FEBRUARY 16, 2025
The Future of PCA
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The Future of PCA How to Serve a Changing World
Our hope is that this one-day online conference, “The future of PCA: how to serve a changing world”, will be an inclusive platform for the diverse voices in our community to explore the future of the Person-Centred Approach (PCA) in an evolving global context.
This conference aspires to create another opportunity for collaboration and continuation of a long history of the PersonCentred Approach re-examining itself, where we can collectively envision the path ahead for PCA and identify the practices necessary to keep it impactful and responsive to current and future challenges.
The following questions will guide our discussions during the conference. They will also serve as a basis for ongoing dialogues in the months ahead.
Are we still relevant and do we still have an added value?
What our contribution has been so far and what have been our struggling points?
What areas require improvement?
What are the challenges we face?
What have we learned from our practices and history?
How do we move forward to ensure we remain relevant in an ever-changing world?
Where are the opportunities for growth and expansion?
The Future of PCA
PANEL SPEAKERS The Future of PCA
HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Conference Schedule
09:00 - 09:20 WELCOME
09:20 - 12:30 PANEL 1 & Group Discussion
12:30 - 13:30 BREAK
13:30 - 16:30 PANEL 2 & Group Discussion
16:30 - 17:30 BREAK
17:30 - 20:30 PANEL 3 & Group Discussion
20:30 - 21:00 Closing
Maria Kontarini
Conference Host
Being a person-centered practitioner is the melting pot of diverse personal and professional experiences across psychotherapy, diplomacy, politics, business consultancy, and life in seven different countries. These varied experiences have profoundly shaped my perspective and practice.
Being a person-centered practitioner is the melting pot of diverse personal and professional experiences across psychotherapy, diplomacy, politics, business consultancy, and life in seven different countries These varied experiences have profoundly shaped my perspective and practice.
My journey includes serving as a diplomat in Bosnia and NATO, witnessing and navigating the aftermath of war, and embarking on an ongoing process of personal and collective healing. This path has fueled my search for understanding the factors that lead to conflict and my commitment to finding ways to contribute to greater peace and justice in the world.
One way I have pursued this commitment is by practicing the person-centered approach in my daily interactions within the therapy room, my family system, personal relations, and as a group facilitator which has reinforced my hope in the innate human capacity for growth and constructive action when nurturing conditions are present.
Building on this foundation, I acknowledge that the challenges we face today demand not only personal agency but also collective action, which we envision to nurture within the Peace Project in the 21 st Century. The Peace Project is the current iteration of what began in the 1980s as the Carl Rogers Institute for Peace, co-founded and co-directed by Carl Rogers and Gay Barfield.
Since November 2022, alongside Gay Barfield, fellow person-centered practitioners, and participants, we have been gathering as global citizens from diverse backgrounds. United by our shared commitment to peace and social justice, we aspire to create ripple effects at every level personal, interpersonal, and intercommunal.
John Wilson
Conference Host
I am a co-founder and Director at Onlinevents, dedicated to democratising learning in the helping professions. We host the world’s first and largest video learning library akin to “Netflix” for these professions
Additionally, I serve as a Director at Temenos Education and lead the Counselling & Psychotherapy Programme Our focus is on nurturing students to become their most potent selves, both personally and professionally.
With over 20 years of experience, I currently manage a private practice as a Psychotherapist and Supervisor, offering services through video, text chat, and virtual environments.
I also facilitate groups and am involved in the Going Global and La Jolla programmes, rooted in Carl Rogers’ Encounter Group movement.
I am a past Chair and now an Honorary Fellow at the Association for Counselling & Therapy Online (ACTO). I have served on the board of the World Association for Person Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counselling for 6 years.
The Future of PCA
HowtoServeaChangingWorld
PANEL 1 Speaker Bios
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Sheila Haugh
Sheila is person-centred therapist, facilitator and consultant/supervisor. Until very recently, she was the Director of Studies Course Leader for the MSc Contemporary Person-Centred Psychotherapy and Applications at the Metanoia Institute in London. She is a former convenor of the BAPCA, and former member of the board of the WAPCECP. She works in the UK and in the Czechia where she has lived for the last 14 years.
