DIRECTIVE AND NONDIRECTIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY:

THE ROLE OF THE THERAPIST*

HAROLD H. ANDERSON, PH.D.
University oj I llinois, Urbana

F OR the therapist as for the client, growth is achieved through the con-
fronting and free interplay of differences. The purpose of this brief dis-
cussion of directive and nondirective therapy is not to establish some one as
being "right," but to inquire further of which observable phenomena of hu-
man behavior these two terms can be symbols. What can directive and non-
directive therapy mean?
Rogers, in Counseling and Psychotherapy (11),1 has explained what he
means by nondirective psychotherapy. Currently, Thorne (14) (15) (16)
(17) (18) has written a series of articles on directive psychotherapy. A dis-
cussion of directive and nondirective psychotherapy could be based on the
writings of these two. I have included Allen's Psychotherapy with Children
(1)2 because one of the several respects in which Rogers' nondirective method
resembles Allen's psychotherapy is the use of the concept of responsibility.
For Rogers, Allen, and I believe, Thorne, responsible behavior is a basic
objective of psychotherapy because it is a fundamental characteristic of
psychological growth. I am proposing an examination of the concept of
responsible behavior because I think in this concept we can find a test
for the common properties and for the differences in directive and non-
directive psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy, says Allen, is a "specialized growth experience for a child
and understandable through the same principles that apply to normal day-
to-day growth" (p, 13). The growth experience is specialized because it is a
"more intensified and consciously directed! growth experience" (p. 45).
For Rogers, "the aim of therapy is not to solve one particular problem, but
to assist the individual to grow" (p. 28). "Therapy is ... a matter of freeing
him for normal growth and development, of removing obstacles so that he
can again move forward" (p. 29).
The essential criteria for growth are two: the first, individuation, or the
creation of difference, the emergence of difference. This is sometimes called
the process of differentiation. Allen says, "Individuation is, by its very na-

* Presented at the 1946 Annual Meeting.

1 All page references to Rogers will indicate this volume.
2 All page references to Allen will be from this volume.
S This is not construed to mean "directive therapy."

608
 HAROLD H. ANDERSON 609

ture, a differentiating process" (p. 45). The other criterion for growth is
the integration of differences. This is represented by a working together, by
a harmony among differences.'
In discussions of growth as a biological concept, the two characteristics
or criteria are more frequently referred to by the terms just given-differ-
entiation and integration. In discussions of personality or of psychological
growth it is perhaps more meaningful to refer to the two essential criteria
of growth as spontaneity and socially integrative behavior.
Spontaneity is not suggested in order to introduce a new term. This term
is used throughout by Allen and Rogers. If it needs a bit more psychological
respectability than it has been accorded by the writers of psychology text-
books, it can be linked to a universally accepted, though still vaguely de-
fined, psychological term-jear. Without oversimplifying the definition,
spontaneous behavior is what you do when you are not afraid, what you do
when you are not coerced. Spon tanei ty is an especially good term for Allen
and for some of the rest of us who like positive concepts in preference to
negative ones.
Spontaneity exists in inverse proportion to the domination of the indi-
vidual by his environment. The less spontaneous one is, the more is he
dominated; the more spontaneous, the more is one accepted as he is. Within
the limits of innate capacities (whatever innate capacities are), one can be
only as spontaneous as the environment permits. That brings up the con-
cept of harmony or of socially integrative behavior.
Since all persons are different and all living beings have some measure of
spontaneity, it follows that there is a constant problem, an on-going process,
of reconciling spontaneities of persons who are obliged to associate with each
other. Harmony is not a new term introduced to confuse the issue. Harmony
can be given immediate psychological respectability by explaining that it is a
positive concept which now replaces the negative but psychologically quite
orthodox concept of conflict. There is, unfortunately, a very good and under-
standable reason why psychologists have talked so much about conflict and
so little about harmony. The reason is given by Follett in discussing the
creative possibilities of the confronting of differences. Follett says, " ...
many people do not like the effort of using their intelligence; they fight be-
cause it is easier. The thinking out of a solution by which the interests of both
sides shall be satisfied means sometimes long and arduous labor. That is often
the reason of conflict, that it is the line of least resistance to fight. We see
this often ... in our everyday decisions: we can more easily choose one
4 The writer has discussed the concept of growth at the 1944 meetings of this Association (3). At that
time the concept of growth was presented as the basis for a series of research studies of teachers' classroom
personalities (4) (5) (6) (7). This paper is an extension of those remarks. Here the same concepts are basic
to a consideration of psychotherapy.
610 ROLE OF THERAPIST

