In conversation: What it really means to be non-directive
Therapy Today, November 2024

To direct or not to direct, that is the question – or is it? A stereotype depicting personcentred therapy as ‘passive’ persists. In my view, at the core of this stereotype is a misunderstanding of nondirectivity, the defining characteristic of person-centred therapy. In Rogers’ day, this stereotype was used to misrepresent and undermine a radical new therapeutic approach. Different agendas may be at play today, but of course there is no smoke without fire. I wonder if this stereotype is fuelled by a diluted understanding of person-centred theory and practice, perhaps the inevitable consequence of a proliferation of integrative training courses?

When simply understood as meaning ‘to not direct’, non-directivity becomes reduced to a limiting set of behaviours – a therapist who nods and repeats what their client has just said. Paradoxically, the maxim that non-directivity means ‘being not doing’ adds to the confusion. It creates (at least for some) the image of a therapist sitting back, not engaging. But these caricatures are the opposite of what person-centred therapy is about. Working as a person-centred therapist is an active process. It requires psychological contact between you and your client (and it is just as possible that you might be out of contact as it is for your client). It involves your client perceiving you as an ally, someone who is striving to understand them from their point of view and not judging them. It demands that you are tuning into whatever is going on within you, and between you, noticing and responding to those moments when you experience disconnection, judgment and all/any other reaction(s) that inform, or disrupt, your relationship with your client. 

I realised that something central was missing in The Handbook of Person- Centred Psychotherapy and Counselling when I joined the editorial team for its third edition. Non-directivity was the ‘elephant in the book’. I proposed writing a new chapter called ‘The nondirective attitude’. 

In the chapter, I draw on the rich tapestry of philosophy, theory, ethics and values that underpin person-centred therapy to offer a clear and more inclusive definition of non-directivity. I share a case study in which the client described during a research interview what the experience was like to work with a therapist (me!) who was meeting them in a non-directive way. In doing this, my hope was to encourage readers to reset their understanding of non-directive practice as something that is active and responsive, not wooden and limiting as the unhelpful stereotype suggests. 

It was challenging to write the chapter – my fellow editors were not an easy crowd to satisfy! I discovered how deeply some of my own assumptions about non-directivity were embedded, leading to a rewrite of the ‘Frequently asked questions’ section (see panel). The chapter that emerged from the process will take on a life of its own now that the book has been published – and I look forward to discovering the direction that it finds. 

Therapy Today, November 2024

Chapter extract 

You might imagine that a definition of non-directivity would be as simple as ‘to not direct’. But what does that really mean? In order to define non-directivity in person-centred theory and practice, we must first understand the philosophical and theoretical foundations of personcentred therapy, ethics, power and the unique and unpredictable nature of being human that, together, provide a cohesive rationale for non-directivity. 

Schmid describes the person as both a substantial (independent) and a relational (interdependent) being, the unique tension of being human.¹ Therefore, according to Schmid, a person-to-person relationship involves both being-with and beingcounter; engagement and distance, respect for and acknowledgment of the other’s uniqueness, and a readiness to accept (and be surprised by) what they disclose. As I describe in this chapter, a non-directive relationship enables the therapist to relate to the client from both of these distinctive positions: as a companion alongside them, and as an other who is respectful of their unique experiencing of the world. 

Typically, person-centred practitioners point to the process of actualisation as the theoretical justification for non-directivity. Rogers proposed the existence of an actualising tendency within the organism that generates growth in the direction of greater autonomy, wholeness and complexity. It is this ‘tendency to actualise’² that provides the theoretical basis for adopting a non-directive attitude that creates an optimal relational environment in which the client’s natural and spontaneous growth process can be trusted to unfold. 

Finally, the phenomenological grounding of person-centred therapy invites a non-directive stance. Person-centred therapy can be considered a form of applied phenomenology, characterised by the therapist’s intention to put aside their own biases and expectations, focus their attention on the client’s experiences, taking care to describe rather than explain or analyse them, and to respond to all experiences equally.

Ethical foundations 

For Grant, theory is not enough to justify counselling practice – an ethical foundation is required. He offered an ethics-only conception of client-centred therapy, summarised as ‘the practice of simply respecting the right to self-determination of others’.³ For Grant, this involved not making assumptions about what people need, or encouraging them to accept ideas about themselves that do not fit their own world views. He argued that a therapist who is making decisions about what is right for the client is not respecting the client’s right to self-determination. This point is essential for therapists committed to working non-directively as some clients will not want a non-directive form of counselling. 