She was a member of the UKCP Training and Universities College and was involved in the process of getting the titles ‘person-centred psychotherapist’ and ‘client-centred psychotherapist’ registered in the UKCP. She is co-editor of two books and author of a number of chapters, the most recent being Bozarth, J. D., & Haugh, S. (2024). Unconditional Positive Regard. In M. Cooper, G. di Malta, M. M. O’Hara, Y. Gololob, & S. Stephen (Eds.), The Handbook of person-centred Psychotherapy and Counselling(3rd edition, pp. 200–211). Bloomsbury Academic.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Sarah Henry
Sarah Henry is a racial identity specialist, published author, counselling tutor, counsellor and consultant. Born in England to parents of Jamaican heritage, Sarah’s formative experience was a notable dynamic of complementary and clashing cultural norms. Elements of this disparity continued into adulthood and as she became more aware of her own racial identity and ‘not quite fitting in’. Her honest incorporation of these experience informs her empathic and nonjudgemental approach to her work in supporting others to become more confident and inclusive in conversations and interactions about race.
Sarah has a published chapter in the 2023 book by Pete Sanders and Janet Tolan titled People Not Pathology: Freeing Therapy From The Medical Model. This chapter is focused on the overmedicalisation of Black people in mental healthcare settings and offers both information and support for therapists looking to work with Black clients.
She has presented and lectured nationally on race, racial identity and social justice and has worked with University of Roehampton, OnlinEvents, Counselling Tutor, PCCS Books, Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body (CPCAB), Black and Asian Therapist Network (BAATN), A Disorder 4 Everyone, Medico Digital and others.
The Future of PCA
HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Jan Hawkins
Jan Hawkins is a Person-Centred practitioner, supervisor and freelance trainer. In 1994 Jan created, and co-facilitated, a Diploma course in Counselling Survivors of Childhood Abuse, the first initiative of its kind in Europe.
For the past twenty-five plus years, through The FDP, Jan has continued to run post counselling study days with a conviction that experiential learning is imperative for continually developing and deepening the core attitudinal qualities of the PersonCentred Approach. By aiming to provide ongoing opportunities for personal and professional development in an embodied Person-Centred environment,
Jan endeavours to support and encourage practitioners as they develop and evolve their own unique and creative selves as therapist. She recognises her own richness of learning through the diversity of those who share in these days. For twenty two years, Jan also facilitated a choir, where people of all Dis/Abilities, neurodiversity, cultural and ethnic difference, LGBTQIA+ – an ‘everyone is welcome’ group of 60 in the end, made wonderful music together.
The PCA, a way of being in all her endeavours, a journey of continual discovery, of encounters with colleagues, friends, family, clients, supervisees which bring hope and awe frequently. Jan has worked predominantly with those who suffered early childhood trauma, and those whose lives are marginalised by their cognitive and communication differences.
Having been involved in a variety of therapeutic trainings prior to arriving home in the Person-Centred Approach, Jan’s passion for connection, and awe in the resilience and Survival of so many who had never previously had an attuning relationship, means that she experiences her work as love in action.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Sophie Muller
I started my studies in international business marketing, and loved its creative aspects: coming up with new concepts, communicating ideas in a powerful way, and finding solutions to problems. However the reality of doing business quickly caught up with me, and I decided to focus on another nurturing factor: interacting with people. Education offered me the best outlet, and since 2002 I have been facilitating learning, first as a private tutor in France, then as a university professor in Japan, and now at an international school in Luxembourg.
I participated in my first intensive group encounter in 2013 (La Jolla Program). Since then, I have been an advocate of the student-centered approach, as well as a dedicated practitioner, even if I prefer describing it as a way of being to borrow C. Rogers’ expression.
Lastly I have shared with my students the three pillars of the person-centered approach as a path to a meaningful life, and it has been the most gratifying though challenging experience of my career.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Brian Rodgers
Brian Rodgers is a senior lecturer and programme director for the counsellor education programmes at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Brian has been involved with counsellor education over the last two decades at a number of institutions including Auckland University of Technology, University of Queensland in Australia, and University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.
He is past Chair of the World Association for Person Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counseling (PCE World), and is still actively involved in a number of the association’s initiatives.
Brian’s research interests include person-centred and experiential counselling, pluralistic practice, client directed and outcome informed practice, integration of research into practice, client’s experience of therapy/research, technology and counselling/psychotherapy, bi-cultural approaches to counselling/psychotherapy, collaborative learning and counsellor education.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Susan Stephen
I am a person-centred therapist, supervisor, trainer and researcher living in Glasgow, Scotland. I work as a lecturer in counselling at the University of Strathclyde and am director of the Strathclyde Counselling and Psychotherapy Research Clinic.