way to the exclusion of the other; it takes more effort and far greater intel-
ligence to give both a place" (10, p. 172-173).
Conflict is a simpler concept than harmony or working with others. In
our researches, trained nursery school teachers have rated children much
more reliably for their dominative than for their socially integrative behavior
(4). Observers have consistently recorded dominative behavior more reliably
than they have recorded integrative or harmonious behavior. It is much
easier to fight wars than to live peacefully. Cannot almost anyone obstruct
the growth process of another, whereas it takes a good therapist to release
him again for normal growth?
Circular behavior, like so many concepts involving growth, personality, or
psychotherapy, has a positive and a negative side. Here again the negative
is more often mentioned than the positive. The vicious circle, or vicious
"cycle," as it is sometimes called, is found in Allen, Rogers, and Thorne.
It is, however, only casually or incidentally mentioned, whereas in any book
on psychotherapy it is almost deserving of a separate chapter. What else is
psychotherapy than the cutting of the vicious circle of human intercourse?
What is the vicious circle? Briefly, it was stated by Wickman years ago,
that teachers tended to meet aggression with aggression (21), as for example,
the boy who shoots paper wads is punished. It has been demonstrated in
several researches by the writer and his colleagues that domination incites
domination (or resistance). This was found in the behavior of preschool and
kindergarten children in child-child relations (4) and in adult-child relations
in schoolrooms (5) (6). The vicious circle is one of the hypotheses which the
Yale psychologists (9) advanced in their statemen t that aggression is a re-
sponse to frustration. The vicious circle was old stuff to Shakespere who
noted for us that jealousy is a green-eyed monster that grows by what it
feeds on. But for the operation of the vicious circle, there would be no
tragedy of Macbeth. To understand the operation of the vicious circle in
human relations is to know that no one wins a war and why everybody loses.
To understand the vicious circle is to predict the unhappy behavior of the
rejected child. An explanation of the vicious circle is more important than
all the pages thathave been written in educational psychology. Perhaps the
fact that the vicious circle is unknown to educators is why it is also unknown
to international statesmen, all of whom have gone to school somewhere.
Allen says, "No human being, whether child or adult, wants to be made
over by forces outside of his own control. The individual naturally guards
against the infringing of forces from without, designed to bring this
transformation about. It is natural, therefore, that a child Gomes organized
in some degree against the implied and imagined power of the therapist ... "
(p. 65-66). Domination incites resistance. Resistance is one form of response
to frustration. "Children with dominantly aggressive behavior present many
challenging problems to the therapist. These children have been in conflict
 HAROLD H. ANDERSON 611

with all forms of authority. Their relationships with parents and teachers and
other children are built around attempts to level the controls others try to
exercise" (p, 203).
But domination does not always incite resistance. If the domination is
sufficiently great, if the fear is sufficiently great, it is not safe to resist. Dom-
ination then incites submission. To quote again from Allen, "For a therapist
to introduce into this relationship desires and pressures to bring about a
particular shift in behavior either precipitates a negative struggle against
doing what the therapist wants him to do or a passive acceptance of the
change asked" (p. 183). He gives numerous examples of the operation of the
vicious circle and occasionally calls the process by name.
I have thus far found only one such instance in Rogers, though, I believe,
the concept is implicit throughout. Rogers interprets strong advice by the
counselor as imposing his own solution of the problem upon the client. In
the example cited (p. 23) " ..• the counselor changes the subject at the end
in order to avoid getting the resistance which he would probably receive from
the student."
Andrews, writing on "Directive Psychotherapy," speaks of the mentally
deficient: "As their behavior becomes increasingly difficult for the commu-
nity to assimilate, they encounter increasingly rejecting and condemnatory
attitudes which result in the establishment of a vicious chain of events in
which each successive asocial act results in an increase in repressive meas-
ures" (8, p. 58).
The way to cut the vicious circle is to accept the rebellious or aggressive
person as he is. Directive therapy perpetuates a dependent relationship
which is often the basis of the protest in the first place.
Circular behavior has a positive aspect, which, from the standpoint of
psychotherapy, is crucial for growth. Socially integrative or harmonious
behavior tends to induce the same kind of behavior in others. This has been
demonstrated in the writer's research studies in child-child behavior (4) and
in teacher-child relations (4) (5) (6). The dynamic quality of socially integra-
tive behavior is that it not only permits but encourages spontaneity, the
social participation of others.
Accepting another as he is, is noncoercive, nondominating, nondirective.
It is the technique of cutting the vicious circle of domination-resistance or of
frustration-aggression. "Accepting another as he is," is only a positive way
of talking about a child when he is not rejected as he is. It is just as feasible
for parents, teachers, husbands, wives to accept others more, as it is for them
to reject others less. An understanding of the way to cut the vicious circle is
already being demonstrated by numbers of parents, by teachers of special
rooms, as well as by psychotherapists.
The development of responsible behavior is a goal of psychotherapy
emphasized throughout by Allen, discussed at length by Rogers and, as I
612 ROLE OF THERAPIST

