Chapter 7. The concept of psychotherapy as a process

In the fall of 1956, the American Psychological Association did me the great honor of awarding me one of three Distinguished Contribution to Science Awards. However, the recipient was subjected to a «fine» — a year later he had to make a scientific report to the Association. I did not want to write a review of what we have done in the past. I have decided to dedicate this year to new attempts to understand the process of personality change. This was done, but as the next autumn approached, I began to realize that the thoughts I had formed were preliminary, fuzzy, not suitable for presentation. Despite this, I tried to put on paper the confused sensations that were of great importance to me, from which loomed the concept of a process different from anything that I knew before. When I finished the talk, I found it to be too long, so I cut it down to a condensed speech to present before the American Psychologists’ Convention on September 2, 1957, in New York. This article is not as long as the original version, but not as short as the second one.

You will find that, although in the two previous chapters the process of psychotherapy has been presented almost entirely from a phenomenological point of view, from the position of the client, this paper has attempted to identify those qualities that can be seen by another person, and therefore here this process is considered from the point of view of external observer.

From the observations collected in this work, a “Psychotherapy Process Scale” has been developed that can be effectively used to analyze passages from recorded conversations. This scale is still under revision and improvement. Even in its present form, it has good reliability when comparing judges’ scores and gives meaningful results. Those cases of psychotherapy that, judging by other criteria, are more successful, show more progress on the «Process Scale» than less successful cases. To our surprise, successful cases were also found to originate at a higher level on the Process Scale than unsuccessful ones. Obviously, we do not yet know with a high degree of certainty how to provide psychotherapeutic help to individuals whose behavior, when they come to us, corresponds to the behavior typical of the first and second stages of the scale described in this chapter. Thus, the thoughts expressed in this article, as it seemed to me at that time, were not yet sufficiently clear and formalized, already opening up new horizons that challenge thought and research.

Process conundrum

I would like to take you on a journey of exploration with me. This journey is undertaken in order to learn something about the process of psychotherapy, about the process in which personality change occurs. I would like to warn you that this goal has not yet been reached, and that the expedition has in all likelihood advanced only a few short miles through the jungle. However, perhaps if I can take you with me, you will want to open new useful avenues for further advancement.

It seems to me that the reasons that prompted me to participate in such a search are very simple. Just as many psychologists have been interested in personality traits that are common to all people — the invariably present aspects of intelligence, temperament, personality structure — so I have for a long time been interested in the aspects of personality change that are common to all. Does the person and her behavior change? What do these changes have in common? What is common in the conditions preceding these changes? And the most important question: what is the process behind the change?

Until recently, in most cases, we tried to study this process, revealing its consequences and results. For example, we have many facts about the changes that take place in the perception of ourselves and others. We measured these changes not only after the entire course of psychotherapy, but also selectively during it. However, even the latter type of measurement does not provide a key to understanding the process itself. Studying the results of individual stages of psychotherapy is nothing more than a measurement of results, not providing knowledge about how change occurs.

Reflecting on the problem of understanding this process, I came to the conclusion of how little objective research is related to the study of processes in any areas of human practice. Objective research dissects the frozen moment to provide us with an accurate picture of the inner relationships that have existed up to the present moment. But our understanding of the current moment is usually achieved by means of theoretical formulations, often supplemented where possible by clinical observation of the process, whether it refers to the process of fermentation, blood circulation, or the process of splitting the atom. So I began to realize that perhaps I was too hopeful that the research procedure could shed light directly on the process of personality change. Perhaps only theory can do this.

Rejected Method

When I decided more than a year ago to make a new attempt to understand how such changes could occur, I first considered how the psychotherapeutic experience could be described in terms of other theories. The theory of communication seemed very attractive, with its concepts of «feedback», «incoming and outgoing signals» and the like. It was also possible to describe the process of psychotherapy in terms of learning theory or in terms of systems theory. In exploring these ways of understanding psychotherapy, I have become convinced that it can be described in terms of any of these theories. I think this would have some advantages. But I also became convinced that this is not what is needed in such a new field.

I came to the same conclusion as many scientists before me: in a new field, it may be necessary to first immerse yourself in observable events and approach phenomena as far as possible without preliminary hypotheses, use the method of natural observation and description in relation to these events; draw the most specific conclusions corresponding to the nature of this material.

About the approach

So, over the past year, I’ve been using the method that is used to generate hypotheses; a method which, in our country, seems to be so reluctantly proposed or commented on by psychologists. I used myself as a research tool.

As an instrument, I have both bad and good qualities. For many years I have experienced psychotherapy as a therapist. I also experienced it as a person sitting opposite me at the table — as a client. I thought about psychotherapy, I did research in this area, I knew in detail the research of other psychologists. But I also became biased, I acquired a special point of view on psychotherapy, I tried to develop theoretical ideas about it. This knowledge and theories made me less sensitive to the events themselves. Could I have been open to a fresh, natural perception of the phenomena of psychotherapy? Could I let my experience be the most effective tool, or would my addictions keep me from seeing what’s there? I could only go ahead and make such an attempt.

So during the last year I have spent many hours trying to listen to the recordings of psychotherapy conversations without prejudice. I sought to perceive all the clues to the process itself and the elements significant for its change. Then I tried to extract from these perceptions the simplest qualities that could describe them. In this I have been assisted and assisted by the thoughts of many of my colleagues, but I would like to mention my special debt to Eugene Gendlin, William Kirtner and Fred Zimring, who brought a new perspective on these issues and whose help was very useful to me. The next step was to formulate these low-level observations and abstractions in such a way that testable hypotheses could be freely deduced from them. This is the level I have reached. I do not apologize for not presenting any experimental studies of these hypotheses. If it is possible to rely on past experience at all, and if my formulations are in any way consistent with the subjective experience of other therapists, there will be a lot of research. In a few years, numerous data will be collected, which will show whether the statements given in this chapter are true.

Difficulties and excitements of the search

It may seem strange to you that I talk so much about personal experiences that I went through in search of some simple and, I’m sure, inadequate formulations. This is because I feel like 9/10 of the research is always under water and only the tip of the iceberg appears before us, which leads us astray. Only sometimes does someone like Mooney actually describe his research method as it exists in the individual. I would also like to reveal the features of a holistic research as it proceeded for me, and not just its impersonal part (Mooney, RL Problems in the development of research men. Educ. Research Bull., 30, 141 — 150. Mooney, RL The researcher himself, In Research for curriculum improvement, Nat’l Educ, Ass’n, 1957, Chap 7.).

