Copyright © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

6.07
Experiential Treatments:
Humanistic, Client-centered, and
Gestalt Approaches
LARRY E. BEUTLER, KEVIN BOOKER, and STACEY PEERSON
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

6.07.1 INTRODUCTION 163

6.07.1.1 The Diversity of Experiential Therapies 165
6.07.1.1.1 Experiential theory as a method of study 165
6.07.1.1.2 Experiential theory as a set of assumptions 165
6.07.1.1.3 Experiential theories view the source of behavior 167
6.07.1.2 Chapter Overview 167
6.07.2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT 167
6.07.2.1 Existential Models: The Rise of Logotherapy 167
6.07.2.2 Phenomenological Approaches: The Rise of Client-centered Therapy 169
6.07.2.3 Humanistic Approaches: The Rise of Gestalt Therapy 172
6.07.3 CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS 173
6.07.3.1 Theoretical Developments and Applications 174
6.07.3.1.1 Existential theories 174
6.07.3.1.2 Phenomenological theories 175
6.07.3.2 Humanistic Theories 176
6.07.3.3 Research and the Status of Experiential Therapies 178
6.07.4 CONCLUSIONS 179
6.07.5 REFERENCES 180

6.07.1 INTRODUCTION even minor disagreements with former disciples

The theoretical development of psychother-
apy has not been smooth; theories have evolved
largely through conflict and revolution rather
than through an orderly progression of evidence
and discovery. From the beginning, Freud
demanded unswerving loyalty to his viewpoints,
an unrealistic expectation given that the topic of
discourse was, at that time, so poorly under-
stood, and that the concepts were so complex
and subjective. Freud's lack of sympathy
toward those whose perspectives came to
diverge from his own extended to a point that
resulted frequently in the development of
different ªschoolsº; old allegiances and friend-
ships were lost, and theoretical constructs
became rigidly reified by the vigorous defenses
erected against annihilation by their propo-
nents. This history of dispute and division left a
legacy of fragmentation in psychotherapy
theory; hundreds of schools of thought have
evolved with the very nature of evidence being in
hot dispute. As clients and prospective clients,
as well as practitioners and scientists, this is the
legacy that remains (Bergin & Garfield, 1994;
Freedheim, 1992).

163
164 Experiential Treatments: Humanistic, Client-centered, and Gestalt Approaches
In order to both capture the breadth of the
field and to bring some order to it, it is useful to
conceptualize the field as being composed of
various overlapping levels of specificity. At least
three such levels, systems, models, and theories,
are necessary to capture the color and diversity
of the field of psychotherapy.
Most theorists generally identify psychother-
apy as evolving from three major systems or
schools (Rice & Greenberg, 1992). Each of these
intellectual systems continue in somewhat
modified form from their initial beginnings
and in contemporary psychotherapy, are com-
posed of models and theories, all of which share
a common but distinctive view of what
motivates behavior. The first system in this
evolution is the collection of viewpoints that are
often referred to as ªpsychoanalyticº or ªpsy-
chodynamic.º This system is distinguished from
the other two by its reliance on the concept of
intrapsychic conflict as the basis of motivation
and change. It arose with the ideas of Freud in
the first two decades of the twentieth century,
and expanded through the contributions both of
Freud's (former) disciples and from the applica-
tion of his ideas to the theories that are known as
ego-psychology, self-psychology, and object
relations.
The second system in the evolution of
psychotherapy came to prominence in the
1940s and 1950s. The behavioral school re-
placed the concept of intrapsychic conflict with
ªReinforcementº as the basic motivating force
of behavior. Conditioning, along with its
variants of learning by association and con-
sequences, became the primary explanatory
construct.
Experiential schools, the ªthird forceº in
psychotherapy (Rice & Greenberg, 1992), in
contrast to the first two, view motivation as an
inherent struggle for integration and growth.
Thus, rather than being either driven by base
instincts, that were inherently destructive and
negative, or by external consequences, that were
inherently neutral in social value, self-actualiza-
tion assumed a decidedly positive valence,
moving the individual toward increasingly
social and enhancing ends.
Within each of these three systems there are a
variety of more specific models that describe
how the general system or movement is
translated to the specific example of psy-
chotherapy. Each of these models share the
view of the larger group, the school, regarding
the basis of motivation, but differ in how they
think these motives are manifest in psycho-
pathology and how they are addressed in
psychotherapy. Specifically, for example, with-
in the larger movement of ªPsychoanalytic
Theory,º as has already been mentioned, there
are models based on ego-psychology, self-
psychology, and objects-relations theory. ªEx-
periential Theory,º likewise, is comprised of
existential, humanistic, and person-centered
models of psychotherapy; within the behavioral
school are radical behaviorism, social learning
theory, and cognitive models. Each of these
models poses a slightly different view of how
behavior is best changed and what aspects and
patterns of motives are likely to be manifest in
this process.
A third and more specific ordering of theory
identifies specific theories of psychotherapy.
These theories typically are identified by certain
strategies and techniques that distinguish them
from others, even within the same model and
system. Beck's theory of cognitive therapy is
different from that of Ellis, for example, though
they both are representative of a cognitive
model of psychotherapy.
Again, using the example of Experiential
Theory, within the model of existentialism,
Daseinsanalysis and Logotherapy represent
different, specific, theoretical contributions;
within the humanistic tradition, Gestalt
Therapy and Redecision Therapy may be
recognizable and distinct, and within a pheno-
menological model, client-centered and person-
centered therapies represent a line of evolution
within a single theory.
It bears mentioning that some believe that
two other systems or schools are sufficiently
distinct from their roots and are vying for status
as major, independent ªforcesº in psychother-
apy. Cognitive models of behavior are certainly
strong contenders for this status. Given that
they pose the same motivational system that
characterizes behavioral theories, however, it is
unlikely that they qualify as a distinctive, major
system of the order of psychoanalytic, beha-
vioral, and experiential theories. Similarly,
while integrative models are widespread and
influential, it is difficult to find a characteristic,
common, and distinguishing set of theoretical
assumptions. These issues will likely prevent
both cognitive and integrative models of
intervention from being elevated to the level
of a ªfourth forceº in psychotherapy.
The very presence of these emerging and
competing systems, however, and the many
variations of theory that they represent, testify
to the fragmentation of the field. Certainly, the
diversity of psychotherapeutic approaches is
substantially greater than might be judged if the
view were only at the level of the three broad
systems to which theorists often refer. Though it
seems that no one has taken the time to count
them, there are clearly more than 400 specific
theories and an indefinite number of intermedi-
ate level models representing these.
 Introduction
6.07.1.1 The Diversity of Experiential Therapies
ªExperiential Therapyº is a broad designa-
tion within which there is a rich array of
diversity. Humanistic, existential, and phenom-
enological models are well accepted as being
subdivisions of this general system. The identity
of the more specific theories that represent these
models, however, is less consistent. Some
theories are not easily classified within a single
model while others are blends of two or more.
Thus, some authors identify constructivist
approaches such as that of Kelly (1955) as an
experiential theory (e.g., Bugental & McBeath,
1995; Feshbach, Weiner, & Bohart, 1996), while
others identify it as a variant of behavioral or
psychodynamic schools (e.g., Mahoney, 1993).
The basis of this disparity is not obvious. While
this variability suggests that there is a lack of
reliability in assigning at least some theories of
psychotherapy to general models or schools, it
also illustrates the cross-theory blending that is
a part of the experiential movement itself.
Culturally, experiential philosophies are in-
grained deeply in the values of hard work and
sacrifice, the values of the industrial and
Protestant revolutions. The evolution of these
theories was forever colored by the experiences
of holocaust survivors and others who suffered
the ravages of war and prolonged catastrophe
(e.g., Frankl, 1961). While their theoretical
roots date to the European philosophers of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as a
domain of practice and service, experiential
therapies are largely a post-WWII development.
They represent the ªtransplanting of existential
thinking from their chiefly European intellec-
tual roots to a broader US audience of
nonmedical, unphilosophically sophisticated,
practicing counselors and therapistsº (Bugental
& McBeath, 1995, p. 112).
Rice and Greenberg (1992; modified from
Tageson, 1982) point out that the various
theoretical variations within experiential theory
share: (i) a reliance on phenomenology as a
method of study, (ii) an assumption that in-born
actualizing tendencies motivate behavioral de-
velopment and change, and (iii) a belief in
individual choice as the causal locus of behavior.
6.07.1.1.1 Experiential theory as a method of
study
The methods that are used by experiential
psychotherapists are phenomenological and
individualistic, contrasting with the objective,
external, and pluralistic methods of psycho-
analytic and behavioral models. It is assumed
that healing of the most complex problem will
occur naturally by acquiring a deep under-
165
standing of each individual's unique personal
experience of the world in which they live. An
assessment of either the truth or value of this
personal experience is not reliant on external
criteria, but on the person's own subjective
standard, their capacity to assess that standard
through a process of reflective awareness, and
the degree to which the resulting understanding
furthers the self-actualization of the individual.
