Being aware of his body helps the therapist to get more information from the encounter with a client. When a therapist makes it a habit to pay attention to the way his body reacts to his client, he will have clear indications of transference and counter-transference. There is an analogy between the wordless parent-child contact and the contact between therapist and client, especially in problems that find their roots in the pre-verbal stages in a child's development. The therapist can now enhance his empathic reactions in a non-verbal way. He can also react more natural and spontaneous, because he will be protected from too close an identification with the client by being centered in his body, and by a clear demarcation between his own body and the outer world. We give some exercises in body awareness, and the article closes with a plea for more contact between client centered and Pesso therapy.
The tPeP (Journal Person-centered experiential Psychotherapy) is the scientific journal for Dutch and Flemish psychotherapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists, that work from, or are interested in a client-centered perspective.