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The Challenge of the Other: Towards
dialogical person-centered psychotherapy
and counseling / Die Herausforderung
durch den Anderen: Auf dem Weg zu
einer dialogischen Personzentrierten
Psychotherapie und Beratung / El desafo
del Otro: Hacia una psicoterapia dialgica
centrada en la persona / Le dfi de l'Autre:
Vers une approche dialogique de la
psychothrapie et du counselling centrs sur
la personne
Peter F. Schmid
a

b

c
a
Sigmund Freud University, Vienna
b
Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Francisco
c
Institute for Person-Centered Studies, Vienna
Version of record first published: 11 Aug 2011.
To cite this article: Peter F. Schmid (2006): The Challenge of the Other: Towards dialogical person-centered
psychotherapy and counseling / Die Herausforderung durch den Anderen: Auf dem Weg zu einer dialogischen
Personzentrierten Psychotherapie und Beratung / El desafo del Otro: Hacia una psicoterapia dialgica
centrada en la persona / Le dfi de l'Autre: Vers une approche dialogique de la psychothrapie et du
counselling centrs sur la personne, Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 5:4, 240-254
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2006.9688416
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240 Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4
The Challenge of the Other
Schmid 1477-9757/06/04240-15
Peter F. Schmid
Sigmund Freud University, Vienna
Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Francisco
Institute for Person-Centered Studies, Vienna
The Challenge of the Other:
Towards dialogical person-centered
psychotherapy and counseling
Die Herausforderung durch den Anderen: Auf dem Weg zu einer dialogischen
Personzentrierten Psychotherapie und Beratung
El desafo del Otro: Hacia una psicoterapia dialgica
centrada en la persona
Le dfi de lAutre : Vers une approche dialogique de la psychothrapie
et du counselling centrs sur la personne
Author note. Revised version of an invited paper presented at the Conference on Relational Depth to Honor the
Work of Professor Dave Mearns, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, May, 2006.
Address correspondence to Peter F. Schmid, A-1120 Vienna, Koflergasse 4, Austria. Email: <pfs@pfs-online.at>.
Abstract. How can we understand an other person? If we try to understand the other person from ones
own perspective we finally end up at something we know already (this is termed epistemology of the
same). The opposite way is to be receptive to what the other shows and wants to be
understood (constituting a ThouI relationship and an epistemology of transcendence). This is possible
only when acknowledging both the fundamental commonality (We) and the fundamental alterity
(Other). For the person-centered therapist this means facing the challenge of the otherness of the
Other, to be called to respond existentially to the existential disclosure of a person in the very moment of
meeting. A phenomenological exploration of intersubjectivity in therapy leads to a pro-vocative
understanding of dialogue as primary occurrence. Dialogue is not a consequence but an essentially
asymmetric precondition of a person to person or encounter relationship. The task is to realize the
dialogical quality in the relationship to each client as the constitutive basis for psychotherapy.
Zusammenfassung. Wie knnen wir eine andere Person verstehen? Wenn wir den anderen aus unserer
eigenen Perspektive heraus zu verstehen versuchen, landen wir letztlich bei etwas, das wir bereits wissen
(das wird als Epistemologie des Selben bezeichnet). Der entgegengesetzte Weg ist, dafr empfnglich
zu sein, was der andere zeigt und worin er verstanden werden will (was eine Du-Ich-Beziehung und eine
Epistemologie der Transzendenz konstituiert). Das ist nur mglich, wenn man gleichzeitig das
fundamental Gemeinsame (Wir) und die fundamentale Verschiedenheit (der Andere) anerkennt.
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Schmid
Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4 241
Fr den Personzentrierten Therapeuten und die Therapeutin bedeutet das, sich der Herausforderung
des Andersseins des Anderen zu stellen, aufgerufen zu sein, auf das existenzielle Sich-ffnen einer Person
im Augenblick der Begegnung existenziell zu antworten. Eine phnomenologische Untersuchung der
Intersubjektivitt in der Therapie fhrt zu einem pro-vokativen Verstehen von Dialog als primrem
Geschehen. Dialog ist nicht eine Konsequenz aus der Beziehung, sondern eine grundstzlich
asymmetrische Vorbedingung einer Beziehung von Person zu Person bzw. einer Begegnung. Die
Aufgabe ist, die dialogische Qualitt in der Beziehung mit jedem Klienten und jeder Klientin als
konstitutives Element der Psychotherapie zu begreifen.