Of course, I would like to share more fully with you the excitement and discouragement that I felt during this attempt to understand the process. I would like to tell you about my new discovery — how feelings «cover» the client. The word «covers» is often used by them. The client is talking about something important when — bam! And he is «covered» by a feeling, not something that has a name, a name, but simply a feeling that must be carefully studied before it can be named somehow. As one client says: «It’s a feeling that has taken over me, I don’t even know what it is connected with.» I was struck by the frequency of such cases.

Another thing I’m interested in is the many ways clients actually approach their feelings. Feelings «bubbling up», they «leak». The client also allows himself to «go down» to his feeling, often with caution and fear: «I want to get into that feeling. You can kind of see how hard it is to get really close to him.»

As natural observations have shown, the accuracy of the designation is of great importance for the client. He only needs the exact word that would describe for him the feeling he is experiencing. Nothing approximate. And this, of course, is done in order to better understand oneself, since for another person its meaning will be equally well revealed by any of several synonymous words.

I have also learned to appreciate what I call «moments of movement» — moments when it seems like change is actually happening. Next, I will try to describe these moments with their rather obvious physiological components.

I would also like to mention the deep sense of desperation that I sometimes had during my artless wanderings through the incredible complexity of the psychotherapeutic relationship. It is not surprising that we try to approach psychotherapy with a lot of rigid prejudices. We feel we have to streamline it. We hardly dare to hope that we can find order in itself.

I met in my work on this problem with personal discoveries, disappointments and confusion. It was from them that the more correct ideas arose, which I would now like to talk about.

Main condition

If we were to study the process of plant growth, in order to get an idea of ​​this process, we would assume that there are certain constant conditions in the form of temperature, humidity and sunlight. Similarly, in developing the concept of the process of personality change in psychotherapy, I will assume that there is a constant optimal set of conditions that promote this change. I have recently attempted to describe these conditions in detail (Rogers, CR The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. J. Consult. Psychol., 1957, 21, 95-103.). Here, I think, this supposed condition can be summed up in one word. In the discussion that follows, I will assume that the client feels fully accepted. By this I mean that whatever his feelings may be — fear, despair, insecurity, anger — regardless of the way they are expressed: silence, gestures, tears or words — whatever he thinks he is at the moment, he feels that psychologically he is accepted by the therapist exactly as he is. This term contains the concept of «sympathetic understanding» and the concept of «acceptance». It is also good to recall that this condition is optimal if it is perceived by the client, and not just exists in the therapist’s head. In all that will be said about the process of change, I assume that its constant factor, the most favorable and best condition is acceptance.

Emerging Sequence

In an effort to understand and understand the process of change, I first looked for elements that would signify or characterize the change. I thought of change as a complete whole and looked for its distinguishing features. However, as I got to know the living facts of change, I got the idea that this is a special kind of continuum, different from what I had previously imagined. I began to understand that individuals do not move from a set of enduring qualities, or homeostasis, through change to new enduring qualities, although such a process is possible. However, a more important sequence is the transition from immobility to variability, from a frozen structure to a flow, from static to dynamic. I formed a hypothesis that perhaps the qualities of the client’s statements at any one point in time may indicate his position in this continuum, may indicate where he is in this process of change.

Gradually I developed a conception of a process consisting of seven stages, although I will emphasize that this is a continuum, a continuity, and it does not matter whether we distinguish three stages or fifty, all the intermediate points would still exist.

I began to realize that each client as a whole exhibits behaviors that cluster in a relatively narrow range on the scale of this continuum. That is, it is unlikely that this client in one area of ​​uXNUMXbuXNUMXblife showed complete staticness, and in another — complete volatility. In general, he will tend to be at some stage in this process. Although the process that I would like to describe probably belongs to certain areas of personal meanings, and if the client is in one of them at one of the stages, it is in this area that he will not manifest qualities related to other stages.

Seven Stages of the Process

Let me further try to describe how I conceive of the successive stages of the process by which the individual passes from static to fluidity; from a point closer to the unchanging end of the continuum to a point «in motion» close to the end of the continuum. If my observations are correct, then perhaps by collecting data on the qualities of his experiences and their expression, we can determine where this individual is on the continuum of personality change when he feels in an atmosphere of complete acceptance.

The first stage

It is unlikely that an individual who is at this stage of static and distant from his experiences will voluntarily come to see a therapist. However, I can explain somewhat the characteristics of this stage.

• There is a reluctance to report anything about yourself. Only external objects are reported.

Example: «Well, I’ll tell you, it always seems a little pointless to me to talk about myself, except in case of emergency» (This and other examples used as illustrations are taken from recorded conversations with clients, unless another source is indicated Most of these are from previously unpublished conversations, but some are from a report by Lewis, Rogers, and Schlin [5] about two clients).

• Feelings and personal meanings are not realized and do not relate to oneself.
• Personal constructs are exclusively static (for example, good-bad). (The Kelly construct is a generalization of personality traits in the form of a dichotomy of opposite meanings based on specific experience — Approx. ed.) I borrowed this useful term from Kelly (Kelly, GA The psychology of personal constructs. Vol. 1. New York: Norton , 1955.)
• Close relationships in communication seem dangerous.
• At this stage, the existence of problems is not perceived and recognized.
• No desire to change.

Example: «I think I’m practically healthy.»

• Communication with oneself is blocked.

Perhaps these short statements and examples will tell something about the psychological static nature of this pole of the continuum. The individual is very little or almost unconscious of the ebb and flow of his feelings. The ways in which he interprets his experience are determined by his past, they are frozen and untouched by the realities of the present. The way one perceives one’s experience is structurally limited (according to Gendlin and Zimring’s term). That is, the individual reacts “to the present situation, finding its similarity with previous experience, and then reacts to this past, feeling it (Gendlin, E., and F. Zimring. The qualities or dimensions of experiencing and their change. Counseling Center Discussion Papers 1, #3, Oct. 1955. University of Chicago Counseling Center.). The differentiation of the personal meanings of the experienced is global and gu.e., what is happening is seen in black and white. The individual does not report anything about himself, but only about what is outside him. He has a tendency to see himself as a person without problems, and the problems that he is aware of are perceived by him as lying entirely outside him. There is a strong blockade of internal communication between oneself and experience. At this stage, the individual can be represented with the help of such concepts as «statics», «invariance», «opposite to flow or change».

The second stage

When the person in the first stage is able to feel fully accepted, the second stage begins. We know very little how to make a person in the first stage feel accepted. But sometimes it is achieved in a game or in group psychotherapy, where a person can be surrounded by an atmosphere of acceptance without showing his own initiative and for quite a long time feels accepted. In any case, when he really feels it, there is a slight release and movement in the symbolic expression of his experience, which is usually characterized by the following.