One of the central debates about non-directivity concerns the likelihood of influencing the client, intentionally or otherwise. As Brodley stated, therapists working non-directively do so with the expectation that the process will influence their clients in a specific way: ‘by freeing the client to discover his or her own methods and processes of change while unopposed by therapist goals and expectations’.⁴ Moon and Rice distinguished this expectation of an unfolding process from holding an agenda in which the therapist is invested in a particular outcome for the client.⁵ They noted that any goals for the therapy belong to the client and that ‘the therapist’s focus is on creating the environment for the client to make those gains rather than on the gains themselves’. Indeed, quoting Rogers, Brodley emphasised that the in-session goals that non-directive therapists hold are for themselves, not the client: ‘to be as present to this person as possible... really listen… be real in this relationship’.⁴ 

By extension, these goals require the therapist to listen for the power dynamic that develops between client and therapist in their relationship. According to Moon and Rice, ‘Having a non-directive attitude does not imply that one has a belief of lacking influence over clients… Whenever two people are in a relationship, they will influence one another. The non-directive attitude is not a therapist’s attempt to remove influence but rather an intention to refrain from exerting influence in the service of any therapist agenda for the client.’⁵ 

Proctor maintained that it is this intention to refrain from exerting influence that creates ‘a radical disruption of the dynamics of power in therapy’.⁶ However, Proctor noted the potential dangers for person-centred therapists in ignoring the client’s personal history of power, and how this influences the client’s perception of the therapist’s power and status within the therapeutic relationship. She proposed that therapists require awareness and sensitivity to the ‘ethics of an unequal relationship’ and to understand that their intention within the relationship may be very different from their client’s perception of their intention. Equally, it is important that the therapist explores and understands their own personal and cultural history of power, and pays attention to how this impacts their therapeutic relationships.

Being unique 

Each person can be seen as unique and unpredictable, existing in a continuous process of interaction with their physical, social and cultural environment – a nonlinear dynamic system.⁷ Sommerbeck argued that a therapist who respects each client’s uniqueness cannot predict what will be helpful for them, warning against the ‘expert’s mistake’ of interventions based on knowledge of what is considered helpful for the ‘average’ person.⁷ She proposed that the most logical response for the therapist who wants to respect their client’s uniqueness is to consistently follow and respond to this particular client’s process. 

Likewise, Levitt argued that it’s impossible to grasp the degree of individuality of each person.⁸ He pointed out that there are many different ways to understand a person, and that how we see another person is inevitably influenced by who we are, which then shapes how they respond to us. He concluded that each individual’s unique frame of reference has meaning formed by their own experience and context, and that ‘none of us is able to hold the ultimate truth about another person; we are only able to experience them from inside our own frame of reference’. 

This focus on the uniqueness and unpredictability of being human brings us full circle to Schmid who described non-directivity as ‘a genuine consequence of person-centred anthropology and epistemology [that] cannot be removed from the person-centred approach to which it is essentially connected… Nondirectiveness is an expression of the “art of not-knowing”’.¹ 

Defining non-directivity 

Drawing on these foundations, nondirectivity can be defined as an attitude held by the therapist from which they trust and relate to their client as a person with agency, autonomy and the capacity to grow in response to their own unique experience in the world. 

Each therapist will approach this attitude from different perspectives, life experiences and in response to their own understanding of human existence – philosophy, theory, ethics, the politics of power, even logic. It is a principle embodied in practice, a ‘principled non-directiveness’.⁹ Conversely, this means that non-directivity is not something ‘instrumental’, something that the therapist uses as a technique.⁹ A non-directive attitude cannot be switched on and off when the therapist decides that it will be helpful for the client: it is a way of viewing the other. 

In this definition, the non-directive attitude is not tied to a particular ‘response repertoire’.¹⁰ It is not about what the therapist does but how this attitude is expressed in the therapeutic relationship and, more importantly, how it is experienced by the client. No particular form of practice can be taken for granted: a client may associate silence with abandonment or even punishment, another might find it excruciating when a therapist’s empathic responding brings them too close to their pain. For this reason, the non-directive attitude in practice makes sense only in the context of the relationship itself.