Knowledge, as defined through the conven-
tional scientific standards of empirical observa-
tion and externally measured but collective
responses, is thought to be inadequate unless it
deepens an understanding of the unique
phenomenology of the person.
The assumption that ªTruthº is in the
patient's experience contrasts both with psycho-
analytic and behavioral views. These latter
views identify the therapist, rather than an
external body, as the nucleus of knowledge. In
psychoanalysis, for example, insight and knowl-
edge come from the therapist's or analyst's
interpretation, not from the patient, through the
mechanism of interpretation. Thus, it is the
analyst, not the analysand, who defines the
veracity and validity of experience. Likewise, in
behavioral models, the therapist is considered to
be the expert or authority whose critical
understanding of behavior serves as the guide
for developing a technical correction. From the
therapist, not the patient, come the suggestions
and guidance that are then further supported by
homework assignments from the therapist. In
both of these views, the value of evidence is
proportional to the degree to which the
therapist-observer can remain objectively dis-
tant from the observed, the patient.
In contrast, in existential/humanistic analy-
sis, information flows from patient to therapist,
rather than vice versa. The veracity of an
experience is defined, for the experiential-
humanist, by self-reflection and personal
authenticity. The process of exploring and
identifying the nature and content of self-
appraisal is not controlled by the therapist; it
is only facilitated and allowed to expand by a
permissive clinician. It is this self-initiated
growth that is the basis of healing.
6.07.1.1.2 Experiential theory as a set of
assumptions
Beutler, Bongar, and Shurkin (in press)
emphasize that three assumptions both distin-
guish experiential therapy from psychoanalytic
and behavior therapy and represent the bases
that bind the specific theories within the domain
of experiential models together. These binding
assumptions include the beliefs that: (i) there is
an innate process that directs emotional growth;
166 Experiential Treatments: Humanistic, Client-centered, and Gestalt Approaches
(ii) constraining this inborn tendency from its
normal process of unfolding produces distress
and psychopathology; and (iii) removal of these
constraints in a permissive environment releases
the healing process. Among the various models
and theories that constitute the experiential
school, however, the priority and nature of these
beliefs change.
Within the mainstream of the tradition, self-
actualization is the fundamental motivational
force. It is an innate process that moves the
organism to become increasingly complex,
balanced, and integrated. Thus, self-actualiza-
tion requires emotional and sensory as well as
cognitive input. Sensory and emotional experi-
ences are thought to be necessary in order to
insure the adaptive incorporation of new
cognitive information. As a person adapts,
accommodates, and incorporates new informa-
tion, they naturally become more differentiated
and complex, both intellectually and interper-
sonally. Cognition becomes differentiated,
emotions become more varied, and behavior
is increasingly discriminating.
Put in this way, self-actualization is not tied to
a particular set of social values. However, some
theories within the phenomenology and huma-
nistic traditions extend the definition to include
the view that this growth process includes a
movement toward greater productivity, self-
sufficiency, creativity, and social adaptability.
These definitions add a dimension of social
ªgoodnessº and tie the theory more closely to
democratic social systems.
The assumption that self-actualization is an
inherent drive, drawing one toward growth and
differentiation is probably less easily accepted
by existential theorists than it is by humanistic
and phenomenological theorists (Rice & Green-
berg, 1992). In existential models, self-actuali-
zation assumes a teleological definition in which
growth derives from a pull from individualized
goals and aspirations rather than from a force
that pushes one toward more abstract, societal
goals.
The second assumption underlying experien-
tial models identifies the basis for psychopathol-
ogy. This assumption points to social and
familial constraint and restriction of emotional
experience as a pathological force that con-
strains the natural process of growth and
differentiation. Beutler et al. (in press) observe
that most Western societies seek to restrain
intense emotions and discourage the develop-
ment and expression of emotions. Experiential
theorists argue that this social constraint
separates an individual from some of the
experience that is necessary for effective in-
formation processing. This emotional con-
straint is based on three beliefs that are
considered by experiential theorists to be
fallacious and mistaken: (i) cognitive knowledge
can be separated from its emotional concomi-
tants, (ii) destructive acts are the products of
intense emotions, and (iii) constraint of emo-
tions will protect the society from these
destructive acts.
Experiential theories assert that the very act
of trying to protect a society by restricting the
emotional experiences of its citizens has the
paradoxical effect of increasing, rather than
reducing, the likelihood of social discord and
violence. In this view, human problems are
caused, not by excessive expression, but by
restraining and fragmenting the normal and
necessary acts of thinking, feeling, sensing, and
intuiting. Emotional constraint during the
course of emotional development, in other
words, prevents incorporation of the very
information that promotes integration and
emotional growth.
Thus, rather than reducing the likelihood of
destructive acts, the efforts of society and
families to protect themselves from strong
emotions is thought to interrupt and fragment
the experiences that allow people to develop
social conscience and constraint. By becoming
separated from their feelings, individuals may
then engage in destructive behavior without
feeling and sensing the consequences of these
experiences. Both the benign failure to actualize
and grow from new experience and the
malignant social destructiveness of impulsive
behavior, therefore, are products of these
misdirected societal efforts.
The third assumption that characterizes the
experiential movement identifies the basis of
correcting the pathological effects of emotional
constraint. This assumption defines the nature
and objectives of psychotherapy. It assumes
that self-actualizing tendencies and powers that
have been aborted and fragmented can be
reactivated in a therapeutic environment that is
characterized by unconventional acceptance of
emotional experience. Such an environment is
thought to unencumber, allow, and encourage
the reconnection of emotions and their expres-
sion. Behaviors become reattached to their
emotional and sensory concomitants and con-
sequences. By reconnecting these components
of experience, self-actualization motives are
reactivated, and the normal processes of
growing is allowed to continue.
Experiential therapies provide an environ-
ment that is free from those arbitrary con-
straints that are imposed against emotion and
sensing by society and by families. The
psychotherapist endeavors to focus on, facil-
itate, sometimes even to create experiences that
will magnify emotional and sensory reactions so
 Historical Development
that it can penetrate defenses that have been
deadened by societal rules. The idea that human
emotional needs and drives are sources of
prosocial and proindividual behavior stands in
contrast both with the negative nature of
humankind espoused by the id psychology of
psychoanalysis and with the tabula rasa view of
personal development that characterizes most
modern reinforcement psychologies.
6.07.1.1.3 Experiential theories view the source
of behavior
Experiential philosophies view individuals as
having ultimate control in their own lives. They
are thought to be active, not only in selecting
their own behavior, but in constructing their
own realities. It is out of this human capacity to
make their own meanings of experience that
people construct goals and aspirations. It is also
on these meanings that people rely when faced
with oppression, physical restriction, and
intellectual constraint in order to survive even
the most atrocious of events.
The internal construction of meaning and
worth, in these eventualities, provides armor
against external, destructive forces. Self-deter-
minism, in other words, is the prevailing
principle of the experiential movement, and
applies as much to thoughts and feelings as it
does to behaviors.
Experiential models attempt to counter the
victim-based mentality that characterizes both
psychoanalytic and behavioral positions. These
latter systems assign people to a position of
being reactive either to instinctive urges, social
disruption, or reinforcements. Unlike these
alternative systems, experiential models assume
that people have a proactive posture. They
retain personal choice over their own percep-
tions and meanings. This choice is optimized
when using and integrating information from
the full range of sensory, perceptual, and
cognitive experience. Both psychoanalytic and
behavioral models are viewed as excluding
sensory and emotional experience and of
exaggerating the significance of societal stan-
dards, insight, and behavior.
6.07.1.2 Chapter Overview
In the rest of this chapter, attention will turn
to a variety of specific psychotherapy theories
that represent three models of behavior within
the experiential tradition: existential, phenom-
enological, and humanistic psychotherapies.
The discussion will be restricted largely to
post-WWII developments. Using representative
approaches of each of the models that comprise
167
the experiential school as examples, theories will
be traced from their post-WWII roots to their
status in the 1990s.
The theoretical approaches that have been
chosen to be representative of the development
of the experiential system include the person-
centered (or ªclient-centeredº) therapy of Carl
Rogers as an example of phenomenological
models; the Gestalt therapy of Fritz Perls as a
representative example of humanistic models;
and the Logotherapy of Victor Frankl as an
example of existential models. These early
theories will be traced through an evolution
that has produced a large array of contempor-
ary modifications, variations, and approaches.
An exhaustive description of the offspring and
research associated with the theories developed
by Rogers, Perls, and Frankl is not possible
within the framework of this chapter, but some
representative descriptions of the progeny of
each will be provided. The contemporary
Gestalt therapies of Greenberg and Daldrup
and their colleagues will be described; the
contemporary experiential therapies of Gendlin
and Mahrer and the contemporary existential
therapies of May, Maslow, and Bugental.
Following a description of the historical roots
of the three general theories, a more general
perspective of the experiential system will
describe developments in theory and practice,
with a review of the research.
6.07.2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
6.07.2.1 Existential Models: The Rise of
Logotherapy
Existential philosophy was transported to the
field of psychotherapy from Europe via the
immigration of victims of the holocaust follow-
ing WWII. This philosophy found voice in the
US through Frankl's (1963) Man's search for
meaning, a treatise on survival in the concen-
tration camps. Existential conceptualization of
the individual sought to qualify and validate the
experience of immediate existence, independent
of the theoretical projections about human
psychological functioning that were implicated
historically by other theories of psychotherapy.
