-centered therapy was applauded by the majority of client-centered therapists,
who welcomed the new social contract of person-centered therapy. Bohart self-discloses
when he offers his client personal support, stating to a client: ‘If I were in your shoes
I think I’d be as confused as you. The scary part for me would be the fear that I might
make the wrong choice’ (Bohart & Greenberg, 1997, p. 117).
Bohart believes that by asserting his identification with client, he is reinforcing the
collaborative nature of the relationship (Cain, 2010). It is likely that the client’s sense of
isolation (see above) is likely to have been relieved by this reassurance. But the client-
centered therapist may ask: does such reassurance only feed the client’s need for
a backing up from authority figures?
Bozarth, another person-centered therapist, is also prepared to self-disclose and offer
therapeutic guidance: ‘If I doubted the client’s decisions, I would have shared this…in
depth as I did with many clients’ (Bozarth, 2008; emphasis our own). Bozarth’s clients are
no doubt ‘reassured’ to learn that they are on the right track when their therapist refrains
from interjecting his view. Once again, the client-centered therapist might question
whether such reassurance strengthens the client’s need for reassurance from the
authority figure of the therapist.
Person-centered therapists self-disclose when they believe it ‘appropriate,’ but the
guidelines for when it is appropriate remain obscure (Baldwin, 1987). As stated above,
Brodley does present some guidelines regarding when to respond to a client’s ques-
tions, but Frankel and Johnson dispute the rationale for her position (Brodley, 2011;
Frankel & Johnson, 2015). Suffice it to say that person-centered therapists are not likely
to disclose their view if they believe it will impose conditions of worth on the client. But
we must bear in mind that, according to Rogers’ theory of personality, the maladjusted
person is extremely sensitive to meeting perceived conditions of worth.
Respect for the client in relational depth psychotherapy

The active presence of the therapist’s frame of reference is the centerpiece of relational
depth psychotherapy, a tribe of the person-centered nation (Merry, 2003). Mearns and
Cooper write:
When two people come together in a wholly genuine, open, and engaged way, we can only
say that they are both fully present. Rogers (1986) wrote about this experience of ‘presence’
in some of his later works, describing it as a time when he was closest to his inner self, in
a slightly altered state of consciousness and behaving in ‘strange’ and ‘impulsive’ ways that
seem to be of great value to the client (Mearns & Cooper, 2005, p. 37).
The clash and contrast between the inter-personal social contract version of congruence
and Rogers’ intra-personal conceptualization of congruence is evident in this excerpt
from a psychotherapeutic session between Dave Mearns and his alcoholic client,
Dominic. In his first session with Dominic, Mearns offered the social contract of his
relational depth therapy:
In the first session I made it clear that I would not base our working around his drinking.
I would not keep track of his drinking nor would I try to get him off drinking. Whether he
drank or not was up to him. If he turned up drunk we might or might not have the session
depending on whether it seemed possible or not (Mearns & Cooper, 2005, p. 90).
Mearns explains the practical rationale for the social contract:

I take this fairly ‘detached’ position in relation to my client’s drinking because I do not want
our work to become contingent on his drinking. If that happens it becomes to easy for him,
or part of him, to sabotage his therapeutic movement, like everything else, in a bottle of
vodka (Mearns & Cooper, 2005, p. 90).
Mearns then offers a more abstract rationale or what would appear to be the guiding
principle of the social contract of relational depth therapy.
To fully encounter a client in an in-depth way means letting go of our agenda and being
with him, in whichever way he is and in whatever direction he wants to go (Mearns &
Cooper, 2005, p. 90).
If Mearns violates that social contract, he would be incongruent from the inter-
personal perspective. Since inter-personal congruence and incongruence are obser-
vable behaviors, we shall see below that Mearns does indeed violate this initial social
contract. But note that there is no behavioral measure to determine whether Mearns
was intra-personally congruent when he offered this social contract. For all we know,
Mearns likes to think of himself as wishing to create an egalitarian relationship with
his clients that is free of coercion, when in fact he enjoys being in charge as a figure
of authority. If we put this to Mearns, he is likely to reject that inference and point to
evidence to the contrary. But the evidence would not result from an introspective
analysis of his feelings—instead he would describe example after example of his
actual behavior in the context of his relationships with clients that showed that he
was not bent on having coercive, authoritarian-based relationships. In other words,
Mearns would unwittingly employ the social contract perspective to prove his con-
gruence as a non-coercive therapist. But as observers, we may disagree with Mearns
and conclude that, in fact, his behavior shows an unwillingness to allow a client to go
in any ‘direction he wants to go.’ Below is the opening of his third session with
Dominic (Mearns & Cooper, 2005, pp. 90–92):
Dominic turned up drunk for session three.
Dominic 1: I shouldn’t have come today. I’ll go away if you like.
Dave 1: Because you’ve been drinking?
Dominic 2: Yeah…I’ve been drinking.
Dave 2: Do you want to go or do you want to stay?
Dominic 3: I wouldn’t mind staying.
At this point, Mearns’ responses are congruent with the social contract. This is evident
and observable.
Dave 3: I would like that too. But I’d like us to keep the tape on like we did last
week. Why I say that is that I want us to have a record of what happens –
when you’re pissed it’s easy to forget.
Dominic 4: I hadn’t realized that it was on.
Dave 4: Good that I mentioned it then.
Dominic 5: (Long pause) How do you feel about me…now…here?
Instead of empathically reflecting Dominic’s need for feedback, as a client-centered
therapist might, Mearns gratifies it:
Dave 5: Dom, I want you to tell you that I feel absolutely nothing about the fact that
you’ve been drinking. But you asked about how I felt about you now, here
(pauses). I feel…a bit…scared.
There is a bit of splitting hairs here on Mearns’ part. It is evident that Dominic is
asking how Mearns feels about his being there, drunk as he is. The context for Dominic’s
question is the fact that he is drunk. When Mearns replies that he cares nothing about
Dominic’s drinking but is ‘scared,’ he is giving a classic double-message. It certainly
seems to be a violation of the initial social contract when Mearns, in a rather detached
way, stated Dominic could come drunk or sober. Dominic is perplexed as well he
might be:
Dominic 6: Scared?
Dave 6: It surprises me too…I guess it does matter to me that you’ve been
drinking…I’m scared in case we have to start again. It’s like I feel that
we’ve made a really good connection…but will that still be there…today.
That’s what makes me a bit scared.
Mearns has now clearly violated the social contract, when he told Dominic he could
come drunk or sober. He seems to have forgotten the rationale for that social contract:
that it is only by ‘letting go of our agenda’ is it possible to ‘fully encounter a client.’

