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Moments of empowerment: A qualitative analysisof positively experienced episodes in brief person-centred counsellingLadislav Timulák a & Germain Lietaer ba Research Institute of Child Psychology and Pathopsychology, Trnavská cesta 112,Bratislava, 821 02, Slovakia E-mail:b Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology, KatholiekeUniversiteit Leuven, Leuven, BelgiumVersion of record first published: 18 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Ladislav Timulák & Germain Lietaer (2001): Moments of empowerment: A qualitative analysis ofpositively experienced episodes in brief person-centred counselling, Counselling and Psychotherapy Research: Linkingresearch with practice, 1:1, 62-73

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Counselling and Psychotherapy Research 1 (1) (2001) 62-73 ISSN: 1473 3145 Published by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, 1 Regent Place, Rugby, CV2t 2P J, UK

Moments of empowerment: a qualitative analysis of positively experienced episodes in brief person-centred counselling Ladislav T imul~k I and Germain Lietaer 2 'Research Institute of Child Psychology and Pathopsychology, Trnavsk~i cesta 112, 821 02 Bratislava, Slovakia. E-mail: xvudpapa@savba.sk 2Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

38 positively experienced episodes in brief person-centred counselling with six clients were analysed. The Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) method was used as the prime research tool. Clients were asked to identify positively experienced moments in the counselling session during a post-session review inter- view. Clients and counsellors were invited to report on the feelings, perceptions and intentions they recalled experiencing during these moments. Three analyses were used to categorise the meaning and feeling quality of these moments, and a taxonomy of types of positively experienced episodes was also created. The most frequently reported positive client experiences were associated with empowerment, safety and insight. Other significant themes emerging from the analysis included: freedom in the rela- tionship, shortcomings of the relationship, assurance of the relationship, unfolding of the client's per- sonal meaning, and the importance of the counsellor's presence. Taxonomy of episodes revealed nine categories: four of them focused on the strengthening of the therapeutic relationship, and five focused on the empowerment of the client's self. These findings are discussed, and implications for theory and practice explored. Key words: client experience, person-centred, grounded theory, qualitative research, empowerment, process research

An increasing amount of psychotherapy research has focused on the question of how to identify, understand and create 'good moments' in therapy (Mahrer and Nadler, 1986). Based on their own studies, which used teams of expert therapists to rate video recordings of therapy sessions reflecting a range of different therapy orientations, Mahrer and Nadler (1986) generated 'a provisional list of good moments' in psychotherapy. Their list con- tained the following moments: provision of per- sonal material about self and/or interpersonal relationships; description-exploration of the per- sonal nature and meaning of feelings; emergence of previously warded-off material; expression of insight-understanding; expressive communication; expression of a good working relationship with the therapist; expression of strong feelings toward the therapist; expression of strong feel- ings in extratherapy contexts; expression of a qual- itatively different personality state; expression of new ways of being and behaving; and expression of a general state of well-being (Mahrer and Nadler, 1986).

These moments, together with the moment of 'learning about therapeutic process', were used by Martin and Stelmaczonek (1988)in their study of important moments in counselling. The results of their study, based on client and counsellor rat- ings of recorded counselling sessions, revealed that the most often marked events from the 'pro- visional list' were: expression of insight-under- standing; provision of personal material; descriptions and exploration of feelings; and expression of new ways of being and behaving. Martin and Stelmaczonek (1988) also found that the clients' and counsellors' perceptions of importance of specific therapeutic events were in agreement in about 30 per cent of cases. They concluded that client-identified important events reflected "deeper, more elaborative, and more conclusion-oriented information processing" (Martin and Stelmaczonek, 1988). An interesting f inding of their study was the fact that the clients remembered more than 70 per cent of important events six months after the end of counselling.

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Other important contributions to this literature have been made through studies of helpful events (Eltiott, 1985; Llewelyn, 1988), helping processes in therapy (Lietaer and Neirinck, 1986), significant events (Llewelyn et al, 1988), significant moments during the exploration of problematic reactions (Watson and Rennie, 1994), and helpful experi- ences (Paulson et al, 1999). This body of research has employed a variety of strategies of inquiry. The studies by Elliott (1985) and Watson and Rennie (1994) used the technique of Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) to gain access to client and counsel}or moment-by-moment experiences of the thera- peutic process. In these studies, audio or video recordings of sessions are made, with research participants being asked to review the tape and report on what they remembered having thought and felt during the actual therapy session. The research by Lietaer and Neirinck (1986), Martin and Stelmaczonek (1988) and Paulson et al (1999) employed open-ended interviews or question- naires administered at the end of therapy. Paulson et al (1999) also applied the technique of 'concept mapping' to categorise themes within client accounts of what they had found helpful in coun- selling. Elliott (t985) has developed rating scales through which clients and therapists can rate the helpfulness of events on a number of dimensions.