Frankl observed that interpersonal aliena-
tion, related either to economic status or
political posturing, in conjunction with the
precarious stability of social (family) structures,
had the capacity to invoke debilitative anxiety.
Under a war-time period of constant life-threat,
existentialism congealed as a response that
restored the dignity of human life and resur-
rected the human spirit. Theories that explain
motivation by reference to homeostasis alone
were incapable of capturing the complexity of
168 Experiential Treatments: Humanistic, Client-centered, and Gestalt Approaches
the human struggle. To Frankl, therefore, it was
the act of striving for meaning that formed the
basis of motivation and the impetus for change.
Frankl was born in 1905 in Vienna, the seat of
Freud's psychoanalysis. He founded the Youth
Advisement Centers in 1928, in response to a
long-standing interest in emotional well-being,
shortly before completing the work for his M.D.
degree (1930). As a psychiatrist and neurologist,
he joined the faculty of the Department of
Neurology at the Rothschild Hospital in Vienna
in 1936 and rose to Department Head by 1942.
He published papers in prominent journals on
the topic of psychiatric and neurological
treatment of neurosis, beginning in 1939, and
became quite prominent in Vienna psychiatric
circles even before Hitler's 1939 invasion of
Poland (Patterson & Watkins, 1996).
Frankl was interned both in Auschwitz and
Dachau between the years of 1942 and 1945,
where he lost virtually all of his family to the gas
chambers. Man's search for meaning, which
reported his experiences there, was published in
Vienna shortly after the end of the war.
Subsequently he lectured widely in North
America, capturing the imagination both of
postwar Europe and of the American public. In
spite of his great influence on American
psychotherapy, Frankl never immigrated to
the United States. Following the war, he
assumed a full-time faculty position at the
University of Vienna where he rose to the rank
of Professor in 1955.
Frankl's experiences in Auschwitz and Da-
chau, and his intimate relationships with
despair, hopelessness, depression, and imminent
death, qualify him as an effective authority on
suffrage and the human condition. Frankl
found himself stripped to his naked existence
by the atrocities of the Nazis; his father, mother,
brother, and even his wife had been sent to the
gas ovens. With the exception of his sister,
Frankl lost his entire family to the Nazis. He
faced the question of how a person who had lost
virtually every possession, had every value
destroyed, who was hungry and suffering with
the constant thought of imminent extermina-
tion, could find life worth preserving.
Responsibility and meaning are the hallmarks
of Frankl's theoretical construct of ªbeing.º
These concepts speak directly to the condition of
the human sufferer who has made the concession
that they have nothing to lose except life, and
that life itself is irrelevant without value and
choice. Reflecting on his own senseless suffering
and misery, Frankl concluded that to live is to
suffer, and to survive is to find meaning in the
suffering. Frankl believed that each individual
was responsible for finding a purpose in life and
that each must accept the responsibility that is
prescribed by this meaning. Thus, Frankl
believed, with Nietzsche, that he who has a
ªwhyº to live can bear with almost any ªhow.º
ªBeingº to Frankl was trivariate, comprising
spirituality, freedom, and responsibility. Spiri-
tual awareness was cardinal in the process of
being, taking precedence over freedom and
responsibility, what he called the ªpsychophy-
sicum.º To reflect on one's self, to project
meaning on experience, and to relate with forces
that were bigger than one's self were the
products of spiritual awareness. Freedom was
second only to spirituality in the course of being.
Freedom was defined as the capacity to rise
above instincts, to reject or accept experience,
and to do or not to do. Thus, a person had the
freedom to pursue the objectives set by spiritual
awareness, and this freedom represented a
cardinal distinction between people and other
animals. Yet the motivation to achieve meaning
through spiritual consciousness and freedom
were not driving but pulling forces. That is, to
Frankl, freedom and striving for meaning were
achieved because they drew people to action,
not because it caused or compelled them to act.
In his own struggle, Frankl was forced to deal
with the conspiracy of the Nazis to force the
oppressed to give up on life as they saw all of
their familiar benchmarks, attachments, and
goals ripped away. He discovered that when life
is thus controlled, and external objects and
relationships are lost, some basic ªhuman
freedomsº remain; the God-given ability to
choose the meanings that one assigns to
experience and to choose the attitude one holds
in and about the extant conditions and
circumstances. It is this ultimate freedom to
choose attitudes that both informed Frankl's
experiences in the camps of Auschwitz and
Dachau and that continue to have the capacity
to guide modern people's resolution of the
existential dilemma.
The third factor in Frankl's conception of
being was responsibility. He came to believe that
spiritual awareness and choice were matters of
responsibility. One is responsible both to find
meaning in one's life and to act on that meaning.
Logotherapy (Frankl, 1961), therefore, placed
much emphasis on helping people assess the
implied responsibilities associated with the
meanings they gave to their lives, and to act
on their own behalf. This process of developing
meaning, claiming freedom, and taking on
responsibility, however, was changing con-
stantly with one's position and place in life.
The emphasis given by existential theory to the
ontological predisposition of the patient is the
most fundamental and salient marker for
human functioning, and is the lens through
which one is viewed.
 Historical Development
In Logotherapy, human problems are seen as
arising in the form of neurotic anxiety that
becomes attached either to the somatic, psy-
chologic, or spiritual aspects of one's life.
Frankl gave special attention to the spiritual
neuroses, those that arise from existential
concerns as opposed to those arising from
intrapsychic conflicts. Frankl had great faith in
and hope for the capacity of humans to rise
above these anxieties. His accounts of life as a
prisoner resonate with examples of tremendous
human resilience and surprising capacity, of the
common man or woman, to transcend the
spiritual emaciation and weakness that so often
is associated with human suffering.
Frankl bemoaned that spirituality, the ex-
perience which is so central to human experi-
ence, was ignored by Freud and his followers.
He believed that it was from the spiritual sense
of humankind that consciousness arose, and in a
corresponding fashion, Frankl identified not
only an instinctive unconscious, but a spiritual
one. By the process of uncovering the spiritual
unconscious, esthetic awareness, love, and life
values arose.
The will to live in the face of death, the will to
hope in the presence of hopelessness, and
ultimately the ªwill-to-meaningº in the presence
of meaninglessness were the basis for psy-
chotherapeutic applications of existentialism.
Thus, Frankl's goal in psychotherapy was to
help patients find meaning and responsibility in
life independent of their life's circumstance. In
an attempt to help ªgroundº his patients, he
would often ask, ªWhy do you not commit
suicide?º (Frankl, 1963). From their responses,
he would seek the emotional basis for their
existence.
True to the phenomenological assumption
that characterized all of the experiential system,
Frankl placed trust in the struggles of lost or
searching patients to find a meaning from which
to extract the basis for existential preservation;
personal elements and experiences with which
to illuminate the meaning in their lives. For
some, meaning may be found in love for family;
for others it may be in a relationship with a
church or organization. Whatever the scenario,
the intricate and delicate processes of a
therapeutic search for meaning involved in
the integration or weaving together of these
threads of broken lives into a supportive
pattern.
6.07.2.2 Phenomenological Approaches: The
Rise of Client-centered Therapy
Like existentialism, client-centered therapy
had its roots in religious tradition and practice.
169
However, whereas existentialism arose from
religious persecution and was supportive of
contemporary religious views, the Client-cen-
tered movement began as a reaction against the
attitudes and philosophies that characterized
much of American Protestantism.
Carl R. Rogers (1902±1987) was raised in a
close-knit, Methodist family that was com-
mitted to the Protestant traditions of work and
obedience. He struggled with the religious
dogmas of his family, most of which seemed
arbitrarily to dictate how he should feel and
what he should do. He viewed these dictates as
constraining both of his intellectual growth and
of his enjoyment, and found little comfort in the
admonition that they should be accepted on
faith alone. When, as an adolescent, his family
moved to a farm, Rogers became enthralled
with the science of agriculture. He devoured
articles and books describing agricultural
research and, deriving support from the dictums
of science, he began to question his family's
religious traditions. He found in science the
hope that abstract principles and assumptions
could be put to a test. He also found hope for an
escape from unbending religious doctrines.
Eventually, the development of a nondirective,
nondoctrinaire approach to helping people was
his escape from the rigid views of a conservative
ª(almost fundamentalist) Protestant Christian-
ityº (Rogers, 1959, p. 184).
The route to the development of client-
centered therapy passed through a number of
stages as Rogers grappled with how to reconcile
his scientific need for structure, his personal
needs for freedom, and the dogmatic and
controlling religion of his youth. Rogers
originally called his approach to psychotherapy
ªNon-directive,º a reflection of his de-emphasis
on therapist authority. Later, he adopted the
term ªClient-centeredº (Rogers, 1951) to place
the focus on the process rather than the
techniques. In later years, Rogers came to
prefer the term ªPerson-centeredº to reflect his
evolving interest in the application of his ideas
to environments beyond that of psychotherapy.