see it, entirely acceptable to Thorne. What is responsible behavior? How do

you know it when you see it? By what criteria is behavior to be tested for the
degree of responsibility? Obviously, responsible behavior, like everything
else that any therapist can possibly talk about, is found in degrees.
My car was parked in the last space at the corner of the block one day
when the streets were covered with ice. When I came back at the end of the
hour to get the car, a woman stepped up and said, "I beg your pardon, but
is this your car? I'm very sorry, but I made a big dent in your fender. I
thought the owner would be back in a few minutes, so I have just waited.
I put on the brakes and tried to stop but my car just slid sideways into your
fender." No one saw her skid into my car. She could have driven off had she
wanted. Is this responsible behavior? What makes this behavior responsible?
The test which shows this behavior to be responsible shows that it was high
in spontaneity and harmony. This woman was assuring the world that
within a certain framework of values or activities her spontaneous behavior
was going to be harmonious with the spontaneous behavior of others.
In the writings of Allen and Rogers, and in some of my own (2), the con-
cept of responsibility has been confused with a legal concept of liability.
Legal liability represents the efforts of social groups to define the framework
of harmony which will be expected of all spontaneous persons. Liability is
defined because some persons cannot be depended on to make their be-
havior harmonious within certain "reasonable" degrees. The woman who
dented my fender was both liable and responsible. The hit-and-run driver is
liable but not responsible. His behavior has a relatively high degree of spon-
taneity, but integration of his spontaneity with the spontaneous behavior of
others is at a very low level. You can compel liability, conformity, obedience,
but you cannot force, compel, or require responsibility. Liability is imposed
from without. Responsibility emerges only from within.
The important point for our discussion of therapy is that the child must
participate in defining what it takes to be harmonious. If he does not par-
ticipate, or, to the extent that he does not, he cannot be responsible. It is an
old army custom to deprive a subordinate of the right to participate; in
that way the superior gets his own ideas carried out. A buck private is not
responsible for the outcome of his act if he has done as he was told. For
the outcome he is not personally even liable within the framework of his
own organization. He is liable only for carrying out the orders. A child in
therapy is not responsible if the idea for action has to come first from the
therapist.
Responsible behavior must represent the spontaneous act of the person.
More than that, participation in making one's own spontaneous behavior
harmonious requires some level of competence. If the therapist can accept
the child as he is, the child will himself express or develop his own level of
 HAROLD H. ANDERSON 613

competence. If the therapist cannot wait, or if he requires some kind of ex-

ternally defined conformity, instead of an internally discovered harmony,
then the therapist arbitrarily places a higher value on conformity than on
the possibility of growth in the client.
It seems that the chief point of agreement between Allen, Rogers, and
Thorne is found in the criteria for responsible behavior. Responsible behavior
must have spontaneity plus harmony, the degree of harmony being limited
in part by the person's general intelligence and by any immediate distortions
of perception or judgment brought on by excessive fear.
Rogers says, "It will be evident that the approach of the nondirective
group applies to the overwhelming majority of clients who have the capacirv
to achieve reasonably adequate solutions for their problems. Counseling,
from this viewpoint, cannot be the only method for dealing with ... the
psychotic, the defective who have not the capacity to solve their own diffi-
culties, even with help. Neither does it apply to children or adults who are
faced with impossible demands from their environments" (p. 128).
Allen is less clear in defining his basis for selecting the cases which he ac-
cepts for psychotherapy. In his clinic "the child is accepted as having within
himself the potentiality for achieving a new inner balance as he is helped to
find value in a living relationshp" (p, 121). "A psychological test at the
Child Guidance Clinic showed that Ann actually possessed superior intelli-
gence" (p, 114). Except for this statement, one would scarcely know from
Allen's book that there was a psychologist at the clinic, though it is obvious
to the careful reader that most of the children must have been of normal or
superior in telligence.
When is one to use directive psychotherapy? This question is not different
from a parent's question: when should one require obedience? The answer to
the latter question is usually threefold: when the child's behavior is (1) a
hazard to the health or the safety of the child himself; (2) a hazard to the
health or safety of another; or (3) a source of gross or "unreasonable" incon-
venience to others. All three of these situations raise the question of the
child's competence to judge the meaning of his behavior for others. A parent
would not hesitate to keep a two-year-old off a busy street. Any parent
should realize that unless the problem becomes meaningful to the child, his
protection will require vigilance on the part of someone else.
In similar fashion, directive therapy necessitates a dependent relation. The
therapist who uses directive therapy must be constantly at hand to make
decisions for the new situations requiring choices that arise in the life of
the client. The boy who stood on the burning deck protested for three
stanzas, but not being psychologically free to act on his own judgment, he
went down with the ship. It probably happens all too frequently that with
the use of directive therapy both the therapist and the client are sunk.
614 ROLE OF THERAPIST