• The expression of feelings ceases to be static in statements that are not related to oneself.

Example: «I think I suspected that my father often felt insecure in business dealings.»

• Problems are perceived as external to themselves.

Example: «My life keeps getting messy.»

• There is no sense of personal responsibility for problems.

An example is given in the previous passage.

• Feelings are described as if they do not belong to him, or sometimes as objects in the past.

Example: «Counselor: «If you want to tell me something about what brings you here…»

• Client: «I had a symptom … it was … just a state of deep depression.»

This is a perfect example of how internal problems can be perceived and communicated as completely external. The client does not say, «I feel depressed,» or even, «I felt depressed.» His feelings are rendered as separated from him, as an object not belonging to him, completely external to himself.

• Feelings can be expressed, but not recognized as such, as belonging to this person.
• Feeling is limited by the structure of past experience.

Example: «I guess I always make up for it, well, instead of trying to connect with people or have a good relationship with them, I always make up for it by being, well, let’s say I’m at a certain intellectual level.»

Here the client begins to realize how his experience is limited to past experience. His statement also conveys the remoteness of experience on this level. It is as if he were holding his experience at arm’s length.

• Personal constructs are static and are not recognized as constructs, they are thought of as facts.

Example: “I can never do anything right—I can’t even finish.”

• The differentiation of personal meanings and feelings is very limited and global.

See the previous example, it’s a good illustration. «I can’t never» is an example of black and white differentiation, as well as the use of the words «properly» in an absolute sense.

• Contradictions can be expressed, but they are hardly recognized as such.

Example: «I want to know a lot, but I look at each page for an hour.»

As a note to the second stage of the personality change process, many clients who voluntarily come to the therapist for help are at this stage, but we (and probably therapists in general) have very modest success with them. At least this seems to be a reasonable conclusion from Kirtner’s study (Kirtner, WL, and DSCartwright. Success and failure in client-centered therapy as a function of initial in-therapy behavior. J. Consult. Psychol., 1958, 22, 329- 333.), although his conceptual model differed from ours. We know very little about how, at this stage, a person can begin to feel «accepted.»

The third stage

If a little release and movement in the second stage is not blocked and the client feels that he is fully accepted as such, then further release and movement in the symbolic expression of his experience occurs. Here are the features that seem collectively to apply approximately to this point on the continuum of change.

• There is a freer flow of statements about oneself as an object.

Example: «I try very hard to be perfect with her — cheerful, friendly, intelligent, talkative — because I want her to love me.»

• There are also statements about their experiences as objects.

Example: “And yet, there is a problem, well, how much you accept marriage, and if a professional vocation is important to you at the moment and this is your life, it actually limits your contacts.”

In this passage, the client’s self is such a distant object that this state is probably best placed in an intermediate stage between the second and third stages.

• There are also statements about oneself as about an object reflected primarily in others.

Example: «I can feel myself smiling softly, the way my mother does, or I’m important and goo.e.wat — that’s how my father sometimes is — imperceptibly entering into everyone’s personality, but not into his own.»

• Feelings or personal meanings that are not currently present are often expressed or described.

Usually these are messages about feelings in the past.

Example: “There were so many things I couldn’t tell people about all the disgusting things I did. I felt so cowardly and bad.»

Or: «And this feeling that came to me was exactly the same that I experienced as a child.»

• Feelings are almost not accepted. For the most part, feelings are revealed as something shameful, bad, abnormal, or otherwise unacceptable. Feelings are manifested and then sometimes recognized as such.

The experience is described as something that took place in the past, or as something distant from oneself.

This is well shown in the previous examples.

• Personal constructs are immovable, but can be perceived as such, and not as external facts.

Example: “When I was young, I felt guilty about many things, so I almost always felt that I deserved to be punished. If I didn’t feel like I deserved it for one thing, I felt like I deserved it for something else.»

Obviously, the client sees his life activity more as a structure by which he interprets his experience than as an established fact.

Another example: “When it comes to attachment, I am afraid of being subjected to, which I hate. But it seems to me that I equate them to each other in such a way that if I’m going to get someone’s affection, it means that I have to submit to his desires.

• The differentiation of feelings and meanings is somewhat clearer, less global than at the previous stage.

Example: “I mean… I’ve talked about this before, but this time I really felt it. And no wonder I felt so lousy when it was like that…they screwed me over and over again. But at the same time, I wasn’t an angel either, and I understand that.”

• There is a recognition of contradictions in experience.

Example: the client explains that, on the one hand, he expects to do something great, on the other hand, he feels that he can easily live life as a bum.

• Personal choice is often seen as ineffective.

The client «chooses» some behavior, but finds that it does not match the choice.

It seems to me that many people in search of psychological help are approximately at the third stage. They can remain at this level for a long time, describing feelings that are not relevant to the moment and examining themselves as an object, before they are ready to move on to the next, fourth stage.

Fourth stage

When the client feels that he is well treated, understood and accepted by various aspects of his experiences related to the third stage, then there is a gradual weakening of the effect of personality constructs. Feelings begin to flow more freely, they tend to move along a continuum. One can try to identify a number of features of this weakening of constructs and define them as the fourth stage of the developmental process.

• The client describes stronger feelings that are not related to the present.

Example: «Well, I was really… it really hit me to the core.»

• Feelings are described as objects in the present.

Example: «It discourages me when I feel dependent because it means I’m kind of hopeless.»

• At times the feelings are expressed as existing in the present, at other times they erupt almost against the will of the client.

Example: a client, after discussing a dream in which he saw a witness to his crimes that was dangerous for him, says to the psychotherapist: “Oh, good. I don’t trust you.»

• There is a tendency to feel feelings in the near present and at the same time distrust and fear of this possibility.

Example: “I feel bound by one thing or the other. It must be me! Nothing else seems to do this. Nothing else I can fault for it. This knot here is somewhere inside of me… It makes me want to go crazy… scream… and run!”

• Feelings are accepted openly, but to a very small extent.

The two previous examples show that the client accepts his experience enough to move closer to the feelings that frighten him. But consciously he accepts them to a very small extent.

• The experience is less connected with the structure of past experience, it is less distant from the person and occasionally it can manifest itself with a slight delay.

The two previous examples again illustrate well this type of experience, not very related to past experience.

• The experience is interpreted by the client more freely. Clients discover some personality constructs; they certainly recognize them as such; begin to question the significance of these constructs.

