David Forrest: Gestaltuk

… a ‘non-directive’ approach is seen by some to be a denial of the inevitable power of the therapist the second of Rogers’ six conditions requires that the client is vulnerable or anxious clients are likely to follow what they perceive as directions from them.

for person-centred therapists to pretend they are non-directive is to deny reality leads to an avoidance of the real issue of the imbalance of power the importance of the non-directive approach is found in Rogers’ Counseling and Psychotherapy (1942).

the person-centred view of non-directivity has been essentially structural whereas a functional view might be more appropriate. The importance of directivity is not in what the counsellor does but in what the client experiences. Whether my behaviour as a therapist looks directive or non-directive to my peers is entirely irrelevant The question which should be asked is not ‘is the therapist behaving directlvely?’, but ‘is the client being directed?’