Resumen. Cmo podemos comprender a otra persona? En oposicin a la epistemologa de lo mismo (una
teora de la cognicin que razona desde el Yo al T) la epistemologa de la trascendencia (cmo es que el
Otro nos hace comprender y saber?) se abre hacia la revelacin del Otro (que constituye una relacin T
Yo). Esto es posible solo cuando se reconoce tanto la comunin fundamental (Nosotros) como la
alteridad fundamental (Otro). Para el terapeuta centrado en la persona esto significa enfrentarse al
desafo de la otredad del Otro, a ser llamado a responder existencialmente a la revelacin existencial de
una persona en el mismo momento de encontrarse. Una exploracin fenomenolgica de la intersubjetividad
en la terapia lleva a una comprensin pro-vocativa del dilogo como ocurrencia. El dilogo no es una
consecuencia sino una precondicin esencialmente asimtrica de una relacin persona a persona o
de encuentro. La tarea es concretar la cualidad dialgica en la relacin con cada consultante, el fundamento
constitutivo de la psicoterapia.
Rsum. Comment comprendre lautre? Si nous essayons de comprendre lautre partir de notre propre
cadre de rfrence, nous arrivons quelque chose qui nous est familier (cela sappelle lpistmologie du
mme). Lautre manire de comprendre lautre est de se rendre rceptif ce quil manifeste et souhaite
communiquer (ce qui constitue une relation ToiMoi et une pistmologie de transcendance). Pour
cela, il est ncessaire de reconnatre la fois une communaut fondamentale (Nous) et une altrit
fondamentale (lAutre). Le moyen de faire face au dfi de laltrit de lAutre demande au thrapeute
centr sur la personne de rpondre sur le plan existentiel partir duquel la personne souvre et se rvle dans
lici et maintenant de la rencontre. Une exploration phnomnologique de lintersubjectivit dans la
thrapie conduit une comprhension pro-vocative du dialogue en tant quvnement primaire. Le
dialogue nest pas une consquence, mais une pr-condition essentiellement assymtrique dans la rencontre
de personne personne. Pour le thrapeute, ds le dbut de la relation avec le client, le dialogique reprsente
la tche inhrente toute psychothrapie.
Key words: Dialogue, alterity, epistemology of transcendence, ThouI relationship, intersubjectivity,
encounter, co-presence
ALTERITY: THE NEED FOR A GENUINELY PERSON-CENTERED
EPISTEMOLOGY
The coconut trap
Certain species of monkeys most of the Asian monkeys living on the ground can easily
get trapped in the coconut or monkey trap and other species particularly those living on
trees cannot.
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242 Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4
The Challenge of the Other
The South Asian coconut trap works as follows. A coconut is hollowed out and attached
by a rope to a tree or stake in the ground. A small slit is made into the coconut and some
sweet food is placed inside, something the monkeys cannot resist. The hole in the coconut is
just big enough for the monkey to slide in its open hand, but it does not allow a closed fist to
be passed out. The monkey smells the food and reaches in with his hand to grasp the desired
object. In trying to get hold of it the animal forms its hand into a prehensile hand. With the
clenched fist around the sweet the monkey is unable to withdraw the hand, because it does
not pass through the opening. When the hunters come, the monkey becomes frantic but
cannot get away. There is no one keeping that monkey captive, except the force of its own
attachment. All it would have to do is to open the hand. But so strong is the force of greed in
the mind that the monkey cannot let go it must have the delicacy and now the delicacy
has the monkey.
The tree monkeys, our ancestors, however, cannot be caught in the coconut trap. They
are able to let go not in order to forget but in order to better grasp, perhaps by using a tool
(see Slunecko, 2000; Nikaya, n.d.).
Evolutionary biologists distinguish the two types of monkeys. The evolution to the
human hand is the evolution from a prehensile hand to the ap-prehending and com-prehending
human being yet still well able to remain stuck to delicacies, desired objects and ideas of
all kinds. It is the desires and clinging in our minds that so often keep us trapped.
To let go in order to better grasp is an evolutionary achievement. All we need to do is to
open our hands, let go of ourselves and our attachments. The second grasp is the precondition
for development, for trying something new instead of repeating old procedures over and over
again. It is the precondition for human evolution, for knowledge and scientific development.
To let go of customs, habits, traditions and well-established procedures and ways of life.
It means not to be trapped by our desire to understand, for instance. Usually our desire
to understand leads us to try to classify and categorize new things by comparing them with
old ones and noticing the difference, which means reducing the new to something old with
a slight variation. When a group of tourists goes by bus from the airport to their hotel in a
foreign country, it is very likely that somebody looking out the window remarks, for example:
This is like at home, except that we do not have palm trees. We are bound to experiences
and fixed to traditional ways, so we grasp the new by grasping at the old, the unfamiliar by
the familiar, the strange by the well known, the Not-I by the I and thus remain in the trap.