In adolescence, Rogers felt distant from the
family religion, a distance that was exacerbated
by the liberal views to which he was exposed at
the University of Wisconsin, where he grad-
uated with a B.A. degree in 1924. Still trying to
maintain a foothold in religion, upon entering
young adulthood, he sought out a liberal
Christian denomination and undertook studies
as a minister in the Union Theological Semin-
ary. He found there a religious environment that
gave him both the opportunity and the
encouragement to engage in free, philosophical
thought. This freedom of thought, however,
ultimately moved him even further from his
170 Experiential Treatments: Humanistic, Client-centered, and Gestalt Approaches
religious roots and he left the seminary after two
years in order to enter the graduate program in
clinical psychology at Columbia University's
Teacher's College.
Rogers graduated with an M.A. (in 1928) and
a Ph.D. (in 1931), but during these years his
break with formal religion became complete and
he began to seek other avenues for expressing his
humanistic values. Client-centered Therapy
may well have been his long-sought alternative
to religion in providing meaning and structure
in his life.
Rogers initially was encouraged to work with
children and families, probably because in these
prewar years this domain still offered the only
significant opportunity for a nonphysician to
offer treatment. In 1928, when he was nearing
the completion of his Ph.D. work, Rogers was
accepted as a Fellow at the Child Guidance
Center in Rochester, New York. Here, he was
exposed to a deeply ingrained Freudian view-
point. He found the rigidity of this viewpoint at
contrast to the free-thinking environment that
had first attracted him to Union Theological
Seminary, and reminiscent of the religion of his
youth. Like religion, he found the speculative
and nonempirical nature of Freudian methods
to be remarkably at odds with the statistical and
methodological rigor that characterized both
the agricultural science of his youth and the
curriculum at Teacher's College. Ultimately, he
rejected the rigidity of Freudian dogma as he
had rejected fundamental Methodism. In what
was a compromise between the contrasting
values that he held, at once favoring structure
and needing freedom, he adopted the structure
of the scientific method as a means of
demonstrating the value of his freedom-giving
psychotherapy procedures.
After completing a Ph.D. degree from
Columbia Teachers College, Rogers continued
as a staff member and Director of the Child
Study Center as it merged with the University of
Rochester. He spent nine years in this position,
ending his tenure there in 1940. During these
years, America was in heated debate about
entering the European war. Scant attention was
given to other social ills. Rogers found that his
interest in and work as a psychotherapist were
not given great value either by his academic
colleagues or by the courts and schools that
purported to rely on psychological services. Yet,
in the midst of an eclectic and supportive group
of colleagues in Rochester, he began to
formulate his ideas and to conduct experiments
on the effectiveness of his nondirective methods.
Rogers became familiar with the controver-
sial works of Otto Rank, and with that of
Rank's devotees at the Philadelphia Child Study
Center, and this work left its mark on Rogers.
On the one hand, he found these approaches to
be challenging because they forced him to search
for and to find the order that he suspected to
exist in clinical work. On the other hand, the
stranglehold that psychoanalytic views held on
clinical practice prevented his receiving the
encouragement and assistance he needed to
conduct research on his evolving theories. This
led him to seek an academic environment in
which he hoped to find more support for his
research interests.
Rogers took a position in the Department of
Psychology and at the University Counseling
Services at Ohio State University in 1940. His
hopes that his evolving theory and research
program were allied closely enough with
experimentally based views of behavior to earn
him support from colleagues in this environ-
ment proved to be frustrated. These were the
war years, a time when the concepts of personal
freedom were highly valued, but the encourage-
ment of constraint, control, and obedience were
also of signal concern. Devotion to personal
freedom, a concept that represented a national
mantra during that time, synergistically at-
tached itself to Rogers' own history of con-
straint and structure. The product was a unique
form of psychotherapy that valued freedom,
that saw an environment (including a therapy
environment) that reduced structure and
authoritative demands as the avenue for its
realization, and that, paradoxically, sought
evidence of its value through the structure
and rigor of the scientific method.
At Ohio State University, Rogers discovered
that his notions of the subjective were at odds
with the rigid laboratory science of psychology
that held sway in academia, however. It was
through this experience that Rogers became
convinced that his theoretical perspectives,
indeed, represented a new direction in psychol-
ogy. His ideas flowered while he was in Ohio,
but the fruit emerged later, while he was at the
University of Chicago (1945±1957).
WWII opened the door for psychologists to
provide services to adults. The needs, both for
mental health treatment and for vocational
guidance, that were exacerbated as veterans re-
entered society at the end of the war, became the
means for counseling and clinical psychology to
separate from school and child psychology, and
to enter the world of adult mental health.
Correspondingly, Rogers found his niche at the
University of Chicago Counseling Center,
where he served as the Executive Secretary
and Director and enjoyed the richness of
working with individuals of varied back-
grounds. He taught students of psychology,
theology, education, human development, and
sociology, and carried on a practice that
 Historical Development
included work with veterans, families, and
young adults. His teaching was supplemented
by the responsibilities and excitement of a
patient/client load that consumed 15±20 hours
per week. It was during these years that client-
centered Therapy caught the imagination of the
field and became firmly established within
clinical and counseling psychology.
In 1957 Rogers returned to his alma mater,
the University of Wisconsin, where he was to
serve on the faculties of both psychology and
psychiatry. His research continued to earn wide-
spread recognition there. His ideas caught on
and widely dispersed research groups began
developing and refining his ideas. Research on
therapist-offered conditions promised both to
establish psychotherapy's empirical base and
provide a bridge across various theoretical
points of view.
In 1962, Rogers became a Fellow at the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral
Sciences at Stanford, California. By this time,
his interests in applying the client-centered
approach to group therapy were well en-
trenched and his ideas were expanding to
include community relations, education, and
other nontherapy environments. To foster these
ªperson-centeredº ideas, following his year at
Stanford, Rogers became a Resident Fellow at
the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in La
Jolla, California. He went on to found and
direct the Center for the Studies of the Person
there, and remained in that position, as
Founding Fellow and Resident Fellow, until
his death in 1987 (Patterson & Watkins, 1996).
As might be guessed from his history, Rogers
was preoccupied with establishing the science
and the practice of psychology as an integrated
discipline. Writing in 1959, he summarized the
relationship between science and practice in
very contemporary terms. He asserted that
while research and theory share the common
goal of bringing order to experience, their
methods frequently are incompatible. However,
he maintained that scientific knowledge can
come from clinical observations as well as
through controlled research; in fact, naturalistic
observation is frequently the first step in
empirical research. He considered traditional
controlled research paradigms as being too
simplistic to understand the complex variables
that affect human growth in psychotherapy.
Rogers observed that a progressive and helpful
science capitalizes on serendipity and chance; it
captures in unexpected moments kernels of
truth that cannot be preordered on demand
within the laboratory.
Finally, he urged that the book should never
be closed on any theory. Since every theory
contains an unknown element of error, no
171
theory is ever completely valid or invalid. The
role of research is to see beyond the dogma of
theory and search for the nuclear truths that
were germane to and common among all
theories and that transcend the clinic, the
laboratory, and even the discipline of study.
While phenomenological understanding was
necessary on the personal, therapeutic level,
understanding the nature of this phenomeno-
logical truth would require the objectivity of
science. The structure of science provided the
best available protection against self-deception.
The structure of personality and the nature of
adaptation outlined by client-centered therapy
is found in the concept of the ªselfº (Rogers,
1951; 1961). The emergence of Self as a viable
explanatory concept provided a base from
which the therapist could justify a personal
identity in therapy and could directly encourage
and foster personal choice on the part of
patients and clients.
In its focus on choice and freedom, client-
centered therapy revealed its roots, not to be in
existential crises, but in a reaction against
controlling and oppressive religions that threa-
tened moral choice and self-governance. Unlike
Frankl, to Rogers the threat was not to physical
existence and humanness, but to mental and
moral autonomy. The correction was not to
move closer to the mysteries of spiritualism and
subjectivity, but further away, clearly reflecting
the different religious experiences of the two
authors. While Frankl found solace in religious
philosophy, Rogers found it constricting. But
client-centered therapy, no less than the whole
of existential approaches, offered both a
positive view of growth and hope for freedom
from mental domination. Client-centered ther-
apy added psychotherapy research methodolo-
gies to the other important and respected
methods used by other humanists to understand
the processes of change.
The essence of client-centered therapy was
summarized in Rogers (1993/1997) classic
paper, ªThe necessary and sufficient conditions
of therapeutic personality change.º Though
subsequently criticized for assuming an all-
important position as both necessary and
sufficient (Lambert, 1991), variations of these
qualities have been adopted by most therapeutic
approaches as, at least, ªhighly desirable.º The
conditions emphasized the importance of an
emotionally congruent therapist who is able to
convey empathic understanding and positive
regard.
While frequently interpreted as being a
philosophy only about therapist qualities, in
truth, Rogers offered, in these principles, a view
that included the patient variables and percep-
tions in creating necessary conditions for
172 Experiential Treatments: Humanistic, Client-centered, and Gestalt Approaches
change. Specifically, he identified patient dis-
tress or incongruence as a motivational con-
struct. This anxiety complemented the natural
growth processes by providing the impetus to
work and to engage the therapist.