The question of whether different helpful events or 'good moments' are found in different types of therapy has been addressed in a number of stud- ies. Ltewelyn (1988) and Llewelyn et al (1988) studied differences in significant events in cogni- tive-behavioural and psychodynamic therapy. They found that, overall, the three most helpful kinds of events in the perceptions of clients and therapists were insight, reassurance/relief, problem solution and personal contact. Awareness was the most typically helpful event in psychodynamic therapy, while problem solution the helpful event reported most often in cognitive-behavioural therapy.

Lietaer and Neirinck (1986) investigated clients and therapists' perceptions of helpful processes in client-centered/experiential therapy. The authors researched 325 sessions, and after each, ciients and therapists were asked: Did things happen in this session that you feel were really helpful to you? Content analysis of therapist and client answers led to the creation of 33 categories of helpful processes, which the authors divided into three larger clusters. The first cluster identified as Relational Climate contained categories such as warmth and interest; empathic depth; acceptance, respect, and patience; confirmation, support, and appreciation; inner comfort and openness (thera- pists' perceptions only); authenticity and personal presence (clients only); and personal, mutual contact (clients only). The second cluster identi- fied as Specific Therapist Interventions contained

categories such as stimulation and deepening of self-exploration; offering specific procedures; therapist self-disclosure (therapists only); con- frontation and here-and-now feedback; confirma- tion of feelings, ideas, plans, and behaviours; and affirming progress/giving hope. The third cluster identified as Client Process contained categories such as having the opportunity to talk; taking the risk to talk very personally; deep exploration of experience; fruitful self-exploration (therapists only); addressing the core issue (therapists only); exploration of the therapeutic relationship; self acceptance (therapists on}y); self-insight; insight into situations and others; positive experience of self; and experiencing progress.

Watson and Rennie (1994) inquired into clients' subjective experience of significant moments during the exploration of problematic experiences using the technique of systematic evocative unfolding (Rice and Saperia, 1984)in process- experiential psychotherapy. Watson and Rennie (I 994) found patterns of client experiences of this technique that were consistent with the the- oretical framework of the model of therapy being used.

Taken as a whole, the research into client and therapist experiences of helpful or positive moments during psychotherapy that has been briefly reviewed above supports a number of ten- tative conclusions. First, in researching this phe- nomenon, it is necessary to compare client and counsellor views of specific events in order to gen- erate a comprehensive understanding of how therapeutic moments are constructed. Second, it is useful to employ iPR methodology, as a means of gaining closer access to the actual experience of participants during therapy. Third, in terms of implications for training and supervision, as well as theory development, it is valuable to concentrate on identifying helpful (and unhelpful) experiences associated with specific approaches to therapy.

The review of the research literature presented above was a partial response to the first author (LT) expressing interest in moments of experiential shifts that he encountered in his psychotherapy training during 'empathy lab' exercises that are typically used in person-centred training. The experience of participant and observer discussion led him to an interest in IPR methodology.

Rationale for the present study The study presented in this paper is similar in some ways to the studies cited above. The intention was to extend and deepen the understanding of 'good moments' which had emerged from previous research. The objective of the study was to explore moments identified by clients as particularly posi- tive within their experience of person-centred counselling.

"...it is necessary to compare client and counsellor views of specific events in order to generate a comprehensive understanding of how therapeutic moments are constructed"

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"As person- centred counselling puts emphasis on the felt, bodily experiencing of the client, we were interested in moments during counselling which the client found on an experiential level, to be somehow positive. We expected them to be moments of experiential change, and thus, also moments when a new self- structure, based on that experiential change, may occur"

Central to person-centred counselling is a process of clients becoming more congruent. Rogers (1959) defines 'congruence' as a match between the self and organismic experience. The goal of person-cen- tred counselling is to provide interpersonal condi- tions under which the client can initiate a process of precisely symbolising and assimilating an experi- ence into the self wi thout defensive distortions, Rogers says that in well-working counselling the client's "self-structure will be a fluid gestalt, chang- in9 flexibly in the process of assimilation of new experience" (Rogers, 1959, p. 234; italics in origi- nal). Gendlin, another person-centred/experiential theoretician, sees as crucial for assimilation to happen the attending to one's own experiential process, specifically to the 'felt sense' of the prob- lematic experience (Gendlin, 1996), This attention can lead to a 'felt change', 'felt shift', and 'referent movement' which is recognisable in one's experi- ence (Gendlin, 1970; 1984; 1996).

As person-centred counselling puts emphasis on the felt, bodily experiencing of the client, we were interested in moments during counselling which the client found, on an experiential level, to be somehow positive. We expected them to be moments of experiential change, and thus also moments when a new self-structure, based on that experiential change, might occur. Our intention was to explore these moments by taking into account the perspectives of clients, counsellors, and inde- pendent observers. Before undertaking the research, we expected that positive experienced moments could be of two kinds, each correspon- ding with the two dimensions of the counselling process: one, the interpersonal which has to do with the creation of a good therapeutic relationship (e.g. the client's trust toward the counsellor); the second, intrapersonat, which has to do with progress in the meaning-making process out of problematic experiences - a shift in the client's self- structure (Rice and Greenberg, 1991).