Dominic is surprised by this change in attitude. His ‘detached’ therapist is in fact not so
detached.
Dominic 7: Like it matters to you?
Dave 7: Yes it does Dom.
Dominic 8: Like this isn’t just a ‘game’ to you?
Dave 8: I think you know that Dom. In fact, I know you know that Dom.
Dominic 9: Yes, ‘sober me’ knows it, but does ‘drunk me’?
Dave 9: I don’t know. Does he? Do you?
Dominic 10: Big question. Maybe I’ll need another vodka before I can answer that.
Dave 9: Dom, be here, be here drunk, but don’t play fucking games with me.
Neither you nor I deserve that.
Mearns does not acknowledge that he has changed the initial social contract, or even
that he had a social contract in place. It is clear that his initial social contract to Dominic
has been shredded. If he had viewed congruence in the context of social contracts, it is
unlikely that he would have exclaimed ‘don’t play fucking games with me.’ Or if he did,
he might feel an explanation was in order to explain the change in the social contract.
Indeed, he may have realized that if anyone was playing games, it was himself as well.
But Mearns has never viewed congruence in the context of social contracts with others,
but instead adopts Rogers’ intra-personal view of congruence. Here is Mearns’ explana-
tion of his fifth response when the ‘change’ took place:
The first sentence of this response is completely dreadful [see Dave 5 above]. Instead of
responding congruently I make the presumption that I know what was behind his question–
that he is scared that I might be judgmental about his drinking. Also, I am so out of touch
with my own experiencing in that moment that I proceed to give a denial. Indeed the
degree of incongruence is so profound that in Gendlin’s (2003) language of focusing, my
‘body talks back’ – as I am making that denial I am also realizing my own incongruence.
A more competent voice within my head tells me to ‘answer the client’s question for god’s
sake!’ (Mearns & Cooper, 2005, p. 93).
While it is clear that Mearns was incongruent with the initial social contract with this
response, he cannot know if he was intra-personally congruent despite his protests to
the contrary. For example, Mearns does note that he was scared and explained to
Dominic why he was scared. He claims to be afraid that Dominic’s drunkenness may
mean that the therapy may ‘have to start again.’ Later, Mearns states that, in noting his
fears and concerns, he was ‘utterly congruent.’ But how does he know? Theoretically, we
cannot know whether our so-called bodily conversation (‘focusing’) yields an accurate
picture of the totality of our experience, or a distorted rationalization of our experience.
It could be argued that, on seeing Dominic arrive for the third session utterly soused,
Mearns’ self esteem as a therapist suffered a blow. Mearns perhaps became scared, not
so much because he would have to begin therapy anew with Dominic as he allegedly
and, let us assume sincerely, states, but because of the insult to his self-esteem. There
may be many other interpretations of Mearns’ unconscious ‘motives,’ but they remain
only inferences as to why Mearns suddenly felt scared or believed that he was scared.
After all, he may have simply been frustrated, but defensively rationalized himself as
scared. As stated above, the state of congruence and incongruence in Rogers’ theory is
beyond either our introspections or our observations. Mearns simply cannot know if he
being defensive (incongruent) or congruent (open to his experience). Rogers explains
why this is the case:
Defense is the behavioral response of the organism to threat, the goal of which is the
maintenance of the current structure of the self. The goal is achieved by the perceptual
distortion of the experience in awareness, in such a way as to reduce the incongruity
between the experience and the structure of the self, or by the denial to awareness of an
experience, thus denying the threat to self (Rogers, 1959, pp. 204–205; emphases ours).
But there can be no doubt that Mearns was incongruent with the social contract that he
outlined to his client, Dominic. Mearns never comes to grips with his inconsistency.
Mearns never explains how he can say on the one hand that it is only by ‘letting go of
our agenda’ that we can ‘fully encounter a client in an in-depth way.’ Indeed, Mearns
applauds his statement, ‘don’t play fucking games with me.’ He explains his language:
Some therapists will be shocked by this response. It uses bad language; it is an extremely
strong expression; and it expresses a powerful judgment in response to Dominic’s glib
Dominic 10. Yet, viewed from the perspective of ‘encountering’ – of providing a presence
that is ‘counter’ (Schmid, 2002) to the person – the very power of this statement shows
Dominic how serious I am about our contact (Mearns & Cooper, 2005, p. 95).
These readers were not shocked by Mearn’s comments, but do wonder how he squares
his ‘counter’ presence to Dominic on the one hand with, on the other, letting go of his
agenda. If ‘don’t play fucking games with me’ doesn’t imply an agenda and conditions of
worth to a client, then we can wonder whatever might. Certainly Mearns is consistent
with Rogers’ person-centered view that the therapist offers his/her view.
To claim that person-centered therapists or relational depth therapists are more
collaborative, or more of a presence, is quite mistaken. One social contract is no more
authentic than another social contract. No social contract is more collaborative than
another social contract. We are equally present in all of our social contracts. Strangers
standing on a railroad platform respect the privacy of each other by minding their own
business. The social contract of lovers who show love by minding each other’s business
is no more authentic than two strangers ignoring each other. Strangers and lovers have
a presence. Their difference is only in the way the social contract articulates the way they
express their presence.
In his book, Cain describes and justifies these changes in person-centered therapies.
Cain does note, disparagingly, that there are those who fail to see these changes as
progress at all:
That some practitioners should maintain what appears to be a traditional and narrow view
of client-centered therapy should not be surprising…There will always be practitioners of
a specific approach who truly believe that the original position advanced by the founder
will always remain its purest and best form. For some, the original or pure forms remain
compelling while deviations feel like compromises and inaccuracies…However the down-
side of this position is often uncritical reverence for the founder and his ideas that result in
a stifling of progress. (Cain, 2010, p. 45)
Cain neither discusses nor provides even a single reference for those arguments that
questions the nature of these changes or challenges the logic of the changes. These
objections to the changes are not mindless, though John Schlien has attacked them as
‘mindless’ (Frankel & Sommerbeck, 2005; Patterson, 2000). If reverence for its founder, Carl
Rogers, is a motivational source of allegiance, then indeed those who abandoned client-
centered therapy followed their leader, while those who remained as client-centered
therapists rejected the thinker that Rogers had become (Frankel & Sommerbeck, 2005).
Cain does commit the category mistake when he describes the client-centered
therapist:
The therapist’s attitudes of respect for and belief in the client’s capacity for self-directed
growth resulted in the development of a dramatically different kind of relationship with the
client. It was a relationship characterized by disciplined restraint and non-intrusiveness. The
therapist as an individual stayed out of the relationship and instead attempted to be
a careful, supportive and understanding listener (Cain, 2010, p.18; emphases Cain’s own).
In fact, the client-centered therapist does not stay out of the relationship, but instead is
very active in the relationship, and perhaps speaks more often than therapists of other
persuasions. This will certainly become evident in the transcript below. In stating that
the ‘individual’ stayed out of the relationship, Cain commits the category mistake. The
category mistake is confusing a category with the objects that compose the category
(Ryle, 2000). The ‘therapist as an individual’ is a category in that the individual has no
reality status that is independent of his role. The individual becomes real as a friend,
daughter, person-centered therapist, client-centered therapist, etc. The client-centered
therapist does not relate to the client as a friend or parent or teacher or advisor, as many
person-centered therapists may do at times (see above), but is no less present. Cain
speaks of the ‘disciplined restraint’ of the client-centered therapist, but such
a description is only valid if you view the client-centered therapist as restraining his/
her individual reactions. Would Cain say a dentist is exercising ‘disciplined restraint’
when filling a tooth cavity? In following the dictates of the social contract of their
understanding of client-centered therapy, client-centered psychotherapists are not
restraining themselves from following the behavioral implications of relational depth
therapy. Rogers (the client-centered therapist) is not actively suppressing the impulse to
voice his judgments any more than Rogers as a person-centered therapist is restraining
his wish to be simply an empathic listener. Social contracts transform us. As we shall see
below, the client-centered therapist is expressing his individuality in a client-centered
way because he believes that psychotherapists do not have a PhD in wisdom that can
justify their personal self-disclosures, judgment, advice, or evaluations (Frankel &
Johnson, 2015).
Finally, Cain describes the client-centered therapist as a ‘careful, supportive and
understanding listener.’ Such a description, common as it is, misses the mark since it
fails to underline the active and functional quality of understanding that is given. It
would be more accurate for Cain to have written that the client-centered therapist offers
an empathic understanding that enables the client to reconsider the nature of his/her
experience in its entirety, including his/her potential for constructive self-criticism, with-
out being encumbered by the interpretations or judgments of the therapist.
The failure to see the challenging aspect of client-centered therapy is shown by
Zimring and Raskin’s (1992) description of the process of client-centered therapy: ‘If the
therapist accepts, recognizes and clarifies the feelings expressed by the client, there will
be movement from negative feelings to positive ones, followed by insight and positive
actions that will be initiated by the client’ (quoted in Cain, 2010, p. 31). To say that the
therapist ‘recognizes and clarifies’ fails to appreciate the function and social contract
that contextualizes the empathetic understanding of the client-centered therapist. We
must not forget that the client enters therapy with a self-critical attitude: ‘I am not the
person I wish to be.’ All therapies offer feedback in the context of that attitude (see
above). Consequently, the client-centered therapist is not simply saying: ‘Is this what you
mean?’ Instead, in the context of the client’s self-critical attitude, the therapist is heard as
saying: ‘Is this what you want to mean?’ Finally, Zimring and Raskin’s reference to the
therapeutic change from negative to positive feelings seems too simplistic unless
understood in context. The client may come to therapy because he feels too happy in
light of his circumstances. The client may be unable to grieve. The nature of client-
centered therapy may better be described in the following way: ‘If the client-centered
therapists’ empathetic understanding enables the client to reconsider his/her narrative
trajectory, there will be a movement towards greater coherence that will enable clients
to engage the world of their concerns in ways that seem more optimal to them” (Frankel
& Rachlin, 2010).
By way of summary, in stark contrast to the practice and social contracts of person-
centered therapies, there are no self-disclosures of any kind in the practice of client-
centered therapy (Rogers, 1951). The client-centered therapist does not offer the famil-
iar, conventional source of support. The client-centered therapist bears no similarity
whatsoever to the medical practitioner, as do the allegedly ‘evidence based’ cognitive-
behavioral psychotherapists. The client-centered therapist does assume an expert stance,
but only of demonstrating his/her empathic understanding in the context of conveying
an unconditional positive regard for the client. Unfortunately, perhaps, Cain is very
accurate when he states that very few therapists today practice the art of client-
centered therapy (Cain, 2010).
In the following client-centered therapy session with a father and daughter, the
daughter, a young woman of 22, is critical of her father, who in her terms has no
understanding of the appropriate social contract between a father and a daughter. The
session shows very clearly that social contracts define the meanings and behaviors of
human relationships. The commentaries that are interspersed throughout the therapy
session by one of the authors are offered to correct texts on client-centered therapy that
have failed to show the dramatic presence of the client-centered therapist and the
subtleties and effort that go into the framing of empathic reflections (Bozarth, 1998;
Cain, 2013; Cooper, 2007). It should also become evident that the client-centered
therapist is no mere ‘tourist’ on the narrative landscape of the client, as Rogers later
decried (Baldwin, 1987). There is usually a 5 to 15 second pause between the client’s
statement and the therapist’s response.
The client-centered session