Example: “This amuses me. Why? Because it’s kind of stupid of me — I feel a little tense about it, or a little embarrassed… and a little helpless. (His voice softens and he looks sad.) All my life, humor has been my stronghold; it may not be appropriate to try to be realistic about yourself. Pull down the curtain. Now I feel a little awkward. Where was I? What did I say? I lost my grip, with which I supported myself.

In this case, it seems to show the shaken, agitated effects of the client’s doubts about the foundation of personality education, in this case the use of humor as a defense.

• There is an ever-increasing differentiation of feelings, constructs, personal meanings, there is a tendency to search for words to accurately express feelings.

Example: This quality is sufficiently shown in each of the examples for this stage.

• The client is anxiously aware of contradictions and inconsistencies between himself and his experience.

Example: “I live a life unworthy of me. I really should do more than I do. How many hours have I spent… in this position, when my mother said: “Don’t get distracted until everything is done! Do something!” This has happened many times.»

This is both an anxiety about contradictions and doubts about how experience has been interpreted.

• There is a sense of personal responsibility for problems, although there are also hesitations in this feeling.
• Even though close relationships still seem dangerous, the client takes the risk of expressing, albeit to a small extent, his real feelings.

This is shown in several of the examples above, especially where the client says, «Oh, well, I don’t trust you.»

There is no doubt that this and the following stages constitute the content of psychotherapy as we know it. This kind of behavior is common in any form of psychotherapy.

It should again be reminded that a person is never fully at one stage or another of the psychotherapy process. Listening to recordings of conversations led me to believe that the client’s feelings in any particular conversation might be expressed, for example, in statements and behaviors more typical of the third stage, with frequent examples of static character of the second stage, or in more freely changing behavior related to to the fourth stage. It is unlikely that in such a conversation one would find examples of behavior related to the sixth stage.

The above speaks of the variability of the main stage of the process at which our client is. If we confine ourselves to some particular area of ​​personal meanings relating to the client, then I would suggest a certain order in the sequence of stages, namely: the third stage would rarely come before the second, the fourth would hardly follow the second without an intermediate third. These are conjectural hypotheses, which, of course, can be tested with the help of experiments.

Fifth stage

Following the continuum of change, we can once again mark a point, calling it the fifth stage. If the client, being in the fourth stage, feels that his expressions of feelings, behavior and experiences are accepted, there is a further decrease in static, and the organismic flow flows even more freely. Here, it seems to me, we can again, with some approximation, describe the qualities of this phase of the process (The farther we go on the scale, the less adequate the examples given. The reason is that at these high levels the quality of experience becomes more and more important, and it can only be conveyed by means of a transcription, which cannot be given here in full. Perhaps, in time, many examples recorded on tape will become available).

• Feelings are expressed freely, relate to the present moment.

Example: “I expected to be kind of severely rejected… this is what I expect all the time… I think I even felt it when I was with you… It’s hard to say because I want to be the best possible when I am with you «.

Here feelings relating to the therapist and the client in his relationship with the therapist, emotions that are very difficult to disclose, are openly expressed by the client.

• Feelings are experienced almost completely. They “break through”, seep through, despite the fear and distrust that the client experiences, experiencing them in all their fullness and immediacy.

Example: “It came out as if by itself, and this is exactly what I don’t understand. (Long pause.) I’m trying to capture what kind of horror it is.

Another example: the client is talking about an external event. Suddenly, his face takes on a pained, frightened look.

Therapist: «What, what’s hurting you right now?»

Client: «I don’t know. (Crying) I must be getting too close to something I don’t want to talk about or something like that.

In this case, the feeling almost leaked to the surface, entered consciousness, regardless of the will of the client.

Another example: “I feel stopped. Why is my head empty at the moment? I feel like I’m hanging on to something and releasing something else, and something in me says, «What else should I give up?»

The realization begins to come that when experiencing a feeling, it is necessary to name it accurately.

This is illustrated by the three examples just given. In each of them, the client knows that he was experiencing something, and also knows that he is not clear what he was experiencing. Nevertheless, the realization comes to him that the referent (Referent — denoted. — Ed.) of this vague awareness is inside him, in an organismic event, with which he can check his designation and understanding. This is often found in expressions that indicate the client’s feeling of closeness or distance from the referent.

Example: “I really don’t touch this with my finger. I’m just kind of describing it.»

• When feelings «erupt» to the surface of consciousness, the client feels surprise or fear, rarely pleasure.

Example: A client talks about past family relationships: “It doesn’t matter anymore. Uh-uh… (Pause.) It used to be somehow very important… and I don’t have the slightest idea why… Yes, here it is! I can forget about it now, because it is not so important at all! Well, the thing! All these misfortunes are nonsense!”

Another example: a client talks about hopelessness: “I still marvel at the power of it. I think that’s how I feel.»

Feelings belong more and more to the client, and he has a growing desire to merge with these feelings, to be truly himself.

Example: “Actually, the bottom line is that I’m not at all the gentle, patient guy that I pretend to be. I am irritable. I feel like snapping, sometimes I’m selfish, and I don’t know why I have to pretend I’m not like that.»

This is a prime example of greater acceptance of all your feelings.

• The experience is free-flowing, it is not distant, and it often manifests itself with a little delay.

Very little time elapses between an organismic event and its full subjective experience. An amazingly accurate description of this process is given by one client.

Example: “It is still difficult for me to understand what this sadness and these tears mean. I only know that I feel it when I get close to certain feelings, and usually when I cry, it helps me, as it were, to break through the wall that I have erected because of some events that have happened. It hurts for some reason, and then automatically it obscures something, and then I feel like I can’t really touch something and feel it strongly … And if I could feel and could give myself the opportunity to experience a momentary feeling when I it hurts, I would immediately start crying right then, but I can’t.»

Here it can be seen that feelings act as an internal referent that a person can turn to in order to clarify the matter. While he feels his tears, he is aware that this is a delayed and partial experience of his pain. He is also aware that his defensive reactions prevent him from experiencing pain when it occurs.

• Ways of interpreting experience become much freer. New discoveries of personal constructs as such are observed, they are critically examined, doubts are expressed in them.

Example: a person says: “The idea that I need to please, that I should do this, has been one of the foundations of my life. (Weeps softly.) You know, it’s like one of the indisputable axioms — that I have to please. I have no choice. That’s exactly what I have to do.»

It is clear here that this foundation was a construct and that its unquestioned status is coming to an end.

• There is a strong and obvious desire to ensure that the differentiation of feelings and meanings is accurate.

Example: “… some tension is growing in me, or some kind of hopelessness, or some kind of incompleteness of something, and my life, of course, is very imperfect right now … I just don’t know … It seems to me that the word hopelessness is the closest «.

Obviously, he is trying to grasp the exact name of what his experience expresses.