I have been actively involved in the national and international person-centred community for 20 years, and am currently a co-editor of the international peerreviewed journal, Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies.
I was a co-editor of the third edition of the Handbook of Person-Centred Psychotherapy and Counselling, which was published in October 2024.
The Future of PCA
HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Emma Tickle
Emma Tickle is Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham and the Course Leader for the Person-Centred Experiential Counselling for Depression (PCE-CfD) programmes. Emma trained as a PCE therapist at Diploma and Masters level at the University of Nottingham.
As well as counselling education Emma has taught Psychology, co-produced and delivered courses for the NHS Recovery College and provides Continuing and Professional Development and Clinical Supervision. Emma has clinical experience working as a PCE counsellor in multi-disciplinary teams in education, health, and corporate contexts, and runs a small private practice.
Emma is currently undertaking her PhD exploring PCE as a resource towards Social Justice while applying a Social Justice lens to the PCE approach. Emma contributes to the Centre for Research in Human Flourishing at the University of Nottingham.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
I have been learning and practicing person-centered approach for 50 years. It is just like PCA is living in myself and I am living in PCA. Through this experience I am interested in PCA on these areas.
1. Human and Organizational Development: It may call Bifocal approach, Human Development and Organizational Development.
2. Adapting PCA into social work, social work with individuals, with families, with groups, with organizations and communities. I believe PCA will contribute to make social work more humanistic.
3. Humanistic Education. I ever worked at a small alternative school named "Play Mountain Place" in Los Angeles as an intern teacher for two years. This school has been influenced by Carl Rogers' ideas. I learned many things from this school. Now, I am teaching my learning to Japanese child caregivers.
4. Buddhist counseling, "Dharma-based person-centered approach." I learned PCA and Shin- Buddhism (Pure-land Buddhism) from Professor Saiko Gisho. Now I am awakening both are deeply connected in myself. Saiko called this approach, "Dharma-based person-centered approach." This gives me the deepest awareness.
Kazuo Yamashita
The Future of PCA
HowtoServeaChangingWorld
PANEL 2 Speaker Bios
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
en facilitating in Person-centred Psychotherapy trainingprogramsinFranceandintheUKformorethan10years.Fabienneis currentlyworkingontheTemenosCounselling&PsychotherapyProgrammeand theACPFranceEuropeanCertificateinPsychotherapyProgramme.
ShehasaprivatepracticeinParisandonlinewheresheoffersPsychotherapyfor children and adults and supervision to individual Psychotherapy practitioners. Fabienneiscurrentlyofferinggroupsupervisionforpsychologistswhospecialise in working with children and young people who have been orphaned and psychologistsandsupportworkerswhospecialiseinworkinginaneducational settingwithchildrenandyoungpeoplewhoarelivingwithAutism.Fabienneis alsoanexperiencedbusinesscoachandworkswithseniorleadersandleadership teamswithinglobalcorporations,shealsooffersindividualandgroupsupervision tocoaches.
Fabienne Chazeaux
Fabienne is an accomplished artist and has a special interest in how the creative arts can support therapeutic process. Fabienne has developed creative therapeutic tools which she uses with students, supervisees, psychotherapy and coaching clients.
These tools have been developed to be particularly powerful in supporting therapeutic movement where there are no words available, which is often the case for clients who have experienced body and relational trauma or who find themselves paralysed within seemingly intractable organisational settings.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Arina Dogaru
n-centered psychotherapist, and I’ve been working in years. Through this work, I’ve gained valuable human relationships, the power of empathy, and the resilience people show in the face of challenges.
I’m also an encounter groups enthusiast. Working with groups in a personcentered approach has deepened my understanding of relationship dynamics and the conditions that foster growth and change.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Patricia Foster
I am a European Certified Person Centred Therapist, a Certified Focusing Oriented Therapist and Trainer, and a Certifying Coordinator of The International Focusing Institute New York. I graduated in the U.K. as a Sociologist and Political Scientist (1978) and then found myself in the world of Finance and Shipping both in Rotterdam , Holland and Greece. but after 23 years (for personal reasons)I began in 2002 a training in Greece in Focusing, and then as a Person Centred and Focusing Oriented therapist, I qualified in 2007 and continued as a trainer in training. In 2009 I returned to University and completed my M.A. in Focusing Oriented Therapy and Research Methods at UEA.
I also completed during these 2012 at the Center for Partnership Studies , with Dr. Riane Eisler a Certification in Caring Economics Leadership Program : Women’s Empowerment Track.
