Peggy Natiello in conversation with Sheila Haugh

 In this episode of Person-Centred Conversations, Sheila Haugh interviews Peggy Natiello about the evolution of the person-centred approach, her experiences working with Carl Rogers, and her perspectives on the approach today. Peter Blundell contributes to the discussion, sharing how Peggy's book has profoundly influenced his own practice.

Peggy's Book - https://www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/the-person-centred-approach-a-passionate-presence

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Transcript

 Episode 2 - Person-Centred Conversations

Episode 2 - Person-Centred Conversations

Sheila Haugh: [00:00:00] I don't think we're, recording now? Sorry Peggy, should we start? Yes, I was wanting to know about your background, how, what this all means to you, person centred. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: I, everything about therapy was new to me until my mother began to have these psychotic episodes twice a year. And she was really, she was a fabulous, wonderful, compassionate, loving mother, but she would be out of control completely.

So finally, my father, uh, had her admitted to a psychiatric hospital and. The way she was treated was so appalling to me that I began to look, they, they gave her the, uh, electroshock therapy, the big heavy duty electroshock therapy when it was what they did. Now they can't do that anymore. And. And they took her away.

I, she was no more my mother when I would go to visit [00:01:00] her. The only thing she never forgot was her children's names, but that was all. So she was kind of gone and then she'd get home and she started to recover herself. And then she'd go into a psychotic episode again. So I began to look through.

Everything I could read in the field of psychology to see if there was something that I thought would be right for my mother. And that's when I discovered the writings of Carl Rogers. And before my mother died, she shook Carl's hand once. She was very old, never worked with him, but we had a, a big celebration for a colleague's, uh, doctorate.

And Carl had been on the committee and, and my mother was invited. So she never got to work with him, but I said, Oh my God, I love what this guy does. He would have met my mother. And immediately [00:02:00] he would have known that she was a woman, brilliant, married you. Intellectually brilliant man who was famous in the field of law, started his own law firm, got accolades everywhere he turned.

And my mother was taking care of four children. Nobody ever noticed her creativity, her. So that's how I found. Rogers and, and one day my father called me and said, Peggy, there were three sisters, Peggy, when you were born, I took out insurance policies on each of you and they're mature. I'm going to give you.

the money from your insurance policy. And I said to my husband, I'm going back to school. And I thought I was going for journalism. And then I looked down, there were five little kids born in seven years running [00:03:00] all over the place. I said, why? When would I ever get to read a paragraph, let alone write a paragraph?

So I decided to take a master's in human development. And it was the master's degree that I found it was based on Roger's philosophy of education and very quickly I was invited to be a group leader of students and then I was invited to join the faculty and but it was because Roger's philosophy and his, his exquisite respect for the For everybody, no matter how dysfunctional they were.

That blew me away.

So, so that was, that's all I wanted to learn about in those days was, and I think the reason my five children are so amazing, [00:04:00] two of them are international diplomats, one's in Jerusalem, one just got out of Iraq, is because of the way I understood now how, how to be a mother based on Roger's philosophy.

And I, there's nothing in my life. I'm more proud of it in my family. I have the most amazing, the The oldest one who's coming soon was raised by his father. He's a Wall Streeter, and I always say to people, well, Bob raised a Wall Streeter, and I raised a different one. And it's true. But, uh, and then I was so consumed with reading everything Carl had written.

One day, I heard that he was coming to the east coast of the Adirondack Mountains. And he was doing a 16 day workshop. And here I was with these five little children, but I [00:05:00] had a sister who was the most important person ever in my life. And she said, you are going to that workshop. I am babysitting and I am paying the tuition and the tuition, by the way, typical Carl self selected.

I had no money, extra money between 250 and like 4, 000. That was the range. 

Sheila Haugh: Wow. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: And Bonnie took a pretty low range. And in that workshop, there were 110 people from all over the world. And I would, and you, you drew your room out of a basket and I ended up in the kitchen over the kitchen with the staff, the kitchen staff, none of whom were in the workshop.

I didn't know anybody. I was really shy, timid, um, [00:06:00] on about the third day. There was a wild altercation that broke out between two men, probably in their 30s or 40s, and one of them became so enraged that he jumped, grabbed a chair, jumped up on a table, and threatened the other guy with the chair, holding the chair over his head. It was really scary. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah.

Dr Peggy Natiello: Somebody said, Dr. Rogers, This is becoming very chaotic. What are we going to do? Carl listened, thought for a minute, and then said, I have no idea. And I said, I'm home. This is the man that I want to study with. He lives his philosophy. He doesn't just talk nice. He lives it. He doesn't have any idea what to do.

It was [00:07:00] the most astounding experience of my life. And then the process went on. I said nothing for like 11, 12 days. And on the 11th or 12th days, 12th day, we got into the, uh, all, all the, uh, people wanting to say how fabulous this was and how I've never been in an experience that was this wonderful. And I've never known people as well as I know all of you people.

And I'm sitting there thinking, holy God, this isn't how I feel. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: I, I stood up and I said, I don't feel the way all of you feel. I feel scared. I feel isolated. I don't know what's coming next. And at the end, and it's at least 50 people said, Oh, Peggy, [00:08:00] and at the end of that workshop, and I wasn't aware of what was really going on.