In comparison with the studies reviewed earlier, our intention was to focus more attentively on client feelings, while also being more sensitive to the interactional processes taking place between therapist and client. We believed that these dimen- sions had not been sufficiently considered in previ- ous studies.Our main research questions therefore were:

1. What kinds of feelings does the client report at positively experienced moments?

2, How do clients perceive their experiences and therapeutic interaction around positively experi- enced moments?

3. What kinds of therapeutic interactions lead to positively experienced moments?

The research was carried by the first author (LT) with the second author (GL) serving as an auditor, consultant, and supervisor, Both authors are of a person-centred/experiential/humanistic orientation. Our expectations regarding the phenomenon are presented in the introduction above. We also expected that our findings would be similar to the studies mentioned above.

Method Participants Six counselling dyads were studied. Three different Stovak counsellors (we labelled them X, Y, Z) worked with six Slovak clients (A, B, C, D, F, F). Clients were offered three counselling sessions (except the first client who was offered four ses- sions), which they could use to explore their current problems. The problems brought by clients included: relationship issues, misunderstandings with parents, interpersonal problems in general, work problems, life meaning issues (God), and doubts about the future. For all clients except one (A), it was their first experience of counselling~ All counsellors were psychologists with training in person-centred counselling and psychotherapy as described in Mearns and Thorne (1988) and Mearns (1997), and had between 3 and 13 years of experience as therapists. Clients were recruited through counsellors, the researcher, or through a colleague at university. Clients were university stu- dents or university graduates. Three clients were men (B, C & F), and three were women (A, D & El. They ranged from 20 to 28 years of age (M=23.33; SD= 3.77). All clients were screened {)sing the Eysenck Personality Inventory (Stovak version; Ruisel and Mullner, 1982; Vonkomer and Miglierini, 1979). They did not show severe pathology and provided a low lie-score, which was convenient for the study.

Measures After the final session, all the dyads completed the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (Barrett- Lennard, 1986) which serves as a measure of four relationship qualities (level of acceptance, empathy, unconditionality, and congruence). In four cases (A, C, D & E) the client and counsellor agreed that positive levels of these core conditions had been achieved. The perceptions of two clients (B & F) were lower than the perceptions of their counsel- lors in all four relationship qualities. In post-coun- selling evaluation interviews, all the clients (except client B) described counselling as helpful and meaningful. Client B reported no benefit from counselling except that it was a new experience.

Interpersonal process recall Every counselling session was videotaped (14 ses- sions) or audio taped (6 sessions). Immediately after

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the session the main researcher (LT) interviewed first the client and then the counsellor. The inter- view was conducted as an interpersonal process recall (IPR; see Elliott, 1986). The interview with the client started with general questions: How did you feel before the session? How did you feel during the session and after the session? These questions served only as a context for further, pri- mary questions. After these preliminary questions the client was asked whether she or he could recall moments that were experienced to be somehow positive during the session. If the client could recall such moments the client and researcher both searched for it on the tape and briefly replayed it. Then the client was asked the following questions: What kind of feeling did you experience at/around that moment? What was on your mind? How did you perceive that moment and the counsellor at/around that moment? The emphasis was put on recall, not on interpretations of the moment. The interview was conducted in a non-directive way to let the client lead. The whole interview was audiotaped. If the client remembered more than one moment per session, we repeated the same interview procedure for each moment, After the client, the counsellor was interviewed in a similar way, starting again with general questions about his or her feelings before, during, and after the ses- sion. Then the client-identified moments were replayed for the counsellor and a research inter- view was conducted separately for each. The IPR interview with the counsellor contained the fol- lowing questions: What did you have in your mind at/around the moment? How did you per- ceive the moment and the client? What did you want to communicate to the client? The manner of interviewing was similar to the one used with the clients.

Research sample The research sample consisted of the 38 moments that clients experienced to be positive, together with information about the context of these moments taken from research interviews with the clients and their therapists around their experiences of these moments, The identified moments together with their session-context are called episodes. By 'episode' we mean "a meaningful sequence of interaction that forms a unit" (Greenberg, 1986, p. 715). The centre of an episode was a client's identified moment. The average number of identified moments in one session was M=2.0 (SD= 1.0). Client A reported 8 moments in four sessions; the rest of the clients had three sessions with 5 moments (client B), 8 moments (client C), 4 moments (client D), 7 moments (client E), and 6 moments (client F),

Gathering and preparing the data Before analysing the data, all IPR interviews and parts of the counselling sessions (around the pos- itive moments) were transcribed by the main researcher and then checked by an independent reader. The transcripts of IPR interviews were transformed into protocols, which were a con- densed form of the interview itself. In the proto- col, the verbatim transcript was divided into separate 'meaning units', which were then con- densed into an abbreviated form while keeping the meaning of the unit.

