Beyond Carl Rogers

by David Brazier

Book by Brazier, David

Genres: Psychology

287 pages, Paperback

First published October 29, 1993

About the author

authority on Buddhist psychology, spiritual teacher, Buddhist priest, commentator, author, poet, psychotherapist, traveller, President of Instituto terrapin Zen internacional (ITZI), Head of the Amida Order, co-ordinator of the Eleusis centre in France, patron of the Tathagata Trust in India, has written nine books and many chapters, papers and articles.

Reviews

[Steve Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a little over 20 years ago I found myself struggling to hold myself together after 30 odd years of trying to pull myself together through maladaptive behavior in response to the burdens of an abused violent childhood, the trauma of having served in two wars, survival after two divorces, multiple substance addictions and a depth of self hatred that is almost unfathomable to me now. Clearly an unsustainable dynamic, something and to give; I did; crashing into a psychiatric facility unable to speak, almost catatonic assailed by hallucinations and intense panic attacks arriving in cycles. The end it seemed had come!

I was fortunate in the highly conservative context of Australian psychiatric care to fall into a hospital being run by a gifted psychologist following Rogers' Client Centred model. The several admissions and some years of therapy with this man provided the basis for my understanding of my difficulties and the tools with which I might work. The road from there was turbulent and often excruciating but slowly the insights came and things improved. The greatest gift I took from that experience was the capacity to engage in my own healing process alone. A shame in a way because shortly after my exposure to this place, a highly effective facility, it was subsumed by one of the large healthcare conglomerates and lapsed into facile, useless mediocrity. The very approach that had I met it in the hour of my greatest need would certainly not have helped me much and may well have killed me. A strong statement, but I have encountered places based on that model since and that is still my judgement. Fortunately the foundation laid int those early days still carries me.

At the time of the encounter I didn't know anything about the Client centered approach or Carl Rogers, I only came across this book as a result of my readings in Buddhist psychology of which David Brazier, the editor of this volume is a proponent and I am so glad I did. I was delighted to see expressed here things that have become such an integral part of my own journey. The door has been opened a little wider at a time when I was beginning to feel stuck, so now I can widen the exploration to other related works and see what unfolds.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the chapter on the perils of eclecticism and Lietaer's views on congruence were interesting.