The clients know that the therapist (one of the authors) is a client-centered therapist
who will offer an exclusive empathic understanding of their unfolding narratives. In
fact, the clients did not wish to know the personal views of the therapist. Since there
is agreement on the social contract, it is a fully collaborative relationship (Bohart &
Tallman, 1999). Insofar as the therapist remains true to the social contract, s/he is
utterly congruent (Frankel & Johnson, 2015). Is the therapist intra-personally congru-
ent? Do his/her words match the deep well of his/her experience? Is the therapist
therefore congruent from the person-centered and Rogers’ perspective (Cornelius-
White, 2013)? As stated above, there is no telling. There are not even grounds for
conjecture.
CCT (client-centered therapist) Hello – just choose any seat you wish…
A minute or so passes.
CCT: Well, I’m here and hopefully I can be of some help. Feel free to say
whatever comes to mind.
D (daughter): I might as well speak first. My father would just sit there. He seems to
enjoy that (sarcastically).
30 seconds pass.
She is showing the client-centered therapist the first brush strokes of her portrait of her
father. I follow her gaze and look at the father who watches his daughter. He is engaged but
I cannot read his expression. I look at him in order to show the daughter that I am attending to
the reference of her concern. I realize that I am running the risk of suggesting a normative
standard to the father and, in so doing, suggesting that he ought to respond. I am assuming,
however, that as the interview progresses both clients will learn that I am not going to apply
normative standards to their narratives. I do not empathically respond to this first comment
because I sense a mere hesitation on her part. Had I said anything I may have interrupted her.
There is a musicality to our therapeutic conversations that is not evident on the written page.
D: We’re meeting because of me. Everything is fine with him. Everything is always
more fine with him (said in a clipped mocking tone).
CCT: But you seem to feel quite differently. Things are not, as you say, so fine so far as
you’re concerned. I also get the sense from your tone that you perhaps had to
drag your father here.
I assumed that when she said they were ‘meeting because of me’ that from her
perspective the father needed some persuading. The mockery of her tone suggested that
she didn’t respect his reticence. No sooner did I say ‘drag’ when I realized that the word may
have been too strong, though the qualifier ‘perhaps’ may have softened my assertion
somewhat. There are two kinds of errors one could make when being empathic. The first
error can be called an intelligent error. An intelligent mistake is when clients can understand
why the therapist responded as they did in light of their own comments. The second error
can be called a misguided mistake and that is when the so-called empathic response is
utterly confusing to the client so that the client cannot even offer a correction. It is as if the
client was to say in their confusion: ‘What are you talking about? Are you listening at all?’
Intelligent errors can actually be very helpful in that the client may realize that more
elaboration is required. My manner towards her is one of gentle acceptance even though
there is nothing in her manner that suggests she feels that way about herself. In this vital
sense, the understanding of a client-centered therapist in the context of unconditional
positive regard is not truly an empathic understanding of clients who often lack such
unconditionally positive feelings for themselves but instead experience only conditional
positive regard (Rogers, 1959; Frankel et al., 2012).
D: No, oh no. Drag my father?! You never have to drag him anywhere. He is Mr. Agreeable.
He’ll sing any song you ask him to sing (mocking tone continues).
My mistake stimulated her to offer a much more colorful portrait of her father. Instead of
the ambiguous ‘everything is fine with him,’ he is now ‘Mr. Agreeable’ who ‘will sing any
song you ask him to sing.’ By correcting me, ‘no, oh no,’ the daughter is more actively
defining her view of her father. When presenting this transcript in a public forum, the author
has been asked whether in this moment he was reinforcing her negatively toned critical
attitude towards her father. If so, the therapeutic intervention has failed, since the client-
centered therapist has no agenda that favors one kind of father/daughter relationship over
another. The goal of client-centered therapy is instead an effort to enable clients achieve
optimal clarity at any given moment in time.
CCT: More like a puppet then –
The allusion to a puppet seems to me consonant with her characterization of him as
‘Mr. Agreeable.’
D: Up to a point…he’s present but he hasn’t said anything yet, has he?