Data analysis Analysis consisted of interpretive readings of the material across three domains each corre- sponding to the research questions which had informed the study. We analysed (i) the quality of the client's felt experience; (ii) the client's recol- lections of positively experienced moments in the context of the therapeutic relationship; and (iii) episodes containing positively experienced moments, taking into consideration the totality of the event and its context (i,e. episode tran- script, client's perspective, counsellor's perspec- tive, external evaluation of episode, etc.). In more detail, these three analytic stages comprised the following activities:

Quality of the client's felt experience. The main researcher (LT) looked for similarities and differences between the feelings in different moments. Several experienced qualities were tocalised and a mutually exclusive category system was set up. When the category system was established by the researcher, an independ- ent judge tried to sort the clients' experienced qualities to the prepared category system. There was an agreement between the two in 95 per cent of category allocations. All examples of non-agreement categories were sorted after discussion.

The client's recollections of experiences of positively experienced moments in the con- text of the therapeutic relationship. The ana- Lytic approach during this phase of the study was informed by the principles of grounded theory described by Glaser and Strauss (1971) and Rennie et al (1988). Abbreviated meaning-units were considered to be coding units and com- pared each with each. Constant comparison of all the data was used to search for commonalties. All coding units were grouped according to their meaning in clusters. Every coding unit was placed in as many clusters as possible according to its meaning. Thus the different clusters consisting of similar coding units were created and then named taking into account meanings of

"The analytic approach ...was informed by the principles of grounded theory method described by Giaser and Strauss (1971) and Rennie, Philips, and Quartaro (1988)"

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"...the quality feeling of empowerment was present in every client and in 50 per cent of episodes"

coding units. Thus we formed categories encompassing generalisations and essentialities in the data. The next step was to look for com- monalties between categories. Through that, higher order categories were created, which captured more general contours of the data. This step was repeated until a hierarchy of two main categories was established. The analysis was first done by the main researcher (LT) and then repeated by an independent judge. The final version of the hierarchy was made after a discussion between the two. A part of the analy- sis was also checked by and discussed with the auditor (GL).

Episodes containing positively experienced moments. In this phase of the analysis, each episode was first evaluated by the main researcher (LT) as a whole while taking into account the session transcript and also both perspectives (the clients' and the counsellors') from the IPR interview. Based on episode description and its interpretation, clinical evalu- ation was made at four bevels: (1) the client's experienced quality; (2) the client's process (his/her communication, intentions and reflec- tions as apparent from session transcripts and the IPR interview); (3) the counsellor's process (his/her communication, intentions and reflec- tions as apparent from session transcripts and the IPR interview); and (4) the pattern of thera- peutic interaction. Short descriptions (one or two sentences), capturing the essence of the episode at the specific level, were made on each of four Levels. When similarities in the shortened level description of episodes were seen, the episodes were grouped under the same cluster of episodes. Then each cluster of episodes was briefly described in a more gen- eral way on each of the above mentioned levels. The description on each level in each cluster was analysed to capture commonalties on each level inside the cluster. Furthermore, each cluster was named according to the main characteristics of episodes it contained. Next, higher order clusters were made according to similarities between clusters. Thus a hierarchical taxonomy of different types of episodes was established. This taxonomy was then used for exclusive sorting of all episodes by an inde- pendent judge (psychologist) who used only general descriptions of clusters as a cue for the evaluation. In 29 cases out of 38 her judge- ment was the same as that of the main researcher. Differences in the evaluation were discussed and taxonomy was refined according to the discussion. A part of the analysis was also checked by and discussed with the second author (GL).

Results The quality of the client's felt experience The analysis of the feeling qualities experienced and remembered by the clients generated six different categories of experiencing. The quality feeling of empowerment was present in every client and in 50 per cent of the episodes. Examples of this category were: "it was such an inner strength"; "1 was proud of myself"; "it made me step further, it encouraged me, made me be more brave". A feeling of safety was present in five clients and in 38 per cent of the episodes, Examples of client expression of a sense of safety included: "I could open up"; "gradual coming of safety". A quality of feeling of discovery was present in three clients and in 10.5 per cent of the episodes. Examples of this felt quality were: "Aha, I hadn't seen that ... I have started to be aware of it"; "it opened new doors for me". A feeling of gaiety was present in two clients and in 8 per cent of the episodes (examples: "1 wanted to laugh"; "it made me laugh"). Two other qualities were present only once (in one episode): feeling of being moved ("as if my tears would like to come out") and feeling of being interested ("1 want to know so I listen ... [to] facts, which are interesting to me").