In order to be able to really understand we must let go. We need to see the other be it
a thing, be it a person as a strange one, something or somebody that cannot be grasped, if we
want to understand them. We must let go if we want to approach. We must face the essential
alterity, the fundamental Not-I. We must let go of the same to find the other in the Other.
While this is true for all relationships, in this paper I focus on the therapeutic
relationship. Accordingly I invite the reader to let go of their familiar notion of psychotherapy
and counseling and risk a second grip. In this paper I am going to attempt to investigate
phenomenologically in what way therapy is dialogue by examining the nature and meaning
of dialogue.
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Schmid
Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4 243
The trap of the same
In his keynote address to the Person-Centered and Experiential World Conference in Egmond
aan Zee Dave Mearns (2003) demanded a new epistemology for person-centered therapy.
Indeed, for the therapeutic enterprise we need the readiness to undertake new ventures that lead
us beyond the trap of the same. This paper is a further attempt towards such a genuinely
person-centered epistemology (i.e. how we perceive and understand each other and how we
gain knowledge). It is part of my ongoing attempt to grasp, let go and grasp anew, thus more
fully exploring the foundations of the person-centered enterprise and advancing its theory further.
What we experience becomes our experience and our knowledge regardless of what
it is that we experience: what we see, hear, feel, sense; our awareness, perception, self-reflection,
action and contemplation, objectification, identification, empathy, whatever. (For example,
when we experience another person, this experience influences us, our way of perceiving,
thinking and feeling; the relationship to this person becomes part of ourselves.) All this is the
cogito of Descartes which finally makes the unity of our ego. In all this we bring the objects of
our cogito in, into ourselves. Thus knowledge always has the ambivalence of the other and the
self. Knowledge, informed by experience, brings the exterior, the other, that which we think
about into the immanence and makes it part of ourselves (see Levinas, 1989, p. 65f ).
Consequently, we finally learn only what we in a way already know and can fit into our body
of knowledge from where we can retrieve it and make it present. In a way we ultimately ask
questions whose answers we already know.
All such learning is like grabbing. With this grasp we take possession of the world
outside of us, we seize it. In ap-prehend-ing and com-prehend-ing we approach (ad/ap-)
something to take it in, to embrace and include (cum/com-) it. (The underlying meaning
of to get in to apprehend and to comprehend becomes clear by taking into account the
Latin meaning of the noun apprehensio = understanding, comprehension deriving from
prehendere = to seize, to get. The meanings of the prefixes are = towards (ad) and with
(cum) [Hoad, 1986]. Compare the term prehensile hand.)
In taking and apprehending we come to terms, we form a concept, a conception (in
German: wir bringen auf den Be-griff, was wir ergreifen, worauf wir Zu-griff haben).
Concept also comes from to take (deriving from the Latin concipere which is cum
and capere, i.e. to take, to grasp, to comprehend): what we comprehend is what we take
with all the risk of being trapped. So we come to terms. Term originates from the Latin
terminus with the meaning boundary stone, finishing post, finish: terms have to do with
limits. If we come to terms, we set limits.
Apprehending, comprehending is a possessive action: we overcome the difference and
make the other a part of our own, we take it in thus making it known and owned. Synthesis
and synopsis become stronger than dispersion. Harmony and cohesion become more
important than diversity and variety.
With getting hold of, we get trapped in the coconut trap of understanding: in the trap
of the same.
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1 Epistemologia
244 Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4
The Challenge of the Other
The epistemology of transcendence
Actually, however, in encountering and facing something unknown we have a choice: either
to start from what we know and can or from what we do not know and cannot. (Can and
know originally belong together, deriving from the Indo-German root gn; for details see
Schmid, 2005, p. 13).
This is illustrated by Emmanuel Levinas (1963, pp. 215216) favorite metaphor for the
two different etymologies. I repeatedly refer to Levinas, because I have been finding his thinking
most inspiring in re-thinking the nature of psychotherapy and re-understanding it. He helped
me to gain a fresh look at what we do in therapy. I do not intend to interpret him and do not
claim that my understanding of person-centered therapy (PCT) is an application of his
philosophy. The metaphor refers to the difference between Abraham, who started his journey
to an unknown country without expecting to return, and Ulysses, who made every effort to
return at the end to his starting point. Levinas (1959) spoke about the task of a movement
without return, pulling down the bridges behind, into an other, an unknown future. He never
tired of insisting on this new philosophy. Instead of Ithaka (Ulysses hometown) as a symbol of
homecoming, of returning to what we know, he demanded a philosophy of getting ready to set
off (see Vergauwen, 1993, p. 296; Schmid, 1994, pp. 136155).