• There is a clearer awareness of contradictions and inconsistencies in experience.

Example: “My conscious mind tells me that I am a worthwhile person. But something inside says I don’t believe it. I think I’m a rat, a good-for-nothing person. I don’t believe I can do anything.»

• There is an ever-increasing personal responsibility for the problems that arise, concern about what contribution he made to their solution. Internal dialogues become more and more free. The blockade in communication with oneself is gradually being destroyed.
• Sometimes these dialogues are verbalized.

Example: «Something in me says, ‘What else should I give up?’ You have already taken so much from me. This is me talking to myself — my inner «I» is talking to the «I» that rules my life. It’s complaining now and saying, «You’re getting too close! Leave!»»

Another example: often these dialogues proceed as listening to oneself, as a test of understanding of the direct referent of the experience. So the client says, “Isn’t this funny? I never looked at it like that. I try to check it out. It always seemed to me that this tension had an external cause, and not … that it was not something that I used like that. But it’s true… it’s really true.»

It is my hope that the examples given here of the fifth stage of the process of becoming clear up a few questions. First, this stage is several hundred psychological miles away from the first stage described. Here, many of the client’s qualities become fluid compared to the static nature of the first phase. The client is much closer to his organismic being, which is always a process. He is much closer to the flow of his feelings. The structures of his experience have become looser, constantly checked against referents and facts outside and within him. His experience is much more differentiated, and therefore the ongoing internal communication can be more accurate.

Examples characterizing the process in one area

Since I used to say that the client as a whole is at one stage or another, allow me, before moving on to the description of the next stage, again to emphasize that in some areas of personal meanings the process can go on at a level lower than the main one. level, due to experiences that are in sharp contradiction with the person’s ideas about himself. Perhaps I can show, using one area of ​​the client’s feelings as an example, how the process I am describing occurs in one narrow segment of experience.

In one case of psychotherapy, quite fully outlined by Schlin (Lewis, M.K., C.R. Rogers, and John M. Shlien. Two cases of timelimited client-centered psychotherapy. In Burton, A. (Ed.). Case Studies of Counseling and Psychotherapy, New York: Prentice-Hall, 1959, 309-352), the quality of self-expression in conversations was roughly on the third and fourth stages of the continuum we are describing. Then, as the client addresses sexual issues, the process moves down the continuum.

In the sixth interview, the client feels that there are things that will be impossible to tell the therapist, then «after a long pause, she almost inaudibly mentions that she has itching in the rectal area, the cause of which the doctor could not explain.» Here the problem is seen as completely outside the client’s personality, the experience is very remote from her. This would seem to be characteristic of the second stage of the process described by us. But let’s not jump to conclusions.

In the ninth conversation, the itching moved to the fingers. Then, with great embarrassment, the client describes her childhood games of stripping and other sexual activities. Here, too, in the description, the actions are impersonal, the feelings belong to the past, although it is clear that they belong to a higher stage on the scale. The client concludes: «Because I’m bad, immoral, that’s all.» Here there is a statement about oneself and an undifferentiated static personality construct. In terms of quality, the statement belongs to the third stage of our process, as does the subsequent statement about oneself, which shows a greater differentiation of personal meanings: “I think that inside I am hypersexual, but outwardly not sexy enough to cause such a reaction that I want … I would like be the same inside and out.

The last phrase, which expresses a slight doubt about the correctness of the construct, belongs to the fourth stage by its quality.

In the twelfth conversation, this woman’s doubts grow when she decides that she was not born for debauchery at all. This statement clearly belongs to the fourth stage in its quality, it definitely expresses a challenge to a deeply rooted way of interpreting one’s experience. In this conversation, she also works up the courage to say to the therapist, “You are a man, a handsome man, and my whole problem is with men like you. It would be easier and easier if you were older, but not better in the long run.” Excited and embarrassed, she continues: “It’s like being naked. I opened myself up to you.» Here an immediate feeling is expressed, of course, with reluctance and fear, but it is expressed, not described. The experience is much less distant from it and less bound by structure. It appears almost immediately, but is hardly accepted by the client. In the phrase «easier and simpler, but not better» there is a sharper differentiation of meanings. All this is entirely characteristic of our fourth stage of the process.

In the fifteenth conversation, she describes her past experiences and feelings related to sex, which have the qualities of the third and fourth stages we have described. At one point, she says, “I wanted to feel pain, so I started getting close to men who I thought might hurt me with their penises. I enjoyed sex when I felt pain. I felt the satisfaction of being punished for pleasure.” It is a way of interpreting experience that is perceived as such, and not as an external fact. Here too doubt is clearly present, although it is only implied. There is also an awareness of some anxiety about conflicting elements in the experience—pleasure on the one hand, and the feeling that she should be punished on the other. All these qualities are characteristic of the fourth stage, or even of a stage a little higher.

Somewhat later, she describes a strong sense of shame experienced in the past when enjoying sex. Her two sisters, «humble respected daughters», had no orgasms, «so I was bad again.» Up to this point, her words refer to the fourth stage. Then she suddenly asks: “Maybe I really got lucky?” The feeling of surprise in this expression, the breakthrough of this feeling, the immediate experience of amazement, the frank doubt about the fidelity of one’s former personality construct are all clear qualities of the fifth stage that we have just described. Being in an atmosphere of acceptance, it has moved in the process of its development far ahead of the second stage.

I hope this example shows how an individual, being accepted, in the process of development becomes more and more free and mobile in a given area of ​​personal meanings. Perhaps this will also show that the process of ever-increasing movement unfolds not in minutes and hours, but in weeks or months. Progress comes in leaps and bounds, sometimes receding a little, then stopping when it captures a wider area of ​​​​meanings, but in the end it goes further.

sixth stage

If I have succeeded in conveying the range and quality of the increasing liberation of feeling, experiencing and interpreting experience characteristic of the previous stages, we can proceed to consider the next stage, which, according to observations, is very critical. Let’s see if I can reveal her characteristics as I understand them.

If the client, as before, is fully accepted in the relationship with the therapist, then the characteristics of the fifth stage are followed by a very different and often dramatic sixth stage. It has the following distinguishing features:

• The previously stuck feeling, the movement of which was blocked, is experienced directly at this stage.
• Feeling flows, revealing its full quality.
• A feeling in the present is experienced immediately and directly, in all its richness.
• The immediacy of the experience and the feeling constituting its content are accepted. The client is not afraid of him, he does not deny him and does not fight with him.