Client perceptions of positively experienced moments Analysis of data related to the domain of the client's recollections of experiences of positively experienced moments produced 22 non-mutu- ally-exclusive first-order categories, 5 second- order categories, and 2 main categories (see Table 1 ). For economy of space we have omitted here the description of each first-order category and merely present abbreviated descriptions of the second-order categories.

The category freedom in the relationship encompasses the client's experience of feeling good in the presence of the therapist due to mutual attunement, and because of being respected and valued. Examples include: "...good was that I could be in charge... "; "...I wanted to laugh... ". The category reservations about the therapeutic relationship captures the client's uneasiness in the relationship, tn the context of the positively experienced moments recorded in this study, these client dissatisfac- tions were mostly mentioned as having just been overcome in a positively experienced moment. Nevertheless, in a minority of the clients' reflec- tions, uneasiness was still present despite the positiveness of the moment. Examples of this category included: "...I was not sure whether the counsellor was not tense about some- thing..."; "...the counsellor is somebody who

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does not have to care... "; "...the counsellor started to be defensive... ". Confidence in the relationship is a cat- egory which represents clients' accounts of the empow- ering effect of the therapeutic relationship. The relationship with the counsellor was reported as being safe, open, and potentially enriching (examples: "...1 could feel that I could trust him..."; "...he is no longer a stranger to me..."; "..,before that moment I had not been sure whether the counsellor was relaxed... "). These three categories can be subsumed within a main category (focus on relationship), because they depict the clients' perceptions of aspects of the counselling relationship which are important for the client in the positively experienced moments of therapy.

The category client's pursuit of personal meaning captures unfolding, creation, and discovery of the

client's personal meaning; its newness, connections with self-structure; the client's satisfaction with the process of its development; intimacy of the process; self-acceptance, and inner empowerment of the client's self. Examples: "1 was (privately) quickly sorting out sit- uations when I reacted in a different way... (the client was elaborating on a new discovery of reacting to inter- personal conflict in a more positive way)"; "...as if the chaos was created and something new emerged, a new knowledge, statement, word, discovery.,.; "...when I was talking about the road (it is a metaphorical expres- sion for the client's direction in his current life) 1 had the feeling that I am walking on it... "; "...when I said that l had the feeling of being proud of myself...". Importance of the counsetlor's presence for client's pursuit of personal meaning refers to the influence

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"...empowerment arose from a variety of processes.., the client's internal work...the counselJor's exact and affirmative symbolisation of the client's experiencing, and initiated by the counsellor's evaluation of the client's .,.reality.., experienced by the client as a confirmation of his or her experiencing,.."

of specific counsellor interventions or behaviours in the cl ient's development of a healthy and enriching personal meaning. Some examples of this category were: ",..1 had the feeling that I could dis- close myself completely.._ "; "...i saw that the coun- sellor understands me, I could see it in his eyes.,, "; "...I had the feeling that the counsellor accepts these feelings, and these feelings disappeared... "; "the counsellor confirmed it and I have started to be self- confident, I have started to believe in myself more". These two categories could be understood as consti- tuting a more general theme or main category: focus on the client's personal meaning, which represented the importance of experiences of self-exploration and creation within these significant moments during the therapy.

Taxonomy of episodes In contrast to earlier studies of client and counsellor experiences of "good moments' in therapy, which have reported findings primarily in terms of cate- gories, one of the aims of this study was to explore the ways in which client and counsellor meaning-making and action is interlinked and unfolds within specific episodes. A summary of the analysis of episodes con- taining positive-experienced moments is presented in Table 2. The reader can find an abbreviated descrip- tion of the types in the table. Due to space limitations, we have chosen to consider in most detail the episode type which emerged most frequently: empowerment o f client's self.

The category empowerment of client's self consists of those episodes which resulted in the client's expe- rience of empowerment. Empowerment arose from a variety of processes: (i) as a result of the client's inter- nal work (e,g. self-satisfaction, self-acceptance, plans for the future, etc.); (Ji) following the counsellor's exact and affirmative (hope promoting) symbolisation of the client's experiencing; and (iii) initiated by the counsel{or's evaluation of the client's (interpersonal) reality that was experienced by the client as a confir- mation of his or her experiencing a problematic aspect of life. Some episodes were also characterised by ambivalent empowerment of client's self, i.e. even though the client felt empowered in the episode he or she was at the same time embarrassed or other- wise vulnerable. The counsellor, here, was experi- enced as intrusive or not supportive enough.

Discussion It is essential to acknowledge the limitations of this study. It is always a problem in counselling research to find an appropriate, representative sample of the population, The method used (IPR) requires reflective, motivated participants (Elliott, 1986), so the choice is quite restricted. The size of the sample was also restricted because of the time-consuming analysis. The number of research participants is on the border

of what is recommended for qualitative studies (Barker et al, 1994). However, one must be aware that the research sample consisted of a substantial number of positively experienced moments (N=38). As the ctients had minor problems and were relatively well functioning, they could represent the part of the counselling clientele that is seeking to pursue per- sonal growth, a better quality of life, or to cope with the realities of life typical of young adults. The coun- sellors were also rather young (from 28 to 36 years of age). What is advantageous is that all of the counsel- lors were psychologists who underwent exactly the same kind of training, making them quite a homog- enous group.

