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Review: Person-Centred Communication: Theory and Practice

The book is aimed at facilitators from various professions and is meant to stimulate thinking about and the practical application of the person-centred approach.While the book covers familiar terrain in that it draws on the work of Carl Rogers, the authors extend this to include communities and this is the first time I have come across a person-centred approach to communities. While the authors are to be commended for this attempt they are not always. successful. They suggest that the person-centred approach can be used with individuals, groups and communities and ' .... that the thinking about and attitude toward people, and the demonstration of these experiences is the same in all three situations' (page xii). This assumption can be challenged (Swartz, 1986) and it raises a number of issues which the authors do not address. The book is divided into five sections with an equal emphasis on both theory and practice. Section A is titled, 'Thinking About People' and Section B is titled, 'The Facilitator's Values'. These two sections form the theoretical foundation for the book. The practical application is covered in Section C which is titled, 'Putting Thinking and Values into Practice: Dealing with Symbolised Experiences' and section D is titled, 'Putting Thinking and Values into Practice: Dealing with Unsymbolised Experiences.' A brief section titled' Some Special Considerations' concludes the text. The text is well written and organised and the different sections are well integrated. Section A is organised around Rogers's (Rogers, 1986) 19 theoretical propositions on personality. Their discussion of the person-centred approach differs from other South African texts (see Meyer, Moore & Viljoen, 1997) in that the 19 propositions form the theoretical core and these are then organised into seven thematic chapters. The propositions are presented in the form of direct quotes followed by a discussion in terms of individuals, groups and communities. These discussions are easy to follow and the illustrative examples are generally useful. While this format is accessible it does have certain drawbacks. It does not allow a fuller and more integrated discussion of Rogers's work. The philosophy and history underlying this approach is absent and concepts present in most discussions of Rogers' work (like the actualising tendency and congruence and incongruence) are not discussed. Section B allows the facilitator to reflect on his/her own values. The authors stress the importance of values and define values rather broadly as the ' ... facilitators entire attitude towards mankind' (p. 73). This 'entire' though does not include sociopolitical and ideological issues and the authors confine themselves to a narrower discussion of respect, individuation, selfdetermination and confidentiality. Sections C and D discuss the skills needed by the facilitator and cover attentiveness, listening, empathy and advanced empathy. This is nicely structured with the discussion on individuals and groups being more useful.It identifies the different skills required and provides some useful illustrations. In terms of presentation this section could be more interactive and facilitate 187