There were other patient qualities hidden in
Rogers' treatise as well. For example, he
asserted that the patient must perceive the
therapist's empathic understanding and regard,
implying that a degree of interpersonal facility
and competence, as well as a capacity for
realistic interpersonal appraisal, are necessary
for effective work. In later explanations, it
became clear that Rogers was not suggesting
that this therapy would be ineffective with those
who lacked these skills, but that all individuals
had the capacity for the level and type of
sensitivity that would allow them to benefit
from a therapeutic environment. In his later
book, On becoming a person, Rogers (1961)
revealed his ties to existentialism and humanism
as a method of understanding, as a set of
assumptions about the nature of human
problems, and as a philosophy about the causal
locus of change (Rice & Greenberg, 1992).
The famous Rogers±Skinner debates (Kir-
shenbaum & Henderson, 1989) highlighted
Rogers' beliefs in personal choice and empha-
sized the value he placed on the patient's
responsibility for their own change experiences.
While considering the locus of change to be
within the person, he asserted that free choice
could only be expressed when certain environ-
mental events and conditions are present. The
therapeutic environment was designed to con-
sist of those contextual conditions. The ther-
apist's sensitive support and the client's
willingness to explore work synergistically to
foster the conditions for growth.
6.07.2.3 Humanistic Approaches: The Rise of
Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt psychotherapy took root as a
counter-response to the negativism of psycho-
analysis. It was a logical extension of the
movement toward personal direction and free-
dom that characterized Logotherapy and client-
centered therapy. It did so, however, without
relying on the abstract concepts of spirituality of
these former approaches. Although the emer-
gence of Gestalt therapy is generally thought to
have been in the postwar years of the 1940s, its
genesis actually was some 20 years earlier.
Friedrich (Fritz) Perls (1893±1970) was born
in Berlin (Patterson & Watkins, 1996). He
obtained an M.D. degree from the Frederich
Wilhelm University in 1920. Following his
medical training, Perls worked under the
direction of Professor Kurt Goldstein at the
Frankfurt Neurological Institute for Brain-
Damaged Soldiers. With the advent of WWII,
Perls took his family to South Africa and in
1935, he established the South African Institute
for Psychoanalysis. In 1946, he emmigrated to
the US having become disillusioned with the
arise of apartheid in South Africa.
By training, Perls was a psychoanalyst, but he
was heatedly dissatisfied with the dogma and
structure of psychoanalysis. He was also
influenced by the experimental work of Kohler,
Wertheimer, and Lewin, with whose work he
gained familiarity during his early years in
Germany. Other existential philosophers with
whose work he also became familiar also
eventually affected his work, but initially he
was too preoccupied with orthodox psycho-
analysis to assimilate their work (Perls, 1947).
Perhaps this is why he came to identify more
closely with psychology than with psychiatry.
Fritz Perls met Laura Posner in 1926 while she
was working on her Ph.D. in psychology. She
was to become his wife and cofounder of Gestalt
therapy. Laura Posner Perls' family was very
affluent and culturally enriched, while Fritz was
from a lower middle-class Jewish family. These
class distinctions were to influence their rela-
tionship for many years.
Laura Posner Perls was heavily influenced by
Martin Buber and Paul Tillich who were
prominent contemporary existentialists. Laura
and Fritz Perls worked closely together for
nearly 25 years until they separated in the 1950s.
Fritz Perls wrote his first book Ego, hunger and
aggression subtitled ªA Revision of Freud's
theory and Methodº in 1941 and 1942 while
serving as a captain in the South African
Medical Corps. Although it was not for many
years that the name and character of ªGestalt
therapyº was succinctly expressed, this first
book introduced many of the Gestalt concepts
which would later become central ideas in
Gestalt therapy.
During the years that Fritz and Laura Posner
Perls were together, Gestalt therapy was
developing and maturing, although the parti-
cular contributions of Laura Perls often are
obscured in the available writings. Although
Gestalt therapy was first introduced in the US
by Fritz and Laura Perls, it was not until Fritz
found a home at Esalen Institute at Big Sur,
California, in the 1970s that Gestalt therapy was
recognized nominally as an independent theory.
It was Fritz, not Laura, who came to be
recognized as the discoverer, the father, and
developer of Gestalt therapy. His estranged
wife, Laura Perls, was residing in New York
City, outside the mainstream of the human
potential movement which was beginning in
 Contemporary Developments
California. She published few papers, and her
contributions to the theory and methods of
Gestalt work were known only to a handful of
people (Corsini & Wedding, 1989).
Those familiar with the work of Laura, and
Fritz Perls note interesting differences in how
they implemented Gestalt therapy. One of the
most noted of these differences pertained to the
dimension of control and permissiveness that
they applied in treatment. Laura employed
procedures that were characterized by apparent
permissiveness, while Fritz's work emphasized
therapist authority and control (Hatcher &
Himmelstein, 1976).
The 1930s and 1940s were a dynamic time for
Fritz Perls. He was heavily influenced by a
number of prominent people including Wilheim
Reich, who was Perls' analyst in the 1930s,
Karen Horney, and Otto Rank. Horney was
said to have directed the young and rebellious
Perls to a very eccentric and rebellious Reich.
Most notable in his influence was Reich, who
introduced Perls to a theory of psychosomatic
medicine that considered physical movement
and symptoms as the body's armor against
threat (Perls, 1947). The body work and
physical techniques of Gestalt therapy was a
product of this earlier association.
However, it was Freud's theory of psycho-
analysis that provided Perls with a theoretical
framework for all of his future thinking; despite
their differences, psychoanalytic theory was the
major foundation upon which Perls built his
understanding of human behavior, and it was
psychoanalytic theory that he used as a
standard against which to evaluate his own
emerging theory. In Fritz Perls' autobiography,
In and out of the garbage pail (Perls, 1969), he
makes the following comment on Freud, ªRest
in peace, Freud, you stubborn saint-devil-
genius,º reflecting his own ambivalent attitude
toward both Freud and psychoanalysis.
Gestalt therapy differs from other systems
and models in a number of important ways. For
example, Perls accepted psychoanalysis as a
general theory from which his own view derived.
However, he chose to omit certain aspects of
Freud's theory from his own view, such as
psychosexuality, the tripartite anatomy of the
personality (id, ego, and superego), and the
nature of the unconscious. As applied to
technique, these omissions led Perls to empha-
size how rather than why, and explored
experience within the ªhere and the nowº rather
than the ªthere and then.º
Another difference is in the value assigned to
various bodies of scientific research. Gestalt
therapy draws from a broader scientific litera-
ture than most systems of psychotherapy. It
placed greatest value on research that describes
173
the nature of perception and information
processing, as well as from literature on defense
and psychopathology. At the same time,
traditionally it has eschewed psychotherapy
outcome research. This priority of values
contrasts with client-centered therapy, for
example, that has always valued outcome
research, but has given little acknowledgment
to research on psychopathology and personality
development.
Still another distinguishing aspect of Gestalt
therapy is its adoption of a holistic view of
behavior. It regards individuals as being
inherently integrated; their behavior reflects
an integrated system whose collective activity
cannot be understood by simply viewing
isolated acts or structures. This humanistic
view is borrowed from Rank, whose concept of
the ªtotal organismº contrasts with the psycho-
analytic view that separated mind and body and
divided the psyche into discrete elements, for
example, id, ego, superego, that engaged in a
struggle for power over one another. Instead,
Gestalt theory asserts that people struggle and
experience conflict because of the difficulty of
incorporating new information into perceptions
based on old knowledge.
Finally, Gestalt therapy defined self-actuali-
zation in a manner that contrasted with other
experiential approaches. Self-actualization was
reflected in balance, differentiation, and inte-
gration of cognitive, sensory, and emotional
systems, rather than a motive toward social
goodness. The ability of conceptual systems to
communicate was manifest in the concept of
self-response-ability, that is, the ability to
choose to be active and to overcome apathy.
Rather than encouraging social compliance, as
might psychoanalytic therapy, Gestalt therapy
encourages social rebellion and individualism.
6.07.3 CONTEMPORARY
DEVELOPMENTS
This section will summarize some of the most
significant developments and extensions of
existential, humanistic, and phenomenological
traditions. Both in the interest of space and
because time has resulted in an inevitable
blurring of theoretical boundaries, no attempt
will be made to maintain clear distinctions
among these models. Existential theories have
become more phenomenological and humanis-
tic ones have become more existential. While
some of the more visible theorists within these
different systems will be mentioned no attempt
will be made to be inclusive or exhaustive and
detailed consideration to the fine distinctions
among their points of view will not be given.
174 Experiential Treatments: Humanistic, Client-centered, and Gestalt Approaches
This will allow a summary of the more
important findings from the research.
6.07.3.1 Theoretical Developments and
Applications
6.07.3.1.1 Existential theories
Experiential theories have continued to
expand, but probably at a lower rate than in
their heyday of the 1970s. Theories have become
more integrative of phenomonological, huma-
nistic, and existential perspectives, and have
been applied to an increasing array of problems,
formats, and environments.