If we start from the body of knowledge we already have, we are captured in the totality,
as the order of the whole is called by Levinas. In it the individual is measured by their
performance for the whole thus doing violence to them. The perspective is to assess the
individual with regard to a closed system of thinking. The radical opposite is infinity the
transcendence of the totalitarian status quo (Levinas, 1961). As the opposite of the totality
with its boundaries, in-finity is without boundaries, limits, purposes, finishing posts.
This requires completely changing perspective and beginning the movement of thinking
at the other instead of the same, at the Not-I instead of the I. Only if the other, be it a thing, be
it a person, is perceived in its or their otherness, does it become possible that this otherness is
shown without being assimilated or absorbed into the already known. We need not to include
but to distance the Other, not to comprehend but to alienate, not to grasp but to let go.
Then the new must not be understood by the old; the other one must not be understood
by the same. The Other must not be viewed like a text by its context, like an individual by the
group they belong to, but as themselves. The challenge is to let them disclose themselves.
Levinas calls this a visitation (i.e. going to see someone; see Schmid 2002b, p. 62): the Other
is coming towards me. This requires abstention from analyses, explanations, interpretations
and questions about the Other, even from questions towards the Other. It demands listening
as a person, it demands opening up to be touched. In Levinas (1959) words: the visage, the
face is addressing us. The face has the word. We are called to listen.
If we take the otherness of the Other seriously, it is not Descartes cogito ergo sum (I think
and therefore I am), it is rather videor, conspicior, tangor ergo sum (I am seen, looked at, I am
addressed, touched, welcomed, therefore I am). This is the leap from IThou to ThouI
(Schmid, 1994, pp. 143144; 2003): The starting point of relationship and understanding is
not me, looking at the other person; rather it is the disclosure of the Other.
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Cogito
Levinasiano/
Schmidiano
Schmid
Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4 245
This change of perspective marks a fundamental being-dependent-on-each-other, having
to rely on each other. It indicates an existential nearness which reminds us of a basic togetherness,
a fundamental We (Schmid, 2003). The proverb What we have in common is that we are all
different from each other correctly expresses this dialectic of essential togetherness and essential
separateness, commonality and diversity.
As a consequence of the paradigm change from egology (to see, apprehend and
comprehend everything from my point of view) to alterity, as opposed to the epistemology of
the cogito, of grabbing, the appropriate way to understand, to come to know, rests on the
epistemology of transcendence. As opposed to understanding oneself by oneself, this is the
epistemology of dialogue.
Dialogue: The occurrence of the original We
Accordingly, the word dialogue means mutual conversation, interchange in talking,
discourse (stemming from the Greek [dialegein], i.e. to put something apart
by thinking it over, the verb means to pick up, gather, collect; talk, speak). And
so, traditionally and commonly, dialogue is defined as human conversation face to face,
mutual exchange, statement and objection, message and contradiction, question and reply.
And it is thought to be the expression of the category of symmetry and equality.
I and Thou: Dialogue as the unfolding of interpersonality
But dialogue is much more than a meeting of the one with the other, more than interchange,
as a closer look to the philosophers of dialogue (or encounter philosophers or personalistic
philosophers) and foremost their radical advocate, Emmanuel Levinas, shows. Buber, Ebner,
Rosenzweig and others called their approach new dialogical thinking. This stance is opposed
to the philosophy of the unity of the ego or the system, to self-contendedness or immanence
(Levinas, 1989, p. 64).
For Martin Buber (1974, 1982, 1984), who discerned between genuine dialogue (each
of the partners really addresses the other partner in their being and aims at mutuality),
technical dialogue (as a variant of IIt in order to come to a functional agreement), and the
disguised, masked or covered dialogue (where each of two or three people in a strange way
talk with themselves without noticing it), dialogue is what follows from interpersonality:
The sphere of the interpersonal is the opposite-to-each-other; its unfolding is what we call
dialogue (Buber, 1982, pp. 275276). Its significance is not in the one and not in the other
partner and not in both together, but in their exchange. On the one hand, dialogue keeps the
absolute distance between the Thou and the I thus preserving the uniqueness of both; on the
other hand, the dia, the between goes beyond the distance without removing it. Dialogue
preserves diversity and transcends it. It is distance and intimacy. It is not a synthesis, not
Thou and I: there is no and between them, they are not an assembled or composed unity,
as a result of joining.