In 2012, I left my Shipping and Finance life behind and since then, I have continued to be involved in the Person Centred Approach and Focusing. I am happily ensconced in teaching and training Focusing Groups, Certified Focusing Professionals and Focusing-Oriented Therapists, as well as offering individual therapy sessions. I have continued my learning into the fields of Thinking at the Edge, Philosophy of the Implicit, Somatic Trauma Therapy, and Polyvagal Theory, all of which I incorporate into my life and into all levels of my training programs and sessions.
I find that each of these approaches are relevant to today’s ever-changing times, in fact I believe that their development and practice are a response to our intricate and often confusing world. I also feel that a good sense of humor is imperative to our therapeutic modes and wholeheartedly believe in E.Gendlin’s “The Politics of Giving away Therapy” and my guiding light is Roger’s view that “a person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity: a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material: a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.”
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Leonore Langner
I’m a psychologist and person-centered psychotherapist, and I’ve been working in private practice for more than 10 years. Through this work, I’ve gained valuable insights into the complexities of human relationships, the power of empathy, and the resilience people show in the face of challenges.
I’m also an encounter groups enthusiast. Working with groups in a personcentered approach has deepened my understanding of relationship dynamics and the conditions that foster growth and change.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Colin Lago
Colin Lago, D. Litt, was Director of the Counselling Service at the University of Sheffield, U.K., from 1987 – 2003. He now works as an independent counsellor/psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor. Trained initially as an engineer, Colin went on to become a full time youth worker in London and a teacher in Jamaica before becoming a counselling practitioner. He is a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. Deeply committed to transcultural concerns within psychotherapy, he has published articles, videos and books on the subject. To balance professional demands he loves to run, bike and dance!
In relation to this talk, Colin notes that he was fortunate to come into the profession in its early days, 1977, the same year as BAC emerged from the Standing Conference! Colin first came across the work of Carl Rogers whilst initially training as a youth worker in his early twenties, (some seven years before he trained as a therapist). He found Carl’s books by accident whilst perusing the college library shelves and was immediately impacted by the resonance inside himself of these ideas ‘which spoke to him directly’. They helped to affirm his own confidence in his beliefs and approach to others.
Inevitably, there are many strands to this developing story, as with everyone’s biography, but Colin was fortunate in joining with his new colleague who already had worked with Rogers in international gatherings. Inevitably, attendance at international conferences and large group experiences soon followed, enabling Colin to meet colleagues from many parts of the world. Such connections form the background against which this presentation will be based.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
David Murphy
David Murphy, PhD., is a Chartered Psychologist, Full Member of the Division of Counselling Psychology, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and Registered member of General Psychotherapy Council.
He is Professor of Psychology and Education and Director for the Centre for Research in Human Flourishing at The University of Nottingham, England. He is a person-centred psychotherapist, supervisor and researcher.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Peggy Natiello’s professional life has focused on Client-centred therapy and the Person-centred approach.
Her book, The Person- centred Approach: A Passionate Presence, was written to clarify the importance of Dr. Carl Rogers’s radical beliefs about psychotherapy, education, group work, organizational development, and life.
Currently she is reflecting on the perfect fit between those beliefs and the dizzying changes confronting our global culture.
Peggy Natiello
The Future of PCA
HowtoServeaChangingWorld
PANEL 3 Speaker Bios
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Gay Barfield
licensed MFT, was in private practice in Hawaii for the person-centered approach at the University of Over the decades Gay has published extensively on feminism, politics, peace and social change as integrated within and from the person-centered approach.
Along with many other women in the early 1970s, as a former long time fellow of the Center for Studies of the Person (CSP), she established the first personcentered women’s center in the San Diego area. She also created the “Living Now” Summer Institutes in La Jolla, California which run for 22 years until 1998. In 1984, alongside with Carl R. Rogers, she co-founded and co-directed the Carl Rogers Institute for Peace at CSP, applying person-centered principles to several then current international crises, leading to Dr. Rogers’ Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 1987.
Gay has received numerous honors recognizing her contributions to different fields. In 1992 she received an award from the County of San Diego for ‘improving human relations’, particularly for a series of cross-cultural ‘Living Room Dialogues’ on inflammatory US/Mexican border issues. In 2010, on her retirement from the University of Hawaii at Hilo (UHH), she was awarded with a Certificate of Appreciation for her many contributions to the MA in Counseling and Psychology
Department. In 2024, the statewide Hawaiian Islands Association for Marriage and Family Therapy created a perpetual annually rotating award named the ‘Dr Gay Barfield Distinguished Service Award’, honoring her as the initial recipient. In 2024 she also received an Award of Outstanding Service to the Department of Communication from UHH.