Because they did not arise from a single
strand of philosophy, it is difficult to find a
coherent direction of development that has
characterized the evolution of existential ther-
apy. Several major authors, both European and
American (e.g., Boss, Binswanger, Bugental,
May, Maslow, Yalom), have offered contrast-
ing directions. The works of May, Bugental, and
Maslow have been particularly forward-looking
and serve as a representative view of the field.
Rollo May, a psychoanalyst by training and
practice, probably is most responsible for
introducing existential therapy to the United
States (Rice & Greenberg, 1992). Along with
Irvin Yalom, one of his major contributions
(May & Yalom, 1984) was the blending of
existential and phenomenological viewpoints.
Adopting the phenomenological view, he be-
lieved that the personal experience of an
individual person was the most important
vehicle to knowledge and understanding, and
emphasized that a person could be understood
through their own experiences more adequately
than through a therapist's theory about people
(May, 1961; May & Yalom, 1984). Likewise,
May thought that access to a patient's motiva-
tion for change was best obtained through an
exploration of the meanings, ideals, and goals
that directed their life.
May's perspective began with a fascination
with anxiety and its meaning. This topic served
as the basis for his doctoral dissertation in 1950
as well as for a major book, The meaning of
anxiety (May, 1977) that was revised and
reprinted several times. He saw anxiety, defense,
and abortion of developmental progress as the
inevitable products of conflict between goals
and aspirations and the demands and con-
straints of reality. However, in a viewpoint that
was reminiscent of Rogers and others, he
maintained that anxiety was growth enhancing.
Pushing this point further, May launched an
insightful and provocative attack against psy-
chotherapy theory. He noted that psychothera-
pists, in the interest of effecting good therapy,
observe and attribute meanings to patterns or
mechanisms of behavior, using language and
concepts that are constructed by their theore-
tical orientation. He pointed out that both the
experience of and resolution of anxiety was
often aborted by therapists and other observers
when they construed the patient's experience in
ways that forced it into line with their own
conceptual frameworks.
The tendency of therapists to filter percep-
tions of the patient through a rigid lens of
theoretical views clouded their ability to
accurately perceive and relate to the patient.
More importantly, it frustrated the objective of
bringing the patient into contact with the
anxiety, preventing self-knowledge and resolu-
tion. He pointed out that a rigid or dogmatic
theory prevented the therapist from adopting a
phenomonological perspective. The therapists'
task is to separate themselves sufficiently from
their own histories and dispositions to accu-
rately perceive the meanings offered by a
patient's own developmental history.
Perhaps May's major contribution was his
piercing questions of fellow therapists. He
provocatively asserted the possibility that what
therapists view as an understanding of the
patient is, in reality, a projection of their own
self-reinforcing theory.
The foregoing is not to diminish May's
contributions to experiential theory. May's
vision was to understand how people become
aware of their own growth and potential, that is
one's ªbeingnessº (May, Angel, & Ellenberger,
1958). It is this phenomenon of becoming aware
of one's beingness that characterizes May's
most frequently noted contribution to theory,
the ªI-Amº experience.
The definition of the ªI-Amº includes the
perception of what is real, but adds an
awareness of some emerging or existent poten-
tial. Thus, a person exists in the present but with
the potential to become (May, 1961). This
dynamic aspect of self experience is central to
the capacity to change; it is a precondition for
their solution (May et al., 1958). The success of
this solution, however, depends upon a therapist
being able to help clients recognize and
experience their own existence.
May's ªI-Amº experience was so ontologi-
cally sound that it resonated through much of
the existential movement. The value of his
teachings seemed to help organize and guide the
search for what Bugental (1976) calls the ªlost
sense of being.º May's ªI-Amº experience was
incorporated by Bugental into what he called
the ªexistential sense.º Like May, Bugental
identified existing or being alive as the funda-
mental concern of each human being.
Bugental, however, emphasizes that the
striving for existence supersedes the mere act
 Contemporary Developments
of being alive. It is a motivator that drives a
person to become more vibrant and sensitive to
life. This quest for more life was inextricably
related to what he called the tragedy of the
human condition, the inability both to recog-
nize and seize opportunities for fuller living.
Bugental's concept of the ªlost beingº is a
person who was invisibly crippled, blind, and
deaf to their own state of needing (Bugental,
1976, 1987). This blindness to one's own state of
emotional impairment represented a loss of the
inward vision that made it possible to assess
how well outer and inner experiences match.
Abraham Maslow was another major figure
in blending existential and humanistic theory.
His most noted contribution was his assertion of
a jurisdiction for psychology which dealt
explicitly with issues of growth, motivation,
and creativeness (Maslow, 1968). His hierarchy
of needs expressed his motivational theory and
replaced the unimotivational concept of self-
actualization, embodied in experiential theory,
with a conception that arranged this drive
within an array of more basic motives. The
ultimate questions of, ªWho am I?º and ªWhat
am I?º according to Maslow could only be
answered by the individual asking the questions
and proceeding through the hierarchically ar-
ranged answers.
Another contribution of Maslow's was his
conceptualization of inner awareness as a
process of ªlistening to the impulse voicesº
(Maslow, 1971). He proposed that failures in
personal growth, such as neuroses, were con-
ditions in which these ªimpulse voicesº or
ªinner signalº became weak or disappeared
altogether. With the inability to hear these
signals, the person was incapacitated and
became detached from their own essence.
Maslow envisioned the result of detachment
to resemble a zombie, the experientially empty
person, rather than an anxious person as
proposed by others. Anxiety represented a
level of being aware of disconnection, but
complete disconnection included a lack of
awareness of this disconnection. Maslow
viewed the disconnected person as one who
was empty, and believed that recovering the self
must include the recovery of the ability to have
and recognize these inner signals (Bugental,
1987).
One major implication of this theory was in
the nature of obsessive and compulsive beha-
viors. The experientially empty person, lacking
direction from within, turned to outer cues for
guidance and reassurance of existence. This
person relied on external cues, such as clocks,
rules, calendars, schedules, agenda, and other
people as a substitute for personal resources
(Maslow, 1971).
175
6.07.3.1.2 Phenomenological theories
The persuasive power of Rogers' ideas,
bolstered by ample research support (see
Beutler, Machado, & Neufeldt, 1994; Orlinsky,
Grawe, & Parks, 1994), ensured that the
concepts of therapy process (therapist empathy,
acceptance, regard, and congruence) have been
absorbed into the body of psychotherapy.
Virtually all schools of psychotherapy find
common ground in the views that a helpful
therapist is kind, respectful, caring, and under-
standing, the essence of the Rogerian ªneces-
saryº conditions. The differences between the
views of these therapist contributions and
Rogers' earlier views are twofold: (i) these
factors are considered to be minimal rather than
optimal conditions for change, and (ii) none are
considered to be necessary or sufficient of
themselves. While there are a few ªpureº client-
centered theorists remaining, most within this
tradition have accepted these modifications to
Rogers' original tenets.
Out of this perspective, the translation of
Rogers' views over time are best embodied in
extensions of his work to the broader domain of
experiential therapy. The most prominent of
these are represented by the writings of Laura
Rice, Eugene Gendlin, and Alvin Mahrer. These
authors have added several specific procedures
and philosophies to the general framework of
client-centered therapy. The major contribu-
tions of each of these writers, however, has been
more often remembered for the technical
procedures introduced than in the philosophical
truths that they have added to understanding
(Hart & Tomlinson, 1970; Wexler & Rice,
1974). Indeed, they all represent an emerging
view that the therapist-offered conditions (em-
pathy, warmth, positive regard, and congru-
ence) are insufficient to assure change. Thus,
they offer the beginnings of a technology to
encourage and even to direct change (Rice &
Greenberg, 1992).
By the mid-1970s, client-centered therapy
had become widely used as both a group and an
individual therapy. It was also becoming more
cognitive. Information-processing theory was
popular and there was a concerted effort to
integrate these views with the workings of
client-centered therapy (Patterson & Watkins,
1996). Laura Rice proved to be one of the
leaders in this movement. She formulated the
therapist's role as an assistant to the patient;
together patient and therapist embarked on a
process of learning to symbolize experience.
Rogers had discussed at length the idea that one
of the goals of psychotherapy was for patients
to begin to symbolize experience that was
outside of their awareness. Symbolization
176 Experiential Treatments: Humanistic, Client-centered, and Gestalt Approaches
represents the process of bringing information
into focus and consciousness by giving it mental
representation. This occurred largely, though
not exclusively, through words.
Rice (1974) proposed that symbolization was
necessary in order to accurately process new
information and suggested that this process
could be facilitated by ªEvocative Reflection.º
This technique involved efforts to reactivate
emotional experiences by drawing the client's
attention to key experiences. Then the client was
asked systematically to process or talk through
the experience in a heightened state of arousal.
The emotional information was thought to be
more easily recoded and integrated by main-
taining a heightened state of arousal and this
was, in turn, enhanced by emotion-focused
reflections and focus.
