Was will hier verstanden werden? Die Anwendung personzentrierter Entwicklungslehre in der kinder- und jugendpsychotherapeutischen Arbeit

Abstract

Pathways to empathic understanding — Application of person-centred developmental theory in child and adolescent psychotherapy. The course of the psychotherapeutic treatment of the six years old girl Sophie is reflected within the frame of a supervision based on the person-centred concept of the development of the self. The therapeutic process starts with a turmoil challenging the therapist’s unconditional positive regard of the child and develops into a situation, in which the child is more and more able to figure her own role in interaction with the therapist playing the part of the child’s mother. The therapist is able to satisfy the child’s need for unconditional positive regard and remains congruent: she does not get involved in her own emotional reactions to the child. The therapist and the supervisor cooperate in elaborating an understanding of the child’s problems which originate from a lack of unconditional positive regard in a certain developmental phase. In this phase the child begins to differentiate and symbolize its own feelings and to discriminate them from the feelings of others – especially the feelings experienced when there is a lack of the social support which constitutes the conditions of this development.