In retirement, she continues to periodically mentor/mentress MA graduate students at the University of Hawaii in Hilo and other therapists in practice. During the last five years through ongoing zoom gatherings, began during COVID, Gay together with other person-centered elders and colleagues from several younger generations has been the principal initial catalyst of the Peace Project in the 21 st Century; a continuing ongoing effort to apply person-centered principles to today’s multiple challenges and changes worldwide.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
a Blunden
Nicola Blunden has worked in the South Wales valleys for more than two decades as a therapist and supervisor. She has specialist experience working with trauma, cancer, domestic violence, and disability. She practises in anti-oppressive and coproductive ways, co-creating a new, unique therapy approach with each client, according to their wishes and needs.
Nicola has researched and published writing on plural identity, improvisation, ethics, decolonisation, and pluralistic research. Most recently, Nicola proposed a framework for pluralistic integration in person-centred therapy, for the third edition of Tribes of the Person-Centred Nation (Cooper 2024). Over the past ten years, Nicola has supported, and learned from, hundreds of trainee counsellors and supervisors in her course leader roles at the University of South Wales, the Metanoia Institute, and UWE Bristol. Nicola is a passionate advocate for epistemic justice, particularly for disabled clients and therapists, whose voices continue to be suppressed in our profession.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Norman Chambers
Dr. directorships of both the Multicultural Counseling and Consulting community-based counseling center, and the Carl Rogers Institute and Supervision, an institute whose principle focus the study and the development of personcentered psychotherapy. He is licensed in both Clinical Psychology Therapy. He has been a practicing Clinician for more than five decades.
Of amount of experience working therapeutically with underserved populations. Additionally, he has had more than four organizational development, trainings, and consultancies national, and international levels. Dr. Chambers has been Diego State University since 2005. He has had extensive experience serving as a facilitator of learning. He holds a Ph.D. from United States International University.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
rtin Lange
Martín Lange is a counselor and FOT who works in private practice with individuals and groups based on the Person-Centered Approach. He has been facilitating counselor training for 20 years.
He is part of PCE7, a group of Person-Centered professionals dedicated to organizing Encounters and forums, training professionals, and workshops for the community in general.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Will Stillwell
Will Stillwell, Ph.D., is a long-time member of the professional-personal community, The Center for Studies of the Person, in La Jolla California. There, somewhat retired now from his consulting and academic career, he continues his thirty-seven year association with work at The La Jolla Program. In the Program’s encounter process — originally inspired and supervised by Carl R. Rogers — participants share, risk, and learn to build safe and supportive personal and social enviro0nments together.
He is author of a number of articles and books. Through his directorship of the Rogers Memorial Library he has curated and edited a number of video productions concerned with Person-Centered approaches.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
Marcia Tassinari
Marcia Alves Tassinari, Psychologist, Specialist in Clinical Psychology, Master’s and PhD in Psychology. She founded the Center for Studies of the Person in 1975, remaining at the institution for 35 years. She founded and remained for 10 years at GFH – Human Flourishing Group. She taught higher education from 1976 to 2021 at private universities. Visiting professor and consultant for several Specialization courses in Psychology and Training of Person-Centered Psychotherapists in Brazil.
Since 1975, she has practiced clinical psychology in a private practice, consulting adults, couples and families. Founding partner of the Conexão Formativa Project, where she coordinates the Specialization course in Clinical Psychology in the Person-Centered Approach, in addition to being a teacher, organizer of Psychological Duty courses (Stand by Service), Study Group and organizes all national and international events of the Conexão Formativa Project. National and international speaker. Author of several books and articles, including: Humanist Dialogues: Meeting of Three Generations – volume 1; Empathy: the ability to shed light on human dignity and On Call and the Psychological Urgency Clinic; Humanist Dialogues: Meeting of Three Generations – volume 2.
The Future of PCA HowtoServeaChangingWorld
As a facilitator, therapist, and university adjunct, the person-centered approach has been her theoretical and experiential home-base since her first group encounter group with Carl Rogers.
Carol has explored human wholeness, brokenness, and our power in our personal and social relationships. Her work is cultivating alternatives to the destructive, “us vs them” zeitgeist in her writing and Going Global Workshops.
Carol Wolter-Gustafson
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