Once again, on hearing my empathic understanding, she corrects me. My empathic under-
standing was in effect a challenge. It is evident to me that she views me as I wish to be viewed, as
someone who is following rather than leading her. This is another example of our collaboration
and my presence without resorting to expressing personal self-disclosures such as my own views.
CCT: Is he really here then?
D: Exactly!
How often do client centered therapists hear that word, ‘exactly,’ with an exclamation point.
That response is as rewarding for the client-centered therapist as I suspect the client’s statement
‘how interesting!’ may be to a psychoanalyst, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, or person-
centered therapist when a novel interpretation, training regimen, or self-disclosure is offered.
Her comment was followed by a silence of two minutes or so. The silence seemed to have
a certain depth. I looked at the father and once more he seemed engaged though I could not
read the nature of his engagement from his expression. I decide to address him.
CCT: From your expression you seem to be engaged but I cannot sense your reaction.
As I stated before, narratives and conversations have a certain musical flow, and it
seemed right at that moment to attend to his silence. I cannot begin to justify why at this
moment rather than some other moment to commence speaking to the father. Imagine
that a child of four were to ask his mother how she knew when to speak and when to listen
when having a conversation with someone. The mother could hardly offer a rule. She would
probably say: ‘You’ll know. Don’t worry, you’ll know.’ It seems to me that one aspect of the
‘art’ of psychotherapy is in the making of such decisions. The measure of success of that art
is whether it inspires the client to continue their narrative. But it is important to note that
the comment reflects the therapist’s effort to understand in an empathic way the meaning
of the client’s facial expression.
F (father): It makes sense to me… (casually)
CCT: You mean you can see that from her point of view, her description makes
sense, or is it that it makes sense to you as a reasonably accurate descrip-
tion, and/or it makes sense from your point of view? Please forgive the
multiple-choice format.
I simply confessed my confusion but, as always, I make an effort to make explicit the
nature of that confusion instead of simply asking: ‘In what sense does it make sense?’ I want
the client to see my struggle to comprehend his world. To simply pose a question seems to
me to have a demanding and lazy quality.
F: She’s right. It would never occur to me that we needed to see you. I’ve been
quiet…I mean I haven’t said anything because quite frankly I don’t know what to
say. So yes – she’s right. Things are fine with me – I mean things between us are
fine with me but I know they are not so fine with her…and uh…I guess…I guess
she needs a referee of sorts – a therapist to help her in some way. (briskly)
CCT: You say ‘some help,’ a referee, or a therapist such as myself, but you’re not sure
just what kind of help she requires?
F: No, I don’t know. She can always talk to me. I don’t think she would deny that.
D: (smiling and shaking her head) Puppet Dad will talk if I pull the talk string. Yeah,
I know that. He’s talking now but what the hell has he said?
CCT: You haven’t heard anything. His lips moved – sounds came out but that was it.
(addressing her)
D: Thank you. Yes – sounds! (harshly)
CCT: And you’re angry?
This is a real question. I sensed anger but in fact she may simply have been frustrated or
perplexed. The cognitive outlooks that are expressed by frustration, perplexity or anger are
quite different.
D: F – –g (expletive deleted) exasperated. Would you call what he said a response?
Look at him looking at me. (in apparent anger)
The daughter is describing her father as a ‘puppet’ and perhaps employing my authority
against her father. But this did not occur to me at that time since I am bent only on
understanding in terms of her framework rather than my analysis of that framework.
I follow her gaze again. She is looking at her father.
F: There’s nothing new here. She’s been exasperated with me from the moment she
met me. Quite frankly, I don’t know why she keeps trying. Is it not evident to her
that I don’t have what she wants? How old does she have to be?
As a client-centered therapist I do not wonder what he means when he states ‘…from

the moment she met me.’ I see the tremor of exasperation on his facial expression. They are
speaking to each other and simultaneously to me in a frank and candid way.
D: Do you know how old I am?