In these statements, an attempt has been made to describe various aspects of what is in fact distinguished by clarity and certainty. To fully reveal the essence of this stage, it would be necessary to show tape-recorded examples, but I will try to illustrate this stage with just one of them. A rather lengthy passage from the eightieth conversation with a young man can show you how the client enters the sixth stage.

Client: “I can even imagine that I could take some kind of tender care of myself… But how can I be gentle, take care of myself when I and the one I care about are the same person? However, I can feel it so clearly… You know how to take care of a child. You want to give him this and that… I can easily see these goals for someone else… but I can never take them for… myself, do it for myself, you understand. Is it possible that I want to really take care of myself and make it the main goal of my life? This means that I have to deal with the whole world as if I were the trustee of the most cherished and desired possession, that this «I» was between this precious «Me» that I wanted to take care of, and the whole world … It’s almost just as if I loved myself… you know… it’s strange… but it’s true.»

Therapist: “It seems like a strange thought. Why would it mean «I would meet the world as if part of my primary duty was to care for this precious individual who is the ‘me’… whom I love.»

Client: “Whoever I love, I feel so close to. That’s the thing! Here’s another weird feeling.»

Therapist: «It just seems supernatural.»

Client: «Yeah. But it is somehow close to the goal. This thought that I love myself and take care of myself. (Client’s eyes soften.) That’s a very good idea… a very good one.

A recording of the conversations would help to reveal the fact that here we see a feeling that has never been experienced before, it was felt by the client directly at the same moment as it arose. It is a feeling that flows to its full completion, without inhibition. The client accepts his experience and makes no attempt to dismiss or deny the feeling.

• The client subjectively lives this experience, and does not simply show the feelings associated with it.

In his words, the client may withdraw enough from his experience to express his feelings related to it, as in the above example; however, the recording shows that the words are on the periphery of the experience that flows inside him and in which he lives. This is best conveyed by his words: “That’s the thing! Here’s another weird feeling.»

• The «I» as an object tends to disappear.

At this moment, «I» is this feeling. This is being at the moment, the “I” is little conscious as an object, but is mainly realized with the help of reflexive awareness returning to the “I”, as Sartre calls it (Sartre J.-P. (1905-1980) — French writer, philosopher and publicist, head of French existentialism. — Note ed.). «I» subjectively is in the moment of existence and does not act as an object of perception.

• Experience at this stage is a real process.

Example: One client, approaching this stage, says that he is frightened, the source of which is his secret thoughts. He continues:

Client: “Butterflies are the thoughts closest to the surface. Below them flows a deeper stream. I feel very distant from all this. A deeper stream is like a large school of fish swimming near the surface of the water. And I myself, sitting with a fishing rod clamped in one hand, on the fishing line of which a bent pin is attached instead of a hook, with the other hand I try to find a better hook and at the same time I watch how some fish literally jump out of the water. I thought about diving. That scares me. I catch myself thinking that I myself want to be one of these fish.

Therapist: «You want to be down there, floating like that.»

Although this client does not yet fully experience his feelings as a process and therefore does not quite exemplify the sixth stage of the continuum, he foresees this so clearly that his description makes the same sense.

Another characteristic of this stage is the accompanying physiological relaxation.

Often there is moisture in the eyes, tears, muscle relaxation. Often there are other physiological accompanying signs. I would guess that if measurements were taken at this moment, an improvement in blood circulation and nerve impulse conduction would be found. An example of the «natural» nature of all these sensations is given in the following passage. The client, a young man, expressed a wish that his parents would either die or kind of disappear:

Client: “It’s like wishing they were gone somewhere or never been… And I’m so ashamed, because then they call me, and here I go… Derg! They are somehow still strong. I don’t know. There is some kind of umbilical cord — I can almost feel it. Derg! (And he gestures for his navel to be pulled.)

Therapist: «They’re really holding your umbilical cord.»

Client: “It’s amazing how real it feels… It’s like a burning sensation, and when they say something that worries me, I feel it right here (demonstrates). I never thought about it like that.»

Therapist: «When your relationship breaks down, you feel like your umbilical cord is being pulled.»

Client: «Yeah. That’s right, somewhere in the stomach. It’s hard to define exactly what I’m feeling.»

It is clear from this passage that the client is living in a stream of feeling dependent on his parents. However, it would be completely wrong to say that he perceives it. He is in this feeling, experiencing it as a tension in his umbilical cord.

• At this stage, internal communication is relatively free and not blocked.

It seems to me that this is well reflected in these examples. Of course, the phrase “internal communication” is no longer quite correct, as examples show that the moment of integration is critical, when communication between various internal centers is no longer necessary, because they become one.

• The discrepancy between experience and its awareness is actively experienced until it passes into correspondence. Experiential constructs dissolve in this moment of experience, and the client feels independent of previous stable connection structures.

It seems to me that these two characteristics will be clearer from the following example. The young man had difficulty when he came close to describing the unknown feeling.

Client: «I’m pretty sure what it feels like… it’s this: I’ve lived most of my life being afraid of something.» He says that his professional activity should just give him a little security and a «little world» where he could feel safe. “You see…” he continues, “for the same reason (pause) I sort of let it leak out. But I also connected it with you and with our relationship with you, where I feel only one thing — the fear that it will all go away. (His tone changes, he enters into his feeling.) Would you allow me to have this? I feel like I need this. I’ll be so lonely and scared without it.»

Therapist: “Mm, hmm… Let me hang on to this, because otherwise it will be very difficult for me. It’s some kind of prayer, isn’t it?»

Client: “I feel like it’s like a begging little boy. It is a gesture of supplication.» (She folds her hands as if in prayer.)

Therapist: «You put your hands together as if in supplication.»

Client: “Yeah, right: “Will you do that for me?” So? But it’s terrible! Who am I? To beg for something?.. It’s… it’s a feeling that I’ve never really been aware of at all (pause). It’s kind of a mixed feeling. On the one hand, it seems to me that this wonderful feeling is the birth of a new one. It amazes me every time. And at the same time, I feel frightened, as I have done many times in the past. (Tears.) I just don’t know myself. Here suddenly there is something that I never realized, as if I have become what I wanted to be.

Here we see the full experience of our asking state, a vivid awareness of the discrepancy between our experience and our ideas about ourselves. However, this experience of non-conformity exists at the moment of its disappearance. From now on, he becomes a person who feels the prayer in the same way as many of his other feelings. When his previous self-image dissolves in this moment, he feels freed from his previous inner world — a feeling that is both wonderful and frightening.

• The moment of full feeling becomes a clear and definite object for designation.