A limitation of the study was the intrusiveness of the video camera and the researcher during the coun- selling process. It can influence both the client (his or her vulnerability) and the counsellor (feeling of being judged by the researchers). On the other hand, according to Rennie (1990)it can also strengthen the client's conceptualisations of his or her gains from counselling. The number of counselling sessions is another limitation; it is very probable that in a longer counselling process there would be a different number of episodes/moments of specific type. It is also possible that different kinds of positively experi- enced moments than the ones presented here could appear. Limitations also arise from the IPR procedure (see e.g. Elliott, 1986). Specifically in the study clients could miss some positively experienced moments. There are also possible limitations concerning the analyses and in terpretat ions in this study. Although we tried to put aside our preconceptions of the phenomenon we are aware of the fact that our understanding of counselling (which comes from our person-centred/experiential orientation) led to the co- construction of the categories in the study, and influ- enced the way in which we interpreted the findings.

Despite these limitations, we believe that this study has made a useful contribution to understanding the nature of positive moments and episodes in person- centred and other experiential approaches to coun- selling and psychotherapy. Our research, compared with the studies reviewed in the introduction to this paper, focused more specifically on the 'felt quality' of clients' experience. Two major qualities were reported: feeling of empowerment, present in 19 episodes, and in all 6 clients, and feefing of safety, present 10 times and experienced by five clients. The felt quality empowerment points at the experience of self, recognisable on a felt and an awareness level, which may be a sign of beginning therapeutic change in the client's sense of self. The quality may be showing some overlap with Gendlin's (1970; 1984) terms 'felt shift', and 'felt change'. But its description, taken from the exact wording of clients, shows its wholeness, i.e. the clients are not just moving forward in some specific issue but their whole

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"Episodes which focused on the experience of the therapeutic relationship showed that the counsellor's transparent metacommunication about goals and strategies used in the counselling ... strengthened the alliance between the two. Explicit metacommunication of the counsellors' therapeutic intentions and ends is a somewhat neglected part in the person-centred literature .... Our study shows that a negotiation of the therapeutic process and its goals has the potential of empowering the alliance"

sense of self is moving, in the direction of larger internal empowerment. The category feeling of safety has an interpersonal connotation. It was safety in the presence of the counsellor that was felt. It is a felt quality, which may indicate a power of the therapeutic bond. It may be a sign of the client's preparedness for fruitful engage- ment in the therapeutic process.

Our analysis of how clients perceive their experi- ences around positively experienced moments resulted in the development of a conceptual]sat]on dividing client experiences into two main cate- gories. One focused on the therapeutic relationship and the second one focused on the client's pursuit of her or his personal meaning (Rice and Greenberg, 199t). As far as the saturation of the categories brought by the analysis is concerned, only one of 22 categories covered expressions for less than half of the clients. This suggests that the categories were well represented. The use of the grounded theory analysis in this study was similar to Rennie (1990, 1992), although in his research Rennie looked at the client experiences during the entire psychotherapy hour. The analysis presented here is thus a subgroup of Rennie's analysis. Interestingly, the category reservations about the therapeutic relationship corresponds with the find- ings of Rennie (1990, 1992) who states that the clients can exhibit deference toward the counsellor or therapist as a consequence of their inferior posi- tion in the therapeutic relationship. The important thing here is that the clients can very thoroughly examine the counsellor, arising from the uncertainty about the relationship, and the counsellor can often miss that fact. On the other hand, the category confidence in the relationship depicts the client's perceptions of 'secure' aspect of therapeutic rela- tionship at positively experienced moments. The therapeutic relationship can then be "a secure base from which the patient [the client] may feel freer to explore and confront warded-off and anxiety laden aspects of his or her inner world" (Eagle, 1997, p. 226).

Rennie's (1990, 1992) conceptual]sat]on of the client's private evaluation of his or her therapeutic experience was found in categories covered by the second order category, unfolding of the client's per- sonal meaning. The client is aware of more things and interconnections than he or she reveals and is also aware of what the exploration invokes in him or her. Another category focused on the client's personal meaning, importance of the counselfor's presence, captures not often fully recognised aspects of the counsellor's presence for a new for- mulation of the client's personal meaning. This fact is often forgotten when the term 'therapeutic alliance' is used for the description of the relation- ship between the client and the counsellor. It is not only the alliance that the counsellor can offer to the

client but also a specific growth-promoting inter- personal experience concerning problematic aspects of the client's self.