F: And if I didn’t so what? And if I do, so what? She thinks being a father is knowing
the date of her birth.
D: How about what school I go to?
F: Or what school she attends…
D: Or what I am majoring in –
F: Or what she is majoring in –
D: (turning to the therapist) See…see… he just doesn’t get it.
This exchange illustrates that my presence is the medium of their openness to each other.
For Rogers to refer to this kind of presence as the presence of a tourist on a foreign
landscape and thus somewhat inauthentic is elevating a personal prejudice to a fact
(Baldwin, 1987). If these clients were asked whether I struck them as a distant and
unengaged therapist, they would be thoroughly confused. One reviewer of this transcript
characterized the father as ‘uninvolved.’ Nothing can be further from the truth. He is
certainly unconventional, but quite involved in denying the relevance of these ‘facts’ of
his daughter’s life. But the reviewer is employing normative criteria when making this
judgment. The vast majority of those who have viewed this session adopt the same view
as the reviewer. But a sizeable minority simply view him as unusual.
CCT: Nothing he is saying makes the least bit of sense to you. So far as you could see,
his sense of what a father is and your sense of what a father is belong to two
different universes. But more to the point, he can’t begin to understand what to
you… just seem the basic requirements of fatherhood.
Each person has a very different view of the proper social contract between a daughter and
her father. The father is comfortable in his ignorance of these ‘facts,’ as he calls them, while she
views his indifference as preposterous and contrary to how a father ought to be. The therapist
has shown this session to professional and non-professional groups and invariably the
empathic reflections that are offered are criticized. The therapist is told that he ought to find
a way of showing the father that his responses are inappropriate. Instead, the therapist’s
manner towards both is one of unconditional positive regard, which is a critical feature of
the client-centered social contract. The client-centered therapist is not restraining his personal
sentiments, as we have seen Cain suggest, since at that moment in time they simply do not exist.
The client-centered therapist’s expertise is in his/her ability to follow rather than lead clients. In
simply being followed, the client is provided an environment that enables a re-examination of
his/her narrative. In any case, these objections are clashes in our understanding of what
constitutes the appropriate social contract between a therapist and a client. Client-centered
therapy is unwavering in conveying an unconditional positive regard for whatever the content
of the client’s narrative may be (Rogers, 1951, p. 45).
D: And like an idiot I keep trying. I can get any guy I want. I know I’m bright. I know
I’m pretty. I have friends. Why am I reaching for this stiff?
Here is treasure for the psychoanalytically inclined. It doesn’t even occur to me to regard
her comment as odd in any way whatsoever. I am concentrating too intensely on her
narrative from her perspective (Rogers, 1951, pp. 45–46).
CCT: You’ve got so much going for you, and you know that, and yet there is this
desperation to reach some kind of mutual understanding with your father.
Note that I never say ‘dad.’ My sense of them is that such a word would strike them as
corny. The empathic attitude of the client-centered therapist appropriately affects his/her
vocabulary. This is yet another measure of the active presence of the client-centered
therapist.
D: My birthday? What school I go to? My interests? Where I spent my last vacation?
What’s his problem?
CCT: You’re looking at me but I guess you’re hoping he’ll give you an answer that you
can understand and accept.
The entire drift of our engagement suggested that she knew I would not, or perhaps could
not, answer that question. We could call it reading between the very obvious lines. In any case,
she is free to dispute my understanding and she has already demonstrated that right.
D: Or maybe you can decipher him for me! (disgustedly)
On the basis of her manner and tone, I do not believe that she is asking me to do that for
her at this moment. But what is clear is stated in the following empathic refection.
CCT: For you his character is so codified that it needs deciphering.
D: Maybe he is just a code to me and I’m trying to provoke him. But I never
succeed. Look at him! (shaking her head incredulously)
I do look at her father.

CCT (to F): You’re smiling…
F: What else is there for me to do? She’s right – she tries to provoke me.
I know that.
CCT: There’s nothing new for you in all this then.
The father’s comment was spoken with a tone of resignation as if, in spirit, he had heard
it all before and there was nothing he could say.
F: She’s her mother’s kid…not mine.
Finding himself understood, he wished to explain himself with greater detail. This aspect
of empathic understanding, the triggering of greater cognitive and emotional detail and
coloring, is critical to understanding that clients do not hear themselves mirrored in
mechanical fashion. This is not likely to happen, however, if empathy is employed as
a means to a further end, such as offering an alleged insight (Kohut, 2009). When empathy
is the sole therapeutic tool, the client has a different understanding of the empathic
reflection. The client is more likely to realize that insight is his/her business and responsi-
bility. S/he is the locus of evaluation and agency, not the therapist. The client-centered
therapist is not telling the client that s/he ought to be the locus of evaluation but
demonstrating it by offering only empathic reflections and desisting from giving any kind
of personal disclosures.
D: God I hate that. Her mother’s kid. He seems to forget my mother was his wife!
CCT: You feel he’s disowning his wife – by calling her your mother?
I am not sure at all of the present drift of her feelings and thoughts but I make a stab.
I could have asked her to simply explain what she is getting at. There are two problems with
such a request. First, she will be talking to me and the evocative power of empathy would
be forsaken. The client-centered therapist is hoping to inspire clients to spontaneously raise
their own questions rather than to spontaneously answer the queries posed by the author-
itative figure of the therapist. Second, it is important for clients to see their client-centered
therapists as manifesting an effort to be an understanding presence. The effort underlines
the intense, caring quality of listening on the part of the therapist. But it turns out that
I misunderstood the daughter.
D: No, not that. It’s his way of infantilizing me. I’m not my mother’s kid and I am not
a kid!
As is generally the case, intelligent errors by the therapist are corrected by the client. The
clients ease in correcting me underlines the collaborative nature of our relationship.
F: She knows how old you are. She knows what school you go to. She knows your
major. I don’t, and quite honestly I don’t care to know these facts about you.
(stated rather emphatically)
D: Jesus Christ! They’re not facts about me. They are me! (stated with resentment
and anger)
F: That’s why I’m not interested! (resolutely)
CCT: Is it that you don’t know what these facts mean to her? You don’t know how she
feels about them, so for you they’re just a bunch of indifferent facts. There’s no
story here for you to understand. Does that capture the basis of your
indifference?
‘You’re just reinforcing this self-absorbed narcissist!’ bellowed a psychoanalyst when