The examples given show that the client is often not fully aware of what «struck» him at these moments. However, this does not seem so important, because this event, as a holistic referent, can, if necessary, return again and again. The pleading, the feeling of «self-love» that is present in these examples may not be exactly what they are described. They are, however, clear objects of reference to which the client may return until he understands what they are. Perhaps these are purely physiological phenomena, the basis of conscious life, to which the client may return to explore. Gendlin drew my attention to this important property of experience as a referent. On this basis, he attempts to expand psychological theory (Gendlin, E. Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning (tentative title). Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. (In Press) (Especially Chap.7).

• The differentiation of experiences is clear and has a basis.

Since each of these moments acts as a referent, a special integrity, it does not mix with anything else. On this basis and in connection with this, a process of clear differentiation arises.

At this stage, there are no external or internal problems. The client subjectively lives some part of his problem. She is not an external object for him.

I think it would obviously be wrong to say that in each of these examples the client experiences his problem as internal or external. It must be pointed out that he has gone ahead and, in the process of feeling, is very far from perceiving the problem as something external. It would probably be most correct to say that he does not perceive his problem, but simply lives with some part of this problem, consciously accepting it.

I stopped for so long at the sixth stage of the continuum because I consider it critical. My observations show that these moments of directly accepted full-blooded experience are, in a sense, almost irreversible. The above examples show that my observations and hypotheses are correct: if clients experience such experiences, these experiences will be necessarily realized. Whether it’s tender self-care, the umbilical cord connection that makes him part of the parents, or the dependency of a little boy begging for something, each case is different for each client. And in passing I will point out that if an experience is fully realized, fully accepted, it can be handled like any other reality.

seventh stage

In those areas in which the client has already reached stage six, full acceptance by the therapist is no longer necessary, although it is probably still useful. However, due to the fact that the sixth stage is usually irreversible, it often seems that when moving to the seventh, final stage, the client does not need the help of a therapist. This stage often occurs both during and outside the psychotherapeutic relationship; clients talk about it rather than experience it in a session. I will try to describe a few observed properties of this stage.

• New feelings are experienced in all the variety of details immediately, both in the psychotherapeutic relationship and outside it.
• The experience of such feelings is used as a well-defined object for designation.
• The client quite consciously tries to use these referents in order to find out more clearly and differentiated — who he is, what he wants, what his inclinations are. This is true even if the feelings are unpleasant or frightening.
• There is a growing and lasting sense of ownership of the feelings accepted by the client, as well as an underlying trust in the process taking place in him.

This trust is not initially in ongoing processes of awareness, but rather in the whole organismic process. One client describes what a sixth stage experience looks like using terms typical of a seventh stage.

«Here in psychotherapy, the most important thing is to sit and say, ‘That’s what’s bothering me’ — and then flirt with it for a while until something is squeezed out on a wave of strong emotion — and it’s over, everything looks like -other. Even then, I can’t say exactly what happened. I just put something out, shook it and put it back, and when I did, I felt better. It’s a bit annoying because I’d like to know exactly what’s going on… It’s amazing because I don’t seem to be doing anything other than being on my guard and grabbing a thought as it passes by… And I’m wondering : what should I do with it if everything is clear to me? It does not have any devices with which you can adjust something, or anything else. Just talk about it for a while and let go. And apparently, that’s all there is. I have some unsatisfied feeling — a feeling that I have not achieved anything. This was achieved without my understanding or consent… The fact is that I am not sure about the quality of the rework, because I could not see and verify it… All I can do is observe the facts. I began to look at things a little differently: I show much less anxiety and become much more active. In general, my affairs have improved, I am very pleased with the way they went. But I feel like a spectator.”

A few minutes after this rather reluctant acceptance of the process going on in him, he adds:

“It seems to me that work goes better when my mind is occupied only with facts, and their analysis goes on by itself, without the attention of consciousness.”

Experience is almost not bound by structure and has become a process, that is, the situation is experienced and interpreted as a new one, and not as a former one in the past.

The example given in the description of the sixth stage suggests the quality I am trying to explain. Another example from a very different field involves a client who, in a follow-up conversation, explains a new quality that has appeared in his creative work. He usually followed a certain order: «You start at the beginning and then evenly go to the end.» Now he realizes that the process itself has changed: “When I work on something, the idea of ​​​​it appears as a latent image, as when developing a photograph. It does not start from one edge, filling the entire space. It comes out all at once. First you see a vague outline and ask yourself what it will be; then gradually, here and there, outlines appear, and very soon everything becomes clear — all at once. Obviously, the client has not only come to trust this process, but also experiences it as it is, and not with the help of concepts of past experience.

• «I» becomes more and more subjective reflective awareness of inner experience. The «I» appears much less often as a perceived object and much more often as something felt as a process.

An example can be taken from the same conversation with a client that was quoted earlier. Here, because of what he says about his experience after psychotherapy, he is again aware of himself as an object, but it is clear that this does not characterize his everyday experience. After talking about many changes in himself, he says:

“In fact, until tonight I did not connect all this with psychotherapy … (jokingly.) That’s great! Maybe something is really going on. Because my life has changed since then. My productivity has gone up. My self-confidence has increased. I became bold in situations that I would have tried to avoid before. And also I became much less arrogant in situations in which before that I would have been simply obnoxious.

It is clear that only later did he really realize what he was before.

• Personal constructs receive a different possible interpretation, their significance is tested in subsequent experience, but even in this case they are quite free.

The client describes how such constructs changed towards the end of the therapy.

“I don’t know what has changed, but I definitely feel different when I look back at my childhood…and the animosity I had for my mother and father has partially evaporated. Their sense of condemnation changed to acceptance of the fact that my parents did a lot of things that I didn’t like. But I had a feeling of sort of interested excitement, or something … that’s great … now that I find out what was wrong, I can do something … correct their mistakes.

Here the client’s interpretation of the experience with his parents changed dramatically.

Another example comes from a conversation with a client who always felt he had to please people:

“I am able to see what it will look like…when it doesn’t matter if I don’t please you…that pleasing you or not pleasing doesn’t matter to me at all. If I could directly say this to people… you know… the thought of just saying something and not thinking whether I will please or not… Oh God! You can say almost anything you want, but it’s true, you know.»

And a little later, in disbelief, he asks a question, clearly addressed to himself: “You mean that if I really be who I really feel like, is it okay?” The client struggles to reinterpret some of the most important aspects of their experience.

• Internal communication becomes unambiguous, feelings have a label corresponding to them, new labels are introduced for new feelings.

The client feels they can choose new ways of being.

Since all aspects of experience are available for awareness, the choice becomes correct and effective. In this example, the client is just beginning to realize this:

“I try to choose such a manner of speaking so as not to be afraid to speak. Perhaps a good way to do this is to think out loud. But I have so many thoughts that I could not say them all out loud. But perhaps I could afford to express my real thoughts through speech, instead of talking in vain.