Dialogue is an ontological category. According to Buber, the dialogical is to be seen
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246 Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4
The Challenge of the Other
opposite to the psychological, radically attacking psychologism (see Friedman, 1985). True
dialogue is not transmission of information; it is participation in the being of the other which
is only possible if it includes metacommunication (see Rennie, 2006), i.e. mutual reflection
of the communication.
Thou and I: Dialogue as a primary occurrence
Emmanuel Levinas went a crucial step further. He was heavily influenced by Franz Rosenzweigs
Der Stern der Erlsung (The Star of Redemption) (1988) and his program of the transition
from conversation with oneself, from monologue, to dialogue face to face. Accordingly,
Levinas emphasized that dialogue is not simply abstention from violence towards each other
nor is it merely understanding each other, expressing mutual empathy. Dialogue, rather, is
the place where transcendence happens. To transcend literally means to make a step beyond
beyond the finishing post of coming to terms, of resigning oneself to the limits, to the
obvious, to the traps of understanding.
Dialogue is a step beyond the thinking of the one and the other. Dialogue is not the
experience of a meeting of persons talking with each other (Levinas, 1989, p. 72). It is not a
consequence of knowledge; the cogito is not prior to dialogue. In contrast to the cogito that
thinks according to its own measure, that takes, apprehends the object dialogue is of
original im-media-cy, is not media-ted.
Buber (1974) emphasized that the IThou is a primary word. To address another
person as Thou and thus enter dialogue is not dependent on a previous experience of the
other nor derives this Thou from an experience. Dialogue is not a consequence of an
experience, not the cognition, the discovery of sociality. On the contrary, dialogue is an
original, primary occurrence. As Levinas (1989, pp. 7377) puts it, it is the interpersonal
relationship, the original sociality that occurs in dialogue; it is original humanity to endorse
Mearns (2006) notion of and plea for humanity. It is encounter and encounter is
qualitatively different from having an experience (see Schmid, 1994, 1998b).
I-for-Thou: Dialogue is essentially asymmetric
So far Levinas is in line with Buber. But in his view, dialogue is not a circularity of I and Thou
(as he expresses his criticism of Bubers philosophy). Such is dialogue that it is not about
symmetry, as stressed by Buber, but dissymmetry in the relationship. It is precisely because
the Thou is absolutely different from the I that there is from the one to the other
dialogue (Levinas, 1989, p. 76).
The fundamental We is not a symmetric We. It is asymmetric by nature. The Other
comes first. The Other calls me, the face of the Other addresses me; it is a pro-vocation, it
demands (Levinas, 1963, p. 222). Therefore dialogue constitutes responsibility, solidarity,
a commitment. The Thou calls the I into service. The Other orders me to serve him
(Levinas, 1986, p. 74). Hence diacony (i.e. service) is not a result of dialogue; it is the
fundamental essence of the human relationship.
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In the famous interview with Philippe Nemo, Levinas (1986, p. 75) explained the
radically new notion of subject: I am subjected to the Other in the meaning of I am
subjugated, I am submitted to the Other what a challenging view for our Western world
of self-determination and yet what illuminating characterization of sub-ject! In being
subjected I become a subject. Subjectivity is not I-for-Me (which would be merely substantial),
subjectivity itself is relational, it is I-for-the-Other, I-for-Thou. Substantiality and relationality
coincide, with relatedness being (at least developmentally speaking) the first. Hence, being a
person is not being-for-me but originally being-for-the-Other (Levinas, 1986, p. 168; Schmid,
1994, p. 145). This is what distinguishes us as human beings.
Dialogical conversation is speaking for, in favor of the Other, interceding on someones
behalf (in German: Sprache wird zur Frsprache; see Schmid, 1994, p. 146). Solidarity is
not a second-order category deriving from experience but a first-order category, a basic human
condition. It is the turn from mono-logue to dia-logue, from thinking about the other to
addressing the concrete fellow person out of the dia, the between. It is the willingness and
readiness to simply say: Here I am. In the radical language of Levinas, this is the willingness
to be a hostage. To express it in more familiar terms: to be for the other, not simply be with
him. Thus dialogue precedes freedom (Burggraeve, 1988). Consequently, the good is not at
the end of our efforts; it is at the beginning, it is the beginning, as the French Alain Finkielkraut
(1987, p. 42) of the nouvelle philosophie puts it, meditating about sagesse de lamour, the
wisdom of love.