I went over this transcript at a public meeting. Fortunately, the client-centered therapist
does not impose his/her normative judgments. I offered the client my empathic under-
standing in the context of unconditional positive regard. The psychoanalyst who bellowed
her judgment was prepared only to give conditional positive regard. For this analyst, my
empathic response showed a quality of acceptance that made the father appear too
reasonable.
F: Thank you. I mean that, thank you. That is precisely what I mean.
D: Why are you thanking him? What the f – are you talking about? I’m not a story.
I’m a person! Nonfiction, Dad! (rather emphatically stated)
CCT: What you see your father wanting from you is a story, but you feel rather
vehemently that what he wants denies your personhood.
D: Thank you, is that too much to ask?
CCT: I can’t help noticing that you are both rather thankful that I understand you but
you both cannot understand why you are such a frustrating mystery to each
other.
Both father and daughter thank me. I am not viewed as a judge but as someone who
simply wishes to gain an empathic understanding of their worlds. My own feelings are not
being suppressed. I am congruent with my understanding of the client-centered therapeutic
social contract. More importantly, those who might disagree that I am in fact congruent
with the client-centered social contract can explain why they disagree but only by discuss-
ing their understanding of the social contract. This was however a mistaken reflection. The
daughter was certainly frustrated, but the father showed no signs of it. But this is easily
corrected, and it is.
F: Wait a sec…just wait. I am not frustrated and she’s really not a mystery to me. She
has a childish sense of entitlement…convinced she’s some sort of innocent…I
don’t know, but I can’t give her that. I can’t play the part she has laid out for me.
D: Entitled? What are you talking about? Do I work? Do I pay my way through school?
F: Yeah…
D: How entitled then? (looking at her father)
Long silence of 90 s
CCT (to father): You seem in deep thought. Is that a question you choose not to answer?
It was so evident that she was waiting for a reply and equally evident to me that he knew
that, which is why I addressed him. But why did I say ‘choose’ rather than ‘you are not
responding’? I suspect that it was my understanding of Sartre, who introduced me to the notion
that just about everything we do is volitional, and a choice (Sartre, 1993). I point this out to
show that therapists are informed by a multitude of sources that extend to the literature of other
fields. In any case, I introduced an inaccurate empathic response. On the other hand, it would be
an intelligent error. The father would understand why I employed that word ‘choose.’ Most
importantly, the father would understand it was an effort of mine to be empathic.
F: Choose not to answer? (sighs) (a minute or so passes) Hell, maybe it’s good we’re
here. Maybe I needed you to ask me that. So…am I choosing not to answer? That’s
a good question. Yeah, you could say that… (sighs) I mean I could say that…
(a silence of 30 s or so) Not that I’m choosing not to answer as I am choosing silence.
Silence has been my answer for some time. (emphasis is his own)
My error led to a complete reconsideration of the way he engages his daughter. Why did
my comment stir him to examine his silence? I suspect that others have been critical of his
silences before. It is likely that he was seen as ‘uninvolved’ since that is the likely pigeon hole
for his unconventional conduct. But he did not understand my question as a way of
ministering judgment. In figure/ground terms, the father understood my question in the
context of my compassion (unconditional positive regard) while he likely heard the comments
of others, including his daughter, in the context of negative criticism and conditional positive
regard. My question thus created a novel experience (Frankel et al., 2012).
D: Is this a confession? (sarcastically) You’re actually admitting something. I can hardly

believe it! (very emphatically) But even now…even now you’re just playing with
words. Dad, you choose silence in order not to answer me!
F: I choose silence in order not to insult you. (spoken in a straightforward way without
hostility)
D: But how much more insulting and patronizing can you be than you are
being now?
Thirty seconds pass. D looks at her father somewhat defiantly while he looks somewhat
worn out.
CCT: Please forgive me if I am off here but I sense from your expression that you are
feeling rather weary.
F: I just don’t know what to say (shrugs)…I just can’t play the part she has laid out
for me.
D: What impossible demands am I making?
F: It’s not a question of demands. You keep insisting that I am attacking you.
There’s a difference between judging you and attacking you…look, here we
are – face to face in a therapist’s office. We’re talking, more candidly than we
have ever spoken before…but can’t you see that we have no common ground?
D: No, I’m not prepared to conclude that… sure, maybe we are still talking past
each other rather than to each other but can’t that be our way of finding each
other. Dad, we’re not characters in one of your novels where the end comes with
a final period. (voice is raised)
F: Then why are you so angry?
D: I’m tired to hell of trying to jump-start you…
F: I don’t need you to jump-start me. You just don’t like what you see when I’m
going full speed.
D: (throws up hand, shakes head) I’m just lost… I don’t know what the hell you’re
talking about. (turns to therapist) Do you? Do you understand him?
CCT: Perhaps I do. I’m not sure. (turns to father) Would you like me to try and say what
you may have been trying to convey to D?
I understood this as a real request for me to give my empathic portrait of her father. I ask
the father’s permission to reinforce the non-authoritarian nature of my presence. He is being
asked whether he wants me to honor his daughter’s request rather than my wishes.
F: I would be very grateful…(sighs) Please do. (softly spoken)

CCT: Your father doesn’t seem to see any narrative compatibility between you.
D: Narrative compatibility! What..? What is this, a literature course? (somewhat
disgusted)
CCT: You’re angry…
D: Nothing makes sense.
Clearly my choice of language suggested a pedantic understanding of her father at best

and at worst a muddled one. I have failed her. But I do not lose my identity as a client-centered
therapist and apologize but instead show my deep concern for her disappointment. That is
how I show that I am not a mere ‘tourist’ on her landscape. In fact, it shows the therapist’s
integrity and profound commitment to the client-centered social contract and thus with the
client. To say I was not there as myself would be like a saying a surgeon was not present during
surgery when failing to express how frightened s/he is of making a mistake.
CCT: I can see how exasperated you are. Your father is a riddle to you so you bring
him to me, a therapist, a supposed helper, hoping that I could somehow clarify
the issues and I turn out to be just as incomprehensible.
This is an example of a non-defensive client-centered response. The therapist freely

acknowledges the client’s disappointment. An apology would have violated the client-
centered social contract and brought attention to the self of the therapist. In his famous
interview with Gloria, Rogers offers a very similar empathic response to the client’s
disappointment.
D: I’m afraid so, but look, I didn’t mean to yell at you, but ‘narrative incompatibility’
doesn’t cut it for me. Maybe I’m dense. My father nodded when you said that, so
maybe he gets it but I don’t…can you try again?
It is not unusual to see that an empathic understanding of an injury that we have