Our third research question (what kinds of thera- peutic interaction lead to positively experienced moments?) generated a taxonomy of episodes. As with the other analyses we carried out, the taxon- omy reflected two distinct dimensions of the ther- apy process: one concerning the therapeutic relationship and one concerning the client's progress in exploration of personal meaning. However, what was not expected and what stemmed from the clients' expressions as main characteristics was that the central feature of the episodes was the theme of empowerment.

Episodes which focused on the experience of the therapeutic relationship showed that the counsel- Ior's transparent metacommunication about goals and strategies used in the counselling (see type 1.1.1. in Table 2), or self-disclosure when the client is not sure about the counsellor's attitudes or per- suasions concerning a specific client's issue, strengthened the alliance between the two. Explicit metacommunication of the counsellors' therapeu- tic intentions and ends is a somewhat neglected part in the person-centred literature (the exception is the work of Rennie, 1998; Watson and Rennie, 1994). Our study shows that a negotiation of the therapeutic process and its goals has the potential of empowering the alliance. Therefore, it seems suit- able that Bordin's (1979) term 'therapeutic alliance' can also be used in the person-centred context as it depicts technical characteristics in the relationship between the client and the counsellor. The coun- setlor's self-disclosure - when the client genuinely asks for it - also empowers the relationship because the client assures him or herself that the counsellor wilt not have specific prejudices against him or her. The anatysis also generated new insights into the 'unspoken' relationship (Mearns and Dryden, 1989). For example (see type 1.1.2.) the client may engage in a process of judgement concerning the counseilor's intentions about his or her com- mitment to the client (this episode category must be looked at cautiously, however, because it con- cerns only two episodes with one client). Another aspect that it captures is the client's appreciation of the counsellor's respect toward him or her, the counsellor's adaptation to the client's needs, the counseltor's giving up of his or her power and its delegation to the client. These aspects are clearly consistent with a person-centred model of coun- selling.

Episodes focused on empowerment of client's self, based on exploration of a specific personal meaning, show several interesting findings. For example, clients can value the counsellor's gentle confrontation or offering of focusing on experienc- ing (episode type 2.1 .) aimed at elaborating on the

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understanding of one's experience that is some- times controversial in this approach (Brodley, 1990). These counsellors' interventions bring the client to a better focus on their experiences and their cognitive representations. Another subtype of episodes focused on the client's empowerment revealed that during counselling the client can experience significant moments privately, in these moments the counsellor has no idea that some- thing important is happening inside the client. This fact corresponds with a mismatch between the counsellor's and the client's perception of impor- tant moments in counselling as reported by Martin and Stelmaczonek (1988).

The episode subtype empowerment of the client's self foflowing exact and affirmative sym- bolisation of client experiencing consisted of 12 (out of 38) episodes with 5 clients which makes it the most saturated and frequent type of episodes. The clients in these episodes use the counsellors' verbalisation to better understand their experience and its consequences. The feeling of an empow- erment of the client's self is promoted not only by the exactness of the counsellors' labelling of the client's experience but because it is formulated in a way which brings hope and a meaningfulness that is worth living for. In the context of person- centred counselling it is surprising that the coun- sellors are ahead of the client's conceptualisation because it contradicts a myth that the counsellors in this approach are non-directive. However, what seems to be important is that the counsellor meets the client in his or her momentary need for such conceptualisation that the counsellor offers. Therefore, it seems that it is not that important whether the counsellor interprets or reflects but rather whether the counsellor offers symbolisation that articulates those aspects of the client's expe- rience that represent potential for further devel- opment. As an example, if the client feels lonely after separation from her partner, a counsellor's verbalisation that captures the qualities of loneli- ness, and especially the sense of longing for the other, is of more worth than merely verbalising that the client had been left. Verbalisation of these positive qualities in the client's experiencing repre- sents a facilitative and empowering understanding by the counsellor.

The episode subtype empowerment of the client's self, based on the counsellor's evaluation of the client's interpersonal reality pinpoints a fact that the client felt empowered when the counsellor disclosed his or her evaluation of the client's interpersonal problem. However, in each of these identified episodes the counsetlor's judge- ment supports a perception held by the client. For example, the counsellor spontaneously agreed that the client was really being abused by her colleague at work. The client felt empowered because she

could see that the counsellor's thoughts are not in opposition to hers, or because she could see that the counsellor understands the deepness of her despair, and that he is on her side in the interper- sonal conflict. It seems that there are such moments in the counselling process when the client needs to hear the counseltor's disclosure of his or her perception of the client's reality. And if this perception is congruent with the client's expe- riencing the client feels empowered and supported in further exploration and the effort needed to change the situation. However, there was no case of the client and counsellor disagreeing on the client's interpersonal reality, as may happen in working with family abuse or ethical issues (see, for example, Bentovim, 1998; Tjeltveit, 1999). The impact on the counselling process of such contra- dictions may be an interesting subject for further resea rch.