This asymmetrical relationship is the origin of ethics (Levinas, 1989, p. 78; on the
consequences for therapy as an ethical undertaking, see Schmid, 2002c, d). Ethics is not a
deducted consequence of a principle: the person is the value in themselves. The I is constituted
by his or her responsibility to the call of the Other.
The human being is dialogue
To dialogue in order to understand the other person would mean to grasp in the coconut trap.
We cannot grasp the other person. If we attempt to do so, we enter the trap of understanding
to put it precisely: the trap of seeming, of ostensible understanding, the trap of the self, of
the same.
Therefore, to speak is not for the expression of my lonesome self; rather it is an occurrence
of transcendence and thus radically turns the usual order between self-consciousness and
dialogue around: encounter in dialogue is the precondition for self-consciousness and self-
confidence. To let this happen it is the responsibility of the I to part from the self and open up
for the Thou. Dialogue is the non-indifference of the I towards the Thou, or, to formulate it
positively, attention, care, unconditional positive regard. In other words, to put it in a nutshell:
dialogue is an expression of love.
It is not the consequence of an insight or an action to be taken. Dialogue is a primary
fact in the human condition, an original occurrence. It follows: the human person is dialogue.
This is more than a nicely put statement, because it places our understanding of our being in
the world and with each other on new ground: being in the world is being in dialogue. From
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248 Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4
The Challenge of the Other
a dialogical point of view, persons are not only seen as being in relationships as persons
they are relationships (Schmid, 2004; Schmid & Mearns, 2006). They are dialogue. We just
need to let go to perceive. The same applies for psychotherapists and their clients.
CO-PRESENCE: THE ESSENTIAL DIALOGICAL NATURE OF THERAPY
It is particularly in therapy and counseling that we are confronted with the two essential and
contradictory phenomena of togetherness and separateness, the fundamental We and the
fundamental Not-I, at one and the same time. We experience heartening comprehension,
sympathy and interrelatedness and we experience an unbridgeable lack of understanding and
existential disconnectedness. It is diversity, the resistance of the Not-I, which is the challenge
and the chance in any person-to-person relationship, all the more so in person-centered
relationships. To face this challenge means to realize the dialogical situation of psychotherapy.
Various notions of dialogue in psychotherapy
Dialogue in psychotherapy is certainly not a new subject, as a glance into its conception in
various orientations shows. Besides a technical understanding (dialogue as a means in order
to ) and dialoguing as negotiating (as in systemic therapy) we find a wide range of more
or less existential meanings.
Hans Trb, Ludwig Binswanger, Viktor von Weizscker, Rollo May, Irving Yalom, James
Bugental and many others from the domain of existential and humanistic therapies drew
from Bubers philosophy (for references and discussion see Schmid, 1994). Viktor Frankl
(1978), founder of logotherapy, saw dialogue as a form of therapy, essential in the humans
search for meaning in their life.
In introducing a considerably different perspective as opposed to the traditional view
of the psychoanalytic relationship (and quite close to some humanistic positions)
intersubjective psychoanalysts of different psychodynamic orientations (e.g. Otscheret &
Braun, 2005) regard the interplay of the transferencecountertransference liaison as a
dialogical one.
Buber left his traces mainly in dialogical psychotherapy. Its representatives explored the
meaning of the between for healing through meeting. Maurice Freedman, Richard Hycner,
James DeLeo, Reinhard Fuhr and Martina Gremmler-Fuhr (for references and discussion
see Schmid, 1994, pp. 169171) contributed with their psychotherapy of the interhuman
(Hycner, 1993) to value dialogue in psychotherapy. Its representatives did not want to found
a separate therapeutic school but stressed that dialogue is a basic orientation for psychotherapy
and aims at the enhanced relational ability of the client. In a catchy metaphor Hycner (1993)
compared therapeutic encounter with a therapeutic dance (see also Mearns, 2000), stressing
that we are apart and a part. He criticized person-centered therapy, because it allegedly
views dialogue only as an additional ingredient after encounter instead of an essential
foundation of human existence and therefore an applied way of treatment itself. Friedman
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Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4 249
(1985), the moderator of the RogersBuber dialogue in 1957, saw dialogue as being possible
through confirmation in a Buberian sense, i.e. to unconditionally praise the uniqueness of
the other which requires more than empathy namely presence.