unwittingly inflicted on someone disarms the person of his/her anger, perhaps much more
so than any apology. I suspect this may be the case because an empathic understanding
shows that we are willing to look at the injury, whereas an apology may be viewed as an
effort to erase the injury.
CCT: What I meant was something like this: imagine that you and your father were
strangers who happened to be sitting side by side on a flight to Paris and just
manage to strike up a conversation. Your father can imagine you telling him
what school you go to, what you’re majoring in and he would sit there and nod,
impatiently waiting to get back to whatever he may have been doing. So for
him…it is not a matter of a need to be jump-started. He simply feels that the
way you narrate your life holds no interest for him.
F: Right…and that’s all I want, is for that to be recognized. Why is that so terrible?
D: I can’t believe this! I’m a bore to you. (raised voice)
F: (shakes head and sighs) You can be…yes you can be, but only to me. You have
plenty of friends. You just said before that you can get any guy you want. Why
must I be so damn important? Why can’t I be allowed to find us not particularly
interesting? I’m not blaming you, so why are you blaming me? Why must I lie
and pretend otherwise? Can you guess how many people are not interested in
my books? Have you read the negative reviews? How unoriginal I am…people
reject relationships, not each other. Why can’t you grasp that?
The father is here stating that he does not want ‘lying’ for any reason whatsoever to be
an aspect of their social contract. He objects to pretending an interest. He appears to be
quite involved and passionate on this point.
D: What about Mom? Was she interesting?

F: Not particularly.
D: But you married her –
F: So?
D: So you thought she was interesting…
F: I did for a while. But it was like reading two books from an author and buying
a third, only to find the third was not so good, and the fourth was worse than the
third, and then you stop reading.
D: And you get divorced.
F: Yes – I asked for a divorce.
D: But while you were reading one of those books I was conceived.
F: That’s right.
D: Well father, was I born during one of the dull books or during one of the
interesting books? (mockingly)
Long silence.
F: One of the dull books. (somewhat resigned as if he knows what is to come)
D: You managed an erection during a dull read, then – how did you manage that?
You can’t seem to manage that with me now, can you? You lied to her…so why
not go out of your way and lie to me and pretend I am interesting!
The daughter accepts altruistic lying as part of the social contract between a father and
his daughter.
F: I felt sorry for your mother. I was dishonest. I used her as a prop but I had sex with
someone else – I’m not proud of that.
D: You didn’t answer my question. Why don’t you lie to me like you lied to her? Why
can’t I feel like she did when you manufactured love scenes with her? Why this
sudden need to be honest with me? (confrontational)
F: You lie to people you can divorce. I can’t divorce you.
D: But you have never been this honest with me before…(minute passes) Why did you
even come here today?
F: I have always and will always respond to your needs.
D: Why must I be needy to have a father?
F: Because I am responsible for bringing you into this world and so it seems to me
that I am responsible for you while you inhabit it as well.
D: Dad, I didn’t need you to come here today. I wanted you to come. There’s
a difference.
F: (gently) Is there such a big difference…don’t you need what you want?
D: When did Freud become your ventriloquist?
On reading this may strike the reader as amusing, but it is said in a derisive manner.
F: This isn’t a real conversation for you, is it?
D: No, I call it one-ups-manship –
F: Christ, why would I want to be one up on you? Can’t you see that you don’t take
me seriously. You can’t seem to believe that I can be exactly the way I am. What is
real conversation for me is evasion to you. What is important for you…oh, what
the hell… this is getting us nowhere. (his frustration and weariness is apparent)
D: Go on…what is important to me is – what do you think is important to me?
F: Well, Chet is important to you…right?
D: Well you remember his name. That’s something.

F: (lecturing tone, somewhat worked up) And let me tell you everything else I know
about him. He went to Harvard. He majored in business. He adores Dostoevsky and
he lives in a great flat in midtown. Oh yes, he’s hot. I know these things because
you thought they were important enough to tell me…but I can’t recall a single
conversation that you and Chet had, a single moment of any consequence.
D: Like how did we get to bed the first time?
F: Probably not as you would tell it. I could just hear you relating how the two of you
had a lot to drink or had some pot and ended up in bed – no, I am not interested
in that either. I am not interested in your facts but your relationship to facts. Can’t
you see that you are your relationship to facts. You are not Wesleyan! For Christ
sake, you are not even a woman!
D: In a word then – I am hopelessly superficial.
F: Like Dr. X said, on a jet I would rather be reading a book than listen to you rattle on
about Chet in the way you did.
D: Why do you want to hurt me? (seriously)
F: I am trying to explain why we are incompatible. I am not trying to hurt you. In fact,
I am trying to make you see that none of this is your fault and none of it is mine so
that you won’t feel hurt.
Three minutes pass. D becomes tearful and concentrates a gaze on the floor.
D: A no-fault divorce (weakly) I guess…am I supposed to feel relieved?
CCT: But you don’t. (very gently)
D: What are we left with then…? Nothing…? (poignantly asked)
CCT: Your frustration and anger was at least…a connection –
Simmel has argued that the opposite of harmony is not conflict, but indifference.
I suspect my reflection was informed in part by my reading of his essay on conflict
(Simmel, 2010).
D: A no-fun connection is better than a no-fault disconnection, I guess. Well, what
can I say…? (long pause)
CCT: (to D) You look forlorn…maybe you’re just tired.
D: Forlorn? No…that’s not the word I would use…sorry, yes. And yes, very sad…
(tears mist her eyes).
CCT: You wanted something more from your father.
D: (Crying noiselessly) I like the bastard. Even now I like him – I am sorry for this.
(reaches for tissues and blows nose) I just wish he liked me.
F: I don’t dislike you. That’s not true.
D: (softly) I know, Dad – you just don’t like me, and for you there’s a world of
difference between the two.
F: Yes, for me there is.
Minutes pass.
CCT: The two of you can only see each other from a great distance – an irreconcilable
distance.
My voice was pregnant with the weight of their ‘irreconcilable distance.’

