Godfrey Barrett-Lennard

A fresh tracing of phases of experience from birth to approaching death is the terrain of this article. It is a momentous journey variably overlooked in everyday living with all the preoccupations of the immediate "now" of this journey. A new-born baby is conscious, and at age 5 or 6, enormous strides have already been taken in evolving consciousness. Experience in the period of primary schooling is a major further saga. Relationships are increasingly important and many children invent "imaginary companions" they are attentive to. Later, inner conversations become common. Dramatic emergence of the new consciousness of adolescence is almost like another life. By the 20s, long-term commitments, dreams, and preparation toward paths in life are prominent. Great qualitative unfolding of experience follows on through adult middle years. Late adulthood includes gradual transition to more reflective retirement and growing awareness that personal life will end. The gauntlet of a major health setback and/or loss of a life partner may have to be endured, though an easier or less conflictual flow in the absence of most "have-tos" tends to follow. Consciousness can become more mellow and even the approaching end of personal life taken for granted.

Written by a pioneer in person-centered therapy, this is the only resource to provide full access to the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI) – along with information on the instrument’s history and development and supporting materials for counseling practitioners, researchers, and students. Provides a complete instrument for measuring empathy in relationships, a critical component for success across a wide range of therapeutic interventions Charts the development and refinement of the BLRI over more than 50 years, with particular attention to the influence of Carl Rogers’ theories, and outlines the future potential of the instrument Contains all the materials necessary for critical understanding and application of the BRLI, including the full range of forms and adaptations, and guidelines for successful implementation Also presents the author’s Contextual Selves Inventory (CSI), which permits direct study of the self as distinctively experienced in different relationship contexts

The aim of this study was to translate and provide an initial validation for a full Mandarin-Chinese version of the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (B-L RI:MC) to include forms Other toward Self-64 (OS-64) and Other toward Self-40 (OS-40) for use in the Mandarin-Chinese research and clinical contexts. B-L RI:MC OS-64 was translated by a bilingual panel and subsequently administered to 658 Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese respondents online using an age-stratified random sampling strategy. Through both the factor analytic strategy of principle component analysis (PCA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the reliability and construct validity were investigated. The final results support the original four subscale dimensionality of the inventory. B-L RI:MC OS-64 showed Cronbach’s alpha was .96 and KMO = .97. PCA using Varimax rotation yielded a four-factor model supporting the sub-scales: level of regard, empathic understanding, unconditionality of regard and congruence, which explained 49.911% squared loading of the total variance. B-L RI:MC OS-64 and OS-40 were supported by the structures in CFA, which displayed NFI = .95 and .95, CFI = .97 and .96, IFI = .97 and .96, and RMSEA = .092 and .091, indicating a promising construct validity. In conclusion B-L RI:MC OS-64 and OS-40 versions can be considered appropriate for measuring the Rogerian therapeutic relationship conditions within a Mandarin speaking community.

This book describes a series of ground-breaking residential workshops in therapeutic counselling in the 1960s, for people working in mental health and social care disciplines seeking to expand and deepen their reach. The work is unique in the scope of its research into the process and outcomes of such active immersive enquiry in this area. Besides a wealth of more systematic features, the author invites us into the initial conversations in the meeting room, and then follows the group members back into their lives, allowing us to see both early outcomes and the impact of participation up to ten years later. Finally, Barrett-Lennard reflects on the extended history of the intensive workshops and the related group work in other contexts they led into. He makes a compelling argument that such an intensive participatory process is as powerful today as it was in the 1960s. The blend of rich qualitative and empirical data and theory is a unique strength. It will be a great resource for students and scholars in applied psychology and psychotherapy, as well as for practicing therapists and trainees committed to meaningful work with their client groups.

Written by a pioneer in person-centered therapy, this is the only resource to provide full access to the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI) – along with information on the instrument’s history and development and supporting materials for counseling practitioners, researchers, and students.

Provides a complete instrument for measuring empathy in relationships, a critical component for success across a wide range of therapeutic interventions

Charts the development and refinement of the BLRI over more than 50 years, with particular attention to the influence of Carl Rogers’ theories, and outlines the future potential of the instrument

Contains all the materials necessary for critical understanding and application of the BRLI, including the full range of forms and adaptations, and guidelines for successful implementation

Also presents the author’s Contextual Selves Inventory (CSI),...

In this important new book, Godfrey Barrett-Lennard challenges the individualist focus of traditionalist psychology by proposing that the human condition is basically relational and interdependent. Rich in depth and scope, The Relationship Paradigm explores relationship systems over an absorbing vista of multiple connections. This includes relations within the self, interpersonal relationships, relationships between and within communities, organizations and nations, and relationships with animals. There is a chapter on relations in war. The result is a sophisticated account of the complex weave of human relationships, providing counselors and other professionals who work with people with a foundation of thought that will offer fresh insights both for practice and the search for new knowledge.Combining new ideas with practice principles and illustrations, this is a book of rare value for students, practitioners and research enquirers.

Reviews the book, Practicing Client-Centered Therapy: Selected Writings of Barbara Temaner Brodley edited by Kathryn A. Moon, Marjory Witty, Barry Grant, and Bert Rice (2011). This book is a generous and lovingly edited volume. Its voice is one of searching connection and mature conviction by a person who steadfastly tended and advanced the flame that Carl Rogers set alight in the 1940s. Barbara Brodley maintained her humanistic client-centered focus on the experiencing individuals in therapy—clients and therapists alike—throughout the 45+ years of her professional and always personal career. This book also reflects the work and voice of a dedicated teacher resourcefully demonstrating, documenting, and showing the way to client-centered practice in the Rogerian tradition. There are many very interesting passages with concise nuggets of meaning. The empathic process is a primary theme in the book, and in another place the author examines "criteria for making empathic responses". Interestingly, two of the criteria have to do with some felt uncertainty and desire to check whether the listener is on track and correctly understanding the client's experience and meaning. One chapter is devoted to extensive and close study of the verbal manifestations and self-correcting path in therapy of empathic understanding and following. Naturally, the focus is not always on receiving and understanding the client's felt experience, and a later chapter methodically offers a set of "guidelines for responses from the therapist's frame of reference".

This chapter holds that self-diversity is a natural expression of our inherently complex nature and formative experience in diverse relationships. Plurality of self is evident in everyday relations and experience, is reflected in serious literature and is apparent from psychotherapy dialogue. It is also receiving support in pertinent research, though more such study is needed to closely decipher how the multi-self works. Human relationships are seen here both as engines of self-formation and as emergent from the association of selves. Self and relationship are thus viewed as interdependent partners in human life. Felt loneliness is a frequent expression of this interdependence when the self is unduly divided internally or cut off from its life in key relationships or wider systems of belonging. Selves can easily stream pass each other with little relational connection and nurture in the turbulent ‘oceans’ of complex modern societies.