Quite a long time ago Rogers (e.g. 1962), with person-centered theoreticians and
practitioners, explicitly came to understand therapy and its necessary and sufficient conditions
in this interpersonal, relational way. In debates on and with Buber, Rogers was exploring
dialogue as descriptive of the psychotherapeutic relationship. In his well-known public dialogue
with Buber (Buber & Rogers, 1960; for discussion see Anderson & Cissna, 1997; Arnett,
1982; Beck, 1991; Friedman, 1985; Schmid, 1994, pp. 183200), the Jewish philosopher
challenged him on the extent of the reciprocity of the relationship between client and therapist.
(Interestingly, Mearns and Cooper [2005, p. 39] suggest that in the light of a ThouI
relationship [see above] the difference between Buber and Rogers could be brought to a
fruitful solution.)
Within the person-centered approach a dialogical understanding was stressed by several
authors. To name only a few: Pfeiffer (1989) examined person-centered therapy as a basically
dialogical process. Van Balen (1990) discussed Rogers development towards a more dialogical
understanding of the therapeutic relationship. Brazier (1993, p. 84), emphasizing
intersubjectivity, argues that the natural functioning of the person is other-oriented and not
self-oriented. Bohart and Tallman (1999, p. 18) stated that therapy is two whole persons in
dialogue with one another, a co-constructive dialogue, a meeting of minds. Tudor and
Worrall (2006, p. 241) underlined that person-centred relating is emphasized by dialogue
and mutuality based on intersubjectivity and co-creativity. They regarded dialogue as the
practice of constructivistic philosophy, intersubjectivity and co-creativity. Mearns developed
a dialogical model of Self (Mearns & Thorne, 2000, chapter 7). Together with Cooper
(Mearns & Cooper, 2005) he explored the therapeutic meeting between client and therapist.
In the course of my own writings the fundamental notion of dialogue in therapy as outlined
below has only gradually become clear to me (Schmid, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1998a, 2001a, b,
c, 2002a, 2006; Schmid & Mearns, 2006).
From a personalistic point of view dialogue in therapy is definitely not a means or an
instrument to communicate, nor a precondition, let alone a technique. But what does it
mean in the framework of a person-centered anthropology? Is dialogue an expression of
equality, mutuality and reciprocity, as we are used to think? Does dialogue signify moments
of intensive exchange in therapy? Is it an outcome of therapy or a comprehensive description
of the therapeutic enterprise as such? Can therapy actually be dialogue? Or even: must therapy
be dialogue?
Dialogue as realization of the fundamental We in personal encounter
After the period of overcoming expertism in psychotherapy in the form of prescribing, guiding
and giving advice in a word: directivity as healing we entered the opposite phase, with
an emphasis on non-directivity and an almost complete concentration on the autonomy of
the client, thus finally discovering the possibility and value of self-healing (e.g. Bohart &
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Schmid e filosofia do dilogo
250 Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4
The Challenge of the Other
Tallman, 1999) through meeting. Rogers and the scholars of the person-centered approach
contributed at a leading edge to this shift. It seems that at present we are regaining the
balance between being-with and being-counter (Mearns & Schmid, 2006; Schmid & Mearns,
2006) and preserve and supersede both in a stage of the discovery or recovery of mutuality
and commonality: the elementary We.
What can we learn from the radical humanism of dialogical philosophy (see above)? We
can definitely learn that a superficial notion of dialogue ends in the trap of the self. Dialogue
in therapy denotes much more: the persons engaged in therapy are dialogue which means
that dialogue is at the very beginning of therapy.
Again, we need to take a second grasp and let the established notions go. Our
considerations lead to the conclusion that we must completely turn around our traditional
thinking in psychotherapy. We must not come into dialogue with the meaning of achieving
it, or making it happen; we must come into dialogue with the meaning of coming to what is
already there. We have to realize that there is dialogue regardless of whether we are aware of
it or not.
This means that dialogue is not a consequence but a foundation of community (Schmid,
1998a). Dialogue in therapy is not bringing the client or oneself into dialogue. Therapeutic
dialogue is not about making community, it is about realizing it. It is about realizing the
preceding common We in all its dissymmetry. It is about realizing the misery and the
power of interrelatedness. Therapeutic dialogue is realizing the healing and challenging quality
of the essential human We.
If dialogue is characterized as being beyond the thinking of the one and the other,
beyond the finishing posts of coming to terms, dialogue in therapy does not only go beyond
an understanding of what therapist and client have to do in order to bring about certain
effects in or for the client. It is also more than just acknowledging a fundamental equality of
the persons and mutuality in interaction. Therapy is rather a joint enterprise out of the
fundamental dialogical situation of the persons involved. It is asymmetric, acknowledging
that the client as the Other comes first (Schmid, 2003, pp. 112114). The client is the
person in the center and the therapist is at their service.