Three minutes or so pass.
CCT: I feel this silence is rather deep.
F: I can’t give you more than I have, D.
D: (faint smile) No, you can’t…(tearful) I can see that...(a minute passes) I can…
(a full minute passes. D sighs.) I don’t think we should see each other at Christmas
anymore. Maybe life is like a novel and there are endings.
F: (He reaches over and covers her hand with his own)
A minute or so passes.
CCT: I’m afraid our time is up.
Father and daughter shake the hand of the therapist with evident gratitude. There is
clarity and sadness as they leave. The father and daughter are, at this point, unable to
forge a mutually satisfying social contract. Both leave feeling, at least at that moment,
that a true disconnection is preferable to a false connection.
The transcript shows that if congruence is viewed as an adherence to the client-
centered social contract, then indeed it is not an impossible goal, as Lietaer (2001)
suggests. The therapist in this transcript did not entertain thoughts other than the ones
uttered. A reader may challenge the accuracy of the therapist’s empathic understand-
ings and may even suggest a leakage of his/her personal prejudices, but that is why
congruence in the context of the social contract is so clarifying. It is observable and
open to discussion.
The client-centered relationship enabled these clients to openly discuss their different
views of their social contract. It must be noted that there is nothing in the education of
a therapist from any persuasion that would enable him/her to present the optimal
father/daughter social contract. Psychotherapists have little more than their prejudices
to offer a client in this regard. How unlike a medical doctor who can inform a patient
what constitutes an unhealthy diet! The client-centered social contract, by disavowing
self-disclosures, fully acknowledges the limit of psychological knowledge. The psychol-
ogist may at times be able to describe why people behave as they do, but there is no
psychological knowledge that suggests what people ought to do.
The authors have offered considerable commentary to show the quality of thought
and presence that enters into the client-centered relationship. The empathic reflections
are not given simply in the spirit of assuring that the therapist has a correct under-
standing of the client, but as an implicit request that the client reconsider the nature of
their experience (Brodley, 2011). The father and daughter in this transcript have known
each other for 22 years, but this conversation was undoubtedly their first successful
attempt to communicate their frustrations, misgivings, disappointments, hopes, and
despair. It would be superficial to see their change in terms of a movement from
negative to positive feelings or from hope to despair. Instead, each person has a more
coherent understanding of the relationship and its current limitations. The father’s
placing his hand over his daughter’s hand was the seal of love that illuminated their
fundamental incompatibility. Would that many divorced couples felt this way, there
would be little need for lawyers to argue on their behalf.
Summary
Rogers’ intra-personal conceptualization of congruence was contrasted with an inter-
personal model of congruence (Rogers, 1959; Frankel et al., 2016). Inter-personally, the
congruence of the individual is measured by the degree to which his/her behavior is
consistent with their endorsed social contracts. Social contracts enable individuals to
realize the extent of their compatibilities. Since social contracts are so often implicit,
a person may have only a tacit understanding of the rules that guide his/her behavior.
Social contracts, unlike rules of a game, may require considerable analysis to achieve
clarity, as in the case of the father and daughter in the transcript. We may also be under
the influence of conflicting social contracts, as in the case of the ex-Union physician.
A client-centered therapeutic transcript enabled a father and daughter to express their
understanding of their social contract and realize more fully the extent of their incom-
patibility. Client-centered therapy and person-centered therapies were contrasted.
Conventional views of the client-centered therapist’s actions and the process of psy-
chotherapy were challenged. A commentary on the moment-to-moment engagement of
the father and daughter showed the active participation of the client-centered therapist.
Empathic reflections are not simply a clarifying technique nor simply an effort to
discover the rightness or wrongness of the therapist’s understanding, but instead
function to facilitate the self-critical attitude that the client brings to the psychother-
apeutic encounter. The client-centered social contract is, like all therapies, a relationship
therapy. The client-centered social contract is collaborative, like all non-coercive thera-
pies. The client-centered social contract focuses exclusively on the client’s narrative
trajectory and, unlike all other therapies, does not allow the opinions, interpretations,
self-disclosures, and assigned exercises to enter into the stream of the therapeutic
engagement.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Marvin Frankel obtained a PhD in psychology from the University of Chicago. He was a professor
of psychology at Sarah Lawrence College. He has published numerous articles in clinical and social
psychological issues.
Mary Johnson is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. She has assisted in research centered
primarily on memory in older adults and on behavioral interventions for children with Autism
Spectrum Disorders. Lab experience includes University of Florida's West Lab on Memory and
Aging; the Behavioral Analysis Research Clinic at UF's Vollmer Lab; University of Oxford's
Experimental Psychology Department; and Vanderbilt Kennedy Center's SENSE Lab.
Roxane Polak, Ph.D. is a psychologist in Muttontown, N.Y. She specializes in relationships, divorce
counseling, anxiety, depression, and bereavement. She consults as a Family/Child Specialist in
Collaborative Divorce cases and is a mediator and parenting coordinator. She has been an allied
staff member for North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. in the department of child
and adolescent psychiatry since 1996.
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Inter-Personal Congruence - The Social Contracts of Client-Centered and Person-Centered Approach

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Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies

ISSN: 1477-9757 (Print) 1752-9182 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpcp20

Inter-personal congruence: the social contracts of

Marvin Frankel, Mary Johnson & Roxane Polak

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2019.1571435

Published online: 08 Mar 2019.

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Inter-personal congruence: the social contracts of

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

La congruence interpersonnelle: les contrats

diﬀérences entre les contrats relationnels sont expliquées dans le

Interpersonale Kongruenz: die sozialen Verträge

Congruência Interpessoal: os contratos sociais

também discute a complexidade no estabelecimento de contratos

Congruencia interpersonal: los contratos

Human relationships are, broadly speaking, problem-solving engagements. Which is to

The couple confronting these problems must come to a fundamental agreement on

Social contracts as collaborative enterprises

Rogers is oﬀering an intra-personal view of maladjustment. The soldier in this formula-

Social contracts and psychopathology

Social contracts and congruence

Social contracts and relationship therapies

Respect for the client in the social contract of client-centered therapy of

On the importance of depersonalizing the therapist, Rogers writes:

Respect for the client in the social contract of person-centered therapy

Respect for the client in relational depth psychotherapy

Mearns explains the practical rationale for the social contract:

that it is only by ‘letting go of our agenda’ is it possible to ‘fully encounter a client.’

The client-centered session

D: Up to a point…he’s present but he hasn’t said anything yet, has he?

As a client-centered therapist I do not wonder what he means when he states ‘…from

D: Do you know how old I am?

I do look at her father.

‘You’re just reinforcing this self-absorbed narcissist!’ bellowed a psychoanalyst when

D: Is this a confession? (sarcastically) You’re actually admitting something. I can hardly

F: I would be very grateful…(sighs) Please do. (softly spoken)

Clearly my choice of language suggested a pedantic understanding of her father at best

This is an example of a non-defensive client-centered response. The therapist freely

It is not unusual to see that an empathic understanding of an injury that we have

D: What about Mom? Was she interesting?

D: Well you remember his name. That’s something.

My voice was pregnant with the weight of their ‘irreconcilable distance.’

Norcross, J. C. (2002). Psychotherapy relationships that work. New York: Oxford.

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