Gendlin (1981) took the concept of focus a
further step, increasing the attention given to
client-centered therapy's affect on sensory
experiencing. Gendlin's method of focusing
(Gendlin, 1981) included the use of nonverbal
exercises, such as directed imagery and magni-
fication of multisensory systems, designed to
heighten awareness of sensory cues that signaled
the presence of emotional experience.
Gendlin (1969) defined focusing as the
process in which people make contact with a
special kind of bodily awareness known as the
ªfelt sense.º This felt sense was neither an
emotion nor an intellectual emotional derivative
(cognition). Rather, it was a bodily sense or
intelligence by which the body directs the person
to answers for personal problems. Moving
through the six stages of focusing, emotional
and cognitive awareness were thought to emerge
as by-products (Gendlin, 1969). While Rice's
conceptualizations moved client-centered ther-
apy ever closer to cognitive conceptualization,
Gendlin's moved it closer to existential and
Gestalt perspectives.
Mahrer (1983, 1986, 1996) furthered this
movement of client-centered therapy toward
humanistic models, increasing its resemblence
to Gestalt therapy. In Mahrer's Experiential
therapy, the therapist and client both develop
images, the therapist's being an effort to
replicate that of the patient. Laying side by
side, the patient's experience is recreated in the
therapist's imagery and both attempt to focus
and move closer to the source of intense sensory
and emotional experience. Mahrer (1989) has
attempted to manualize the key steps that a
therapist and patient make in effecting his
ªExperiential Therapy,º making this approach
both more researchable and more easily applied
than conventional applications.
The steps of Mahrer's Experiential/Huma-
nistic therapy are constructed to provide an
increasingly intense therapeutic experience
(Mahrer, 1983). In this process, cognition and
emotions are salient to the extent that they occur
within this genre of client experiencing.
Thoughts and feelings of the client are both
accompanied and facilitated by focusing atten-
tion on bodily sensations. The key to unlocking
the power of the therapy resides in the client's
ability to allow these physical experiences to
occur and to then give them meaning. In this
process, feelings such as fear, anger, anxiety,
excitement, gloom, as well as various cognitive
postures such as confusion are identified as
signals of the client's experience. Associations
with these signals are then used to provide a
landscape of meaning to the experiences.
6.07.3.2 Humanistic Theories
Integration has characterized the develop-
ment of humanistic models of psychotherapy. It
is no longer easy to identify a psychotherapy
that is only humanistic. The infusion and cross-
fertilization of cognitive therapy, experiential/
humanistic therapy, and client-centered ther-
apy, with traditional Gestalt therapy, for
example, have produced a rich array of
interventions and novel directions to the
conceptualization and application of psy-
chotherapy. When cross-bred with the active
orientation of Gestalt therapy, the experiential
approaches of Gendlin and Mahrer have
emphasized phenomenological interventions
within a provocative and therapist-guided
medium. Some developments have highlighted
the bridging of cognitive and experiential
theories while others have highlighted differ-
ences between two somewhat different strands
of experiential therapy, the nondirective,
person-centered approach of Rogers and the
process-directive Gestalt approach (Greenberg,
Elliott, & Lietaer, 1994).
Drawing on classical client-centered theory,
the person-centered approach regards the
ªrelationshipº as necessary and sufficient for
therapeutic change; humanistic experiential
approaches advocate the importance of an
active, process-directive intervention and cog-
nitive therapies focus on the role of conceptual
structures in emotional dysfunction. The result
is a number of approaches that stress active
interventions that utilize emotional access to
facilitate a change of perspective and the power
of which is deepened within the context of a
person-centered relationship.
These evolving experiential/humanistic mod-
els of therapy are applied in an increasing
variety of formats. While most often used in an
individual format (Greenberg et al., 1994),
 Contemporary Developments
group therapy formats are practiced widely
(Daldrup, Beutler, Greenberg, & Engle 1988),
and there are guidelines for their application to
marital/couples therapy (Greenberg & Johnson,
1988).
Focused Expressive Psychotherapy (FEP) is
an integrated experiential method for resolving
blocked affect that is based on Gestalt therapy
concepts. FEP works with a full range of
inhibited emotions such as anger, fear, joy, and
sadness with a particular emphasis on the range
of emotions that surround the blocked expres-
sion of anger (Daldrup et al., 1988). FEP, first
attempts to access the client's schematic
memory by directing attention to potential
relationships in which these memories devel-
oped. That is, the client is directed to painful
memories involving interactions with parents,
spouses, children, and other significant mem-
bers. Therapy is then designed to heighten the
intensity and expression of emotion associated
with the memories so that new schematic
structures can be realized (Engle, Beutler &
Daldrup, 1991).
Although FEP attends to a full range of
emotions which may be blocked or inhibited in
an individual, particular attention is given to the
emotion of anger. FEP assumes a five-step
process that identifies emotions, specifies tar-
gets, determines markers of their presence,
implements experiments in change, and evalu-
ates progress. The patient is actively engaged in
all of these processes, but the therapist is
responsible for leading them through the
processes. The experiments are designed to
facilitate full awareness of the emotion itself as
well as its implications and genesis.
FEP assumes that there are no ªgoodº or
ªbadº emotions, per force, but rather that
emotions exist in all human beings. Why an
individual chooses to react in a dysfunctional or
enhancing way to a stressful event is reliant on
how accessible they are to emotional and
sensory experience and the internalized rules
that govern their behavior. The influence of
early experiences in childhood cannot be over-
looked in the formation of emotional develop-
ment and the way in which an individual will
react in emotionally laden situations. If a child is
unable to complete an emotional cycle, then the
expression of this emotion (most notably,
anger) will become frozen and part of the
individual's ªunfinished business.º
In contrast to most forms of psychotherapy,
FEP was designed to exert specific effects for
individuals who tend to constrain and inhibit
emotional expression, regardless of the specific
symptoms manifest. Individuals who can iden-
tify the hurtful relationships and experiences
that may have caused the inhibition of emotion
177
and who can identify past and present relation-
ships in which they are unable to express
important desires are considered to be good
candidates for this type of therapy.
Process-experiential therapy (Greenberg,
1994) represents a similar model to FEP, but
places more emphasis on the integration of
broadly-based nondirective (client-centered)
relationship strategies with Gestalt therapy
methods, and less emphasis on the role of
enduring patient traits. In this approach, there is
also an effort to integrate the interventions
within a theory of cognitive±emotion relation-
ships. This theory blends cognitive and experi-
ential theory (Greenberg & Safran, 1987). It
assumes that the barriers to healthy functioning
result from (i) difficulties in finding words or
images to symbolize experiences, and (ii)
dysfunctional emotional schemes through
which to interpret experiences. Accordingly,
the goal of therapy is to enable client's to access
dysfunctional schemas within a therapeutic
environment in order to facilitate relevant
schematic change (Greenberg et al., 1993).
In process-experiential therapy, the client and
therapist interact on two different levels. The
first level concerns the moment-by-moment
effects that each of the therapist responses has
following a client response. Accurate and
empathetic understanding of the client's words
and messages provide the client with a feeling of
being understood and received by the therapist.
It is anticipated that these therapeutic responses
will allow the client to initiate work on
increasingly more difficult and painful issues.
The second level on which the client and
therapist interact is viewed as more ªmolarº
than the first. In this level, the therapist attempts
to enable the client to resolve the larger affective
problems that present themselves as in-session
therapeutic tasks. This requires emotional
experiencing, which is facilitated by attending
to the emotions and senses in-the-moment,
under the assumption that so doing activates
emotional meanings that are then subject to
inspection and change.
Process-experiential therapy is considered to
be most appropriate for use among ambulatory
outpatients who are experiencing moderate
clinical distress and symptomatology. It is not
suited for clients with major thought disorder or
schizophrenia, impulse control or antisocial
personality patterns, or for those who may be in
need of immediate crisis intervention or case
management (e.g., acutely suicidal persons)
(Elliott & Greenberg, 1995). It is not recom-
mended for those who are unable to be self-
reflective and those who find the therapist's
nondirective stance of not advising or inter-
preting to be unacceptable.
178 Experiential Treatments: Humanistic, Client-centered, and Gestalt Approaches
6.07.3.3 Research and the Status of Experiential
Therapies
The suspicion with which experiential thera-
pies have traditionally regarded both diagnosis
and empirical research has given way to produce
an emerging body of scientific evidence. Led by
the efforts to blend Gestalt therapy with client-
centered and cognitive therapy, research has
included both naturalistic studies, randomized
clinical trials of patients in clearly defined
diagnostic groups, and meta-analyses of con-
tributors to efficacy. Findings from all of these
research areas have generally supported the
value of these approaches.
A prominent characteristic in the evolution of
this research is the increasing focus on differ-
entiating the client characteristics and problems
for which experiential treatments are likely to be
effective. Specific focus has been on clinical
disorders such as anxiety disorders, major
depression, and personality disorders. Some
research has looked at broader dimensions than
those identified by diagnosis, particularly
focusing on the differential response of patients
with different coping styles (internalizing and
externalizing), levels of resistance, and those
with physical symptoms.