If there is a way to go beyond the self, the only way possible is realizing that the Other is
truly an Other. If there is a way to the Other, this way is realizing the already existing, the
preceding dialogue. Therapy is not about the self, therapy is about the person. The person is
beyond the self. He or she is dialogue. To encounter a person is to realize that we are in
dialogue. Accordingly, dialogue is the language of personal encounter (Schmid 1998a, p. 58)
which is the realization of dialogue. It is only in dialogue that persons really are addressed as
persons.
A person-centered approach is an approach that unveils the dialogical quality already
there. Dialogue is unearthing and unfolding the interpersonal quality of what at a first glance
might seem a one-sided advice-seeking, helpless being at the mercy of somebody, stuck
development, intellectual stammering, refusal of growth, whatever.
Dialogue is the way of being with which correctly understood equals the way of
being for another person, an essential quality of the human person, an existential
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Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4 251
fundamental. Being human is being diverse. Dialogue is an irreversible principle and condition
of being human. Humans do not only substantially rely on dialogue, they are dialogue.
Therapy does not only substantially rely on dialogue, therapy is dialogue. (For criteria, see
Mearns & Schmid, 2006.)
To summarize the consequence for a dialogical understanding of psychotherapy: dialogue
is the authentic realization and acknowledgment of the underlying We. The client is the
Other in this We. The restoration of the underlying We is the therapy in psychotherapy,
because it is transcendence of the same. This is done by presence as the realization of the core
conditions (Schmid, 2002a). Hence presence is not a precondition for dialogue; rather it is
dialogue that comes to the fore in presence. Presence is an expression of the fundamental We,
of the fundamental Here I am. And to say Here I am is all that we have to do all the
more in therapy.
Psychotherapy is dialogue or it is not psychotherapy
This marks a break with psychology and ontology of substance and subject (in the traditional
meaning of the word). It characterizes the mode of dia, of between, of co-presence (in
German: Mitgegenwart) (Levinas, 1989, p. 79). It characterizes personal or dialogical
anthropology.
As opposed to the totalitarian epistemologies of those psychotherapies which rest on
the paradigm of analyses and diagnoses, genuine person-centered epistemology is an infinite
epistemology. It is parting from the self (see above).
To realize this we need to let go our familiar, traditional understanding of person-centered
therapy as mere exchange to realize its potential anew and to detect and explore what it really
means to be a person encountering a person (Schmid, 1994, 1998b) and face them at relational
depth (Mearns & Cooper, 2005). This does not denote a topographical category (like depth
psychology, cf. Tudor & Worrall, 2006, p. 43), it rather denotes a foundation: In the
beginning there is relational depth, not at the beginning (see Schmid, 1998a: In the
beginning there is community), not topographically deeper, not chronologically earlier, but
primary, fundamental, basic, deeply rooted and thus seminal.
Therapists realizing the essential dialogical quality in therapy need to go beyond what
they are used to doing. They need to go beyond what they are expected to do and to go
beyond what they can do without taking a risk. They need to go beyond the self and the same
or vice versa: they need to risk letting the Other come towards them, opening up for them
coming and disclosing.
Psychotherapy is dialogue or it is not psychotherapy. It might be skilful guidance. It
might be sensible advice, cozy comfort, necessary social control, experienced behavior
modification, complex crisis management, highly developed leadership, sophisticated direction,
whatever.
If therapy, however, means to facilitate the clients in their attempt to liberate themselves
from being caught in their totality, in their coconut trap of understanding themselves by
themselves, in their vicious spiral of coming to terms with themselves, in their getting stuck
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252 Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies, Volume 5, Number 4
The Challenge of the Other
at finishing posts, then it is not only necessary to resist and withstand the temptation of the
seemingly helping therapeutic grip, but to let go. It is, rather, fundamental to realize that we
are already in dialogue and are challenged to do nothing else than to be present in the full
meaning of the word. It remains an ongoing task to gradually explore and spell out what this
change of the perspective means in practical terms for our awareness and what consequences
for our concrete way of doing therapy result both, in general and personally for each
therapist. (For practical examples, see e.g. Schmid & Mearns, 2006; Mearns & Schmid,
2006.)
Encountering a person and facing them at relational depth as a person is neither the
final stage nor the goal of therapy; it is the foundation, the outset, the start the start of a
most exciting and challenging dance out of dialogue.
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