REFERENCES

1. ALLEN, FREDERICK H. Psychotherapy with Children. Norton, New York, 1942.

2. ANDERSON, HAROLD H. Children in the Family. D. Appleton-Century, New
York, 1937.
3. - - - . Studies in Dominative and Socially Integrative Behavior. Am. J. Ortho-
psychiatry, 15, 1, 1945.
4. - - - and HELEN M. BREWER. Studies oj Teachers' Classroom Personalities.
I: Dominative and Socially Integrative Behavior of Kindergarten Teachers. Stanford
University Press, California, Applied Psychology Monographs, July, 1945, No.6.
5. - - - and JOSEPH E. BREWER. Studies of Teachers' Classroom Personalities,
II: Effects of Teachers' Dominative and Integrative Contacts on Children's Classroom
Behavior. Ibid., June 1946, No. 8.
6. - - - , - - - , and MARY FRANCES REED. Studies of Teachers' Classroom
Personalities, III: Follow-up Studies of the Effects of Dominative and Integrative
Contacts on Children's Behavior. Ibid., August 1946, No. 11.
7. - - - and DOROTHY E. CLIFTON. Studies of Teachers' Classroom Personali-
ties, IV: Shorter Observational Procedures and Tentative Norms. Ibid. (accepted for
publication) .
8. ANDREWS, JEAN STEWART. Directive Psychotherapy: I. Reassurance. J. Clinical
Psychology, No.1, 1945, pp. 52-66.
9. DOLLARD, J., L. W. DOOB, N. E. MILLER, O. H. MOWRER, R. R. SEARS, et al.
Frustration and Aggression. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1939, pp. 209.
10. FOLLETT, M. P. Creative Experience. Longmans, Green, New York, 1924.
11. ROGERS, CARL R. Counseling and Psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin, New
York, 1942.
12. SNYDER, WILLIAM U. Dr. Thorne's Critique of Nondirectiae Psychotherapy.
J. Abnormal and Social Psychology, 40, 3, 1945, pp. 336-339.
13. STEINMETZ, HARRY C. Directive Psychotherapy: V. Measuring Psychological
Understanding. J. Clinical Psychology, 1, 4, 1945, pp. 331-335.
14. THORNE, FREDERICK C. A Critique of Nondirective Methods of Psychotherapy.
J. Abnormal and Social Psychology, 39, 4, 1944, pp. 459-470.
15. - - - . Directive Psychotherapy: II. The Theory of Self-Consistency. J. Clini-
cal Psychology, I, 2, 1945, pp. 155-162.
16. - - - . Directive Psychotherapy: III. The Psychology of Simple Maladjust-
ment. Ibid., I, 3,1945, pp. 228-240.
17. - - - . Directive Psychotherapy: IV. The Therapeutic Implications of the Case
History. Ibid., I, 4,1945, pp. 318-330.
18. - - - . Directive Psychotherapy: VI. The Technique of Psychological Pallia-
tion. Ibid., II, 1, 1946, pp. 68-79.
19. - - - . Directive Psychotherapy: VII. Imparting Psychological Information.
Ibid. (in press).
20. - - - . Directive Psychotherapy: VIII. The Psychology of Satiation. Ibid.
(in press).
21. WICKMAN, E. K. Children's Behavior and Teachers' Attitudes. The Common-
wealth Fund, New York, 1929.