Greenberg et al. (1994) summarized the
results of studies conducted since 1978, using
meta-analytic techniques. They compared pre-
to postchanges on symptom measures and,
where possible, compared treatment effect sizes
to those observed among patients who were
assigned to control or alternative treatments.
They found moderate to strong effect sizes for
experiential therapies, which compared favor-
ably both with those observed among other
therapies and demonstrated that these treat-
ments were more effective than no-treatment
and placebo-treatment groups.
Naturalistic and quasi-experimental studies
have been used both to assess the relative
efficacy of experiential therapy relative to
alternative treatments (e.g., Beutler & Mitchell,
1981) and to assess the contributors to effective
outcome within different types of psychother-
apy (e.g., Burgoon et al., 1993; Greenberg &
Foerster, 1996; Hill, Beutler, & Daldrup, 1989;
Watson, 1996). Findings from these studies
have suggested both that experiential therapies
may be at least as effective as alternative
treatments and that the level of arousal and
experiencing induced by experiential methods
facilitate the resolution of interpersonal conflict
and reduce emotional distress.
Randomized clinical trial research designs
have also incorporated various experiential
therapies among the treatment comparisons.
Especially promising results have been found in
the treatment of those with depression using
these controlled comparison procedures (e.g.,
Paivio & Greenberg, 1995). In a well-controlled
investigation, Watson and Greenberg (1996)
compared a Gestalt-based experiential therapy
with a client-centered intervention, observing
that while initial results were equivalent, long-
term effects favored the more active experiential
approach.
FEP (Beutler et al., 1987) has also been used
successfully in the treatment of individuals who
present with chronic organic pain. This domain
of study is based on the theoretical connection
between chronic pain and depression. Beutler,
et al. (1987) undertook the task of testing the
hypothesis that the intensity of pain correlates
with the degree to which a person has persistent
difficulty expressing anger and controlling
intense emotions (e.g., Beutler, Engle, Oro'-
Beutler, Daldrup, & Meredith, 1986). Using a
multiple baseline design with six patients who
had rheumatoid arthritis, Beutler et al. (1987)
found that FEP substantially activated beta-
endorphin discharge and correspondingly re-
duced depressive symptoms. This was particu-
larly true in the early and late phases of
treatment. However, the beta-endorphin re-
sponse was not correlated with alterations of
pain, suggesting that they functioned as stress
markers more than as anesthetics of pain.
The evidence that certain ªtypesº of patients
are particularly responsive to experiential
therapy has been the area in which the largest
body of research has accumulated. Identifying
clients by coping styles is another way of
identifying a ªtypeº of client who may benefit
from experiential therapy. Whether a client is an
externalizer vs. an internalizer may interact with
the type of treatment that the client will receive.
Beutler et al. (1991) found that those who coped
with internalizing styles may profit more than
externally-oriented clients in client-centered or
nondirective therapies than from either cogni-
tive therapy or Gestalt-based therapy (FEP).
This has also been supported in several other
studies that have used different approaches to
identify or measure internalization. For exam-
ple, Tscheulin (1990) reported that self-oriented
clients (internalizers) did better with a noncon-
frontational therapist than with a confronta-
tional therapist.
Several studies (see Greenberg et al., 1994)
have also concluded that high levels of client
resistance is a contraindicator to the direct-
iveness that is inherent in many experiential
treatments, particularly those based on Gestalt/
humanistic (e.g., FEP, process-experiential
therapy) models. Specifically, highly resistant
(high dominance, low submissiveness) patients
do better in client-centered or nondirective
 Conclusions
therapies (Beutler et al., 1991, 1993) than in
various directive, experiential therapies. In
contrast, clients with low levels of resistance
do better in these directive alternatives than they
do in nondirective ones (Beutler et al., 1991).
Although more research is needed on this
general theme, the findings suggest that clients
with good interpersonal interests and skills may
be the ones who are most receptive to
experiential therapies.
6.07.4 CONCLUSIONS
Experiential therapies comprise a heteroge-
neous collection of theoretically diverse inter-
ventions. They share certain assumptions about
the nature of existence, the most reliable avenue
to knowledge, and the mechanisms of symptom
development and change. Humanistic, existen-
tial, and phenomenological traditions have had
a long history within the fields of psychother-
apy. Existential views emphasize the impor-
tance of personal meaning and choice in
facilitating adaptation and survival in times
of crisis; phenomenological approaches have
emphasized the role of subjective experience,
safety, and therapist-offered conditions as the
avenues to understanding and change; and
humanistic models have emphasized the role of
active therapist interventions and the provision
of structure in facilitating change.
Though deriving from different traditions,
these models of behavior have merged over
time, both in their theoretical development and
in their methods of intervention. Central to
these emerging, amalgamated theories is a
common reliance on the concept of self as an
organizing principle of personality, and on self-
actualization as a foundation motivational
principle.
Experiential models of behavior have histori-
cally observed that the ªselfº has been defined in
Western cultures indirectly. Thus, one identifies
him or herself through either occupational role
(e.g., ªI am a bus driverº) or through some other
external attribute or possession (e.g., ªI am
richº). Experiential therapies pose the thesis
that such definitions relegate self-definitions to
the status of superficial attributes that can be
threatened or destroyed by external change. The
result is an identity that lacks stability and that
is changeable and uncertain. The resulting
construct of ªselfº comes to serve only the
most tenuous of functions, and in this process
projects a social image that is not authentic.
Such reliance on superficial structures provides
some limited protection from external threat
but does not provide protection from the most
basic of fears, the fear of nonexistence. Indeed,
179
its presence makes one vulnerable to related
fears of being irrelevant, ignored, and non-
essential when these defining roles and posses-
sions are no longer present.
Experiential therapies concentrate on rede-
fining self-views, a process that is generally
thought to be natural and orderly when
environments are conducive. Thus, the specific
therapy models that constitute the experiential
tradition all seek to remove obstructions to
these normal processes. By providing a permis-
sive atmosphere, they attempt to facilitate and
enhance normal movement toward differentia-
tion of self, foster creativity, and stabilize
personal identity. Specific theories of psy-
chotherapy vary in the degree of directiveness
exercised by the therapist (Perls vs. Rogers), in
the roles they assign to spiritual and teleological
drives (e.g., Frankl vs. Rogers), and to the
acknowledgment of other motives (e.g., Maslow
vs. Perls). However, they have in common
efforts to focus patient attention on the
moment, to encourage attendance to present
sensory and perceptual impressions, and to
expand therapist awareness of patient experi-
ence. While there is not now nor has there ever
been absolute concordance among experiential
models and therapists' theories, most have
embraced this foundation principle.
Modern developments of experiential thera-
pies have blended theories, often including
principles and practices of cognitive and
behavior therapies, as well as various compo-
nents from humanistic, existential, and phe-
nomenological viewpoints. There has also been
a significant movement to reconceptualize
human experience within a developmental
perspective. In this conceptualization, emphasis
is placed on growth as an immediately ontolo-
gical experience, the person is a consciously and
developing ªbeing.º These modern experiential
therapies urge patients to focus both on
immediate experience and on the progressive
change and evolution of that experience as a
way of obtaining self-knowledge. This view
contrasts with both a static description of
personal meanings and with models of behavior
that emphasize either the effects of historical
experience in their own right, the roles of
unconscious drives, or the influence of biolo-
gically determined behaviors.
Traditionally, research has not been widely
accepted in the experiential traditions. This is
with the exception of Carl Rogers, whose client-
centered therapy introduced the scientific
method to the study of psychotherapy process
and outcome. Led by active movements from
client-centered and Gestalt traditions, however,
there has been a proliferation of research. This
research has sought both to specify and
180 Experiential Treatments: Humanistic, Client-centered, and Gestalt Approaches
operationalize the application of experiential
therapy so that they can studied objectively. The
resulting manualized therapies have then ap-
plied these methodologies to the study of
various clinical conditions. The resulting studies
have found that experiential therapies produce
modest and reasonably strong effects when
compared either to patients' pretreatment
status, control conditions, or comparison
treatments.
Research also confirms that experiential
treatments can be adapted to treat specific
client disorders (e.g., depression, chronic pain,
anxiety) as well as to a variety of client
parameters. Research has been particularly
fruitful in applying different aspects or tasks
of treatments to different clients and situations.
Therapists should be sensitive to the possibility
that clients who are high in autonomy or
reactance may react negatively to the effects of
the more process-directive experiential therapies
(e.g., Gestalt), whereas more dependent or
externally oriented clients may react negatively
to nondirective therapies. Likewise, experiential
and nonexperiential traditions may be differen-
tially effective for patients who vary in coping
style. Experiential therapies may be most
appropriate to those who are self-reflective,
have organized cognitive processes, and who are
capable of establishing stable interpersonal
relationships.
Clearly more research is needed to study the
effectiveness of experiential treatments. Re-
search is especially needed that assesses treat-
ment outcomes among specific populations and
disorders. However, it is also important to direct
research attentions to studies of the transfer of
treatment to alternative settings, including
research on methods of training, procedures
to ensure the retention of therapeutic effects,
and applications to populations that are gen-
erally unresponsive to other treatments.
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