The last category (episode type 2.3.) focused on the client's empowerment and was characterised by the fact that positiveness of the moment in these episodes was experienced ambivalently. Ambivalence was a consequence of the counsel- ior's failure to support the client at the specific moment or of the counsetlor's clarifying con- frontation that was helpful and empowering for the client to a certain extent but also somehow embarrassing. The experienced ambivalence could also be a result of the vulnerability of the client's explored issue, which could make the client more sensitive to the counsellor's interventions.

The episode types presented in this taxonomy certainly do not cover all possible types existing in the process of counselling. However, their descrip- tion and conceptualisation puts them in coherent taxonomy and allows use of the taxonomy as a pre-structure for further similar kinds of research.

Comparing our work with the similar studies mentioned in the introduction, there is a lot of overlap. This suggests that positively experienced moments explored in this present study capture the same kind of phenomenon as helpful signifi- cant events (Elliott, 1985) or good moments (Mahrer and Nadler, 1988) in therapy. The differ- ences are mainly due to the different research methodology used or to different kinds of con- ceptualisation and interpretation of findings. Our study used a qualitative methodology, looked both at client and counsellor perspectives, and was more specifically focused on grasping the pattern of therapeutic interaction (including the intentions of participants) leading to positive experienced moments, and the felt experiential quality of these moments.

In the introduction, we mentioned that positively experienced moments could be moments of expe- riential change, Whilst there is a kind of felt change, one cannot confuse that change with the

"Ambivalence was a consequence of the counsellor's failure to support the client at the specific moment or of the counseUor's clarifying confrontation that was helpful and empowerin 9 for the client to a certain extent but also somehow embarrassing. The experienced ambivalence could also be a result of the vulnerability of the client's explored issue, which could make the client more sensitive to the counsellor's interventions"

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"There were many areas of personal learning arising for the principal researcher, as a result of being involved in this study"

therapeutic change. Not every positively experi- enced moment is a moment of rising new self- structure. Some are just moments of bettering the therapeutic relationship; some are just steps to further fruitful exploration, etc. What we can say, however, is that these moments may carry in them- selves the potential for deeper engagement in therapeutic endeavour and/or hopeful therapeutic end.

There were many areas of personal learning aris- ing for the principal researcher, as a result of being involved in this study. These include:

11 using more metacommunication with clients about the aims of counselling and its means;

I a greater interest in the client's perception of col- laborative work;

I! becoming more sensitive to accommodating the client's requests if possible;

I! more often offering responses focusing on deep- ening of the client's understanding (e.g. "what comes to your mind when you think of what you want from that relationship?") or on attending to the client's experiencing (e.g. "what is the worst thing in that situation?");

II when trying empathically to grasp the client's experience not to forget the growth-promoting aspect of it;

It allowing oneself to be more active in the clarifi- cation of the client's experiences;

II being more open to self-disclose if the client asks for it;

11 thinking of one's own motives in a specific inter- action (i.e. "am 1 really trying to help or do I follow other motives? ");

Ill more humility in one's perceptions of the client and our work together;

II being more aware of the client's deference (and having respect for it);

I becoming more ethically engaged in "the client's ethically loaded (interpersonal) conflicts";

II being more prone (though still rarely in the amount of spent time) to share cautiously (offer) own resonation (e.g. feeling, symbolisation, understanding) with the client's process while still focusing on the client's frame of reference (when thinking that it could be of benefit for the client), and many, many more that could be (and perhaps will be) the subject of a new paper.

We intend to continue this study by applying the same method to an investigation of longer-term counselling, with more distressed clients, and with counsellors working according to a therapeutic manual, which extends (or make more explicit) clas- sical person-centred formulations consistently with the findings presented in this study and some other formulations from recent research-based papers, including the work of Bohart and Tallman (1999),

Hill and O'Brien (1999), Rennie (1998) and Safran and Muran (2000).

© Ladislav Timulak and Germain Lietaer, 2001

Acknowledgements The Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Philosophy, Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia provided support for this project. A part of the study was conducted during a study visit of the first author at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium supported by The Flemish Community Ministry.

A substantial part of the manuscript was pre- pared as a part of a doctoral dissertation of the first author. We would like to thank Vtadimir Htavenka who was an official supervisor of the doctoral dis- sertation of the first author, and also did a part of auditing. We would like to thank the clients and counsellors who participated in the study; our raters and auditors and peer reviewers - Katarina Timu- ~ikov~, Katarfna Karaszowi, and J01ia Halamowi; John McLeod for editorial help and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. We would like to thank the English language correctors: Andrea T~mov~, Mike Scoggin and Ed Hesek. A part of the study was presented at Czecho-Slovak Psychotherapy Conference in Luha~:ovice, Czech Republic, in October 1999 and part was presented at the Conference on Client-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy in Chicago, in June 2000.

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