Here the client feels the possibility of an effective choice.

Another client comes in to talk about his argument with his wife: “I wasn’t angry with myself. I didn’t have self-hatred, I just realized that I was behaving like a child, and I was doing it consciously. ”

It is rather difficult to find examples for the seventh stage, since few clients fully reach it. Let me briefly summarize the qualities of this stage of the continuum.

When an individual in the process of change reaches the seventh stage, he is in a new dimension. At this stage, the client incorporates the qualities of movement, flow, variability into every aspect of his mental life, and this becomes her remarkable characteristic. He lives in the flow of his feelings, conscious and accepting them, and also believing in them. His ways of interpreting experience are constantly changing, as his personality constructs change with each new event in life. By its very nature, experiencing it is a process. In each new situation, new feelings are experienced, which are interpreted in a new way. The interpretation of feelings on the basis of past experience occurs only when the new experience is similar to the past. The client experiences feelings directly, knowing at the same time what he is experiencing. He appreciates the accuracy of differentiating feelings and personal meanings of his experience. Internal communication between different aspects of his «I» is not blocked. He freely reveals himself in communication with others, and these are not stereotypical, but personal relationships. He is aware of himself, but not as an object, but rather a self-directed awareness, a subjective experience of the flow of life. He takes himself responsible for his problems. He actually feels that he is completely responsible for his life in all its current aspects. He lives a full life in his «I» as a constantly ongoing and changing process.

A few questions about the continuum of this process

Let me anticipate a few questions that may be asked in connection with the process I have tried to describe.

Is it the process by which personality changes occur, or is it just one of many types of change? I do not know this. There may be several kinds of personality change processes. I would just clarify that this seems to be the process that begins when the individual feels that he is fully accepted.

Can this process be applied to psychotherapies of various kinds, or does it take place only in one psychotherapeutic orientation? Until we have more records of other types of psychotherapy, this question cannot be answered. However, I would hypothesize that it is likely that in psychotherapeutic approaches that place a high emphasis on the cognitive aspect of experience and little on the emotional, quite different processes of change come into play.

Would everyone agree that this is the desired process of change, that it is moving in the right directions? I think no. It seems to me that some people do not consider fluidity a valuable quality. Judgments of this kind depend on social values, which must be determined by individuals and cultures. This process of change can be easily avoided by reducing or abandoning those relationships in which the individual is fully accepted as he is.

Is change fast on this continuum? My observations indicate the opposite. My interpretation of Kirtner’s work [4] (slightly different from his interpretation) is that the client probably starts psychotherapy around the second stage and ends it at the fourth stage. Moreover, both the client and the therapist receive mutual satisfaction with the progress achieved. It is almost impossible to imagine that a client who is in the first stage could reach the full seventh stage. If this really happened, it would take years.

Are the qualities that describe each stage correctly grouped? I am sure that I have been mistaken in my observations more than once. I also ask myself what important qualities have been left out. I also ask myself if the various elements of the continuum could not have been described more economically. All questions of this kind can be answered from the experience of psychotherapy, if various investigators will consider that the hypotheses put forward by me have merit.

Conclusion

I have tried to present in immature, preliminary sketches the course of the process of personality change that occurs when the client feels that he is accepted for who he is. This process consists of several fibers that are initially separated and then, as the process continues, become an inseparable whole.

This process includes the release of the senses. At the initial stage of the continuum, they are described as distant, not belonging to a person and not having a place in the present. They are then presented as objects in the present, belonging to the individual. Then they are described as feelings that the individual owns, and are called by the word that most accurately expresses the immediate experience. Still further down the scale, they are experienced and expressed in the immediate present, with less fear of the developmental process. Also at this stage, feelings that were previously rejected by consciousness penetrate it, are experienced, and the individual feels that he possesses them. At the highest level of the continuum, it becomes characteristic of the individual to live in the process of experiencing an ever-changing stream of feelings.

This process is associated with changes in how the experience takes place. The continuum begins with a static state in which the individual is very distant from his experience and unable to use its hidden meaning or signify it. Experience must necessarily recede into the past in order to find meaning in it and interpret the present with the help of the meaning found in the past. From remoteness in relation to experience, the individual moves towards the recognition of experience as a process that disturbs him and takes place inside him. Experience gradually becomes more and more acceptable to the client, an internal object for designating meanings, it is understood more and more correctly. Finally, the client is able to live freely, accepting himself in the current flow of experience, calmly using it as the main referent of his behavior.

This process is associated with the transition from incongruity to congruence. The continuum begins with a maximum incongruence, completely unconscious of the individual. Through stages in which the client becomes increasingly aware of the contradictions and inconsistencies that exist within him, he moves towards experiencing them in the immediate present. And so they gradually disappear. At the top of the continuum, there is usually never more than a temporary incongruity, an inconsistency between an experience and its awareness, since a person does not need to defend himself against the frightening aspects of his experience.

This process is associated with a change in the way in which and through which a person is able and willing to communicate about himself in an atmosphere of acceptance. The continuum begins with a complete reluctance to reveal to oneself one’s «I» as an enriched and changing awareness of inner experience, in the future, the individual can easily do this if desired.

This process is associated with the weakening of the action of cognitive perception schemes. From a frozen interpretation of experience that is taken for external facts, the client moves towards developing, freely changing interpretations of the meaning of experience, to structures that change after each new experience.

The attitude of the individual to his problems also changes. At one end of the continuum, problems are not perceived and there is no desire to change anything. Gradually, there is a realization that problems exist. At a later stage, the individual is aware that he contributed to these problems, that they did not come from somewhere else. There is a growing sense of personal responsibility for solving these problems. Further down the continuum is living or experiencing aspects of these problems. A person subjectively lives with his problems, feeling responsible for what he did to cause them.

There are also changes in how the individual relates to other people. At one end of the continuum, the individual avoids close relationships, perceiving them as dangerous. At the other end of the continuum, he lives openly and freely, being in various relationships with the therapist and other people, directing his behavior in these relationships on the basis of direct experiences.

In general, the process moves from static, where all elements and threads are distinguishable separately, to the fluid peak moments of psychotherapy, in which all these threads are inseparably woven together. In a new experience, with its immediacy of the present moment, feeling and cognition are intertwined, «I» is subjectively present in the experience, an act of will is simply a subjective adherence to the harmonious balance of the organism. Thus, when the process reaches this stage, the person becomes one movement, one flow. It has changed, but what seems most important, it has become a whole process of change.