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Developing Adaptive Change Capabilities Through Client-Centred Therapy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2013

Terry Bowles
Terry Bowles*
Affiliation:
Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VICAustralia
*
Address for correspondence: Terry Bowles PhD FAPS, Senior Lecturer, Postgraduate Educational and Developmental Psychology, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of MelbourneVIC 3010, Australia. Email: tbowles@unimelb.edu.au
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Abstract

Clients undergo change as a function of engaging in a therapeutic experience. To date, little research into the residual effects of therapy have been completed using client-centred therapy. Some therapies provide didactic experiences to gain and practise skills and understandings so they can be recalled after the conclusion of therapy. Other therapies preclude such interventions and instead emphasise the insights of the client and the transformative therapeutic alliance to facilitate change. This research is an investigation of the possibility that client-centred therapy provides clients with experiences to allow insight into, and understanding of processes to optimally facilitate change through therapy. The aims of the research were to establish: whether factors known to enhance change in therapy increased for clients from the beginning to the end of therapy; whether the clinical group (n = 28; intervention) scores differed from a nonclinical group at both time points (n = 22; control); and establish whether gender differences were present. Analyses showed that nonclinical respondents’ scores at Times 1 and 2 were consistently higher on all factors compared with clinical respondents. The findings indicated that scores did not vary significantly between Time 1 and 2 for either the clinical or the nonclinical groups of respondents. The state/trait-like characteristics of the factors are discussed in reference to their application in therapeutic and applied settings.

Keywords

client-centred therapyadaptive changehumanistic therapytherapeutic experience
Type
Standard Papers
Information
Behaviour Change , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 258 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

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