But Howard Kirshenbaum, the developer of the Values Clarification, uh, stuff came up to me and said, Peggy, you turned that community around with, with truth, with simple truth.

So I was, and the next year I was invited to be on a staff with Carl. 

Sheila Haugh: Nice. Yeah. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: And then every. Like twice a year, I would, he would invite me to be on a staff and we became really, really close friends and he talked me into a doctorate and I said, why would I get a doctorate? He said, because it will give you much more influence and you have a lot of ability in this area.

So, the, [00:09:00] my core faculty. Of the doctoral program said to me, somebody told me, you know, Carl Rogers. And I said, yeah, he said, you know, well, I said, he's a really good friend. And this man said, would you ask him if you would take my place and supervise your doctoral work? Because. If you do that, your doctorate will count for much more than if you do it.

Sheila Haugh: I was good of him. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Yeah, one of the most fabulous people in my life. He was Carl, um, supervised my doctorate. And then last year, a guy that I knew on the East Coast, I forget how I knew him. I didn't know him all that well, but he was doing his doctorate. And he sent me a package of correspondence. from the Library of Congress.

What? Correspondence between Carl and me. 

Sheila Haugh: Oh, how strange. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: And most of it was from [00:10:00] me because most of it was letting him know what I was learning in my doctorate. Some of it was just, he would respond to me and so I, he said, Peggy, I found this in the Library of Congress, and he said, it wasn't even under Carl's name, he said it was under yours.

He said, for God's sake, I had to copy every piece. So anyway, but I, and in that correspondence, I used to challenge Carl and say, yeah, but what about this? I was such a brat. Yeah, but how? What if that happened? And one day, one of Carl's letters said, Oh, I got your letter and I felt exhausted. I thought, how am I going to respond to Peggy?

And then he gave a short response. And then [00:11:00] he thoughtfully, Took the issue that I was bringing up and the issue had something to do with people not what we're talking about People say I'm client centered and not be sure gosh, even then yes, and especially around Center for the service of the person Carl said it response Peggy You're not person centered Yeah, he said, we're not doing it.

And then he wrote a very careful, like, five paragraph piece and said to me, if you would like to share this part of our correspondence with your students, because we were doing a training program that the car was very involved in. So, we, but I, I don't know, how did we, I don't know how we got so close, we, we just.

Sheila Haugh: Yeah, I'm really, I'm just really suddenly [00:12:00] taken by that bit of Carl Rogers saying that's not person centered. Because so often in the UK, um, and I, I assume some other places, but in the UK, you're not able to say that's not person centered because it's judgmental. It's this, it's that and the other. And Carl Rogers had never, would never say that.

Yes, and one of my responses to that has been, you know, Carl Rogers was usually teaching graduates anyway, so they were there through choice. They were doing their own development, which I think for my reading is a bit true, but it's really, um, You know, I might take this little bit of the recording and publish it all over the world.

Carl Rogers did say, actually, he didn't have an opinion about what was person centered and what wasn't. This is a fallacy that he didn't have it. Yeah, and what's wrong? 

Dr Peggy Natiello: You're not criticizing anybody. You're saying that is not adherent [00:13:00] to the person centered philosophy. Yeah, exactly. 

Period. The end. He's not saying, what are you doing?

How could you do that? No, he never, I don't like the way you do it. You'd say that's not person centered and person centered, which people often say to me has not been clearly defined. I say to them, I don't think anything has been more clearly defined. I go back to like 1964. Or even before that. I read what Carl said.

He never changed his mind. No, no. And when the person centered approach came in, we, we all know that he wrote, he said, I'm beginning to see how that's been mixed up. I think this is where part of the issue started. Yes, yes. For me, it's not mixed up. Person centered. is exactly theoretically the same as client centered.

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that, that always seemed to me a bit of a, a bit of a weird conversation. What's the difference? I mean, I get it why [00:14:00] people can get into it, but it's the theory is the same. 

Sheila Haugh: Peggy, one of the things that many of us of a certain age know you for is, and Peter and I were saying earlier before we started recording this, was that we'd both gone back to your book and both been blown away by it.

And I was saying to you last week when you and I met to talk about tonight was about just how that book is as fresh today as it was when you wrote it. It seems to me. Um, it's up there with any of Roger's books. What, what, what, what inspired you to that book? 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Well, let me say why I think it's so different.

It's so different. Because I started to see how much a therapist has to develop kinds of qualities in order to [00:15:00] do this thing. A therapist has to give up all authoritarian power or you cannot be client centered. Yes. A therapist has to develop the capacity for empathy, the capacity not to judge people.

And I, nobody writes about how hard this is for the, how wonderful it is for the therapist. And so I think I'm, that's what I want to write about. I want to say to people, you have to go through so many changes in order to do this kind of work because it flies in the face of everything. every other method of therapy.

Sheila Haugh: And I think it does. It still does. Yes, it still does. Yeah. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: And one of the things in my life that I'm most grateful for, and I learned from my clients as recently as last week, And I've always said to people coming out of training programs, now where you really will learn is [00:16:00] you'll learn from your clients.

And, and that's where I learned everything I learned. If I tried to tell somebody what to do, I'd see how screwed up it was. I've been doing this for years and years, and I'm still learning how to be a person centered therapist. It's so easy to get tripped up because the hardest way to be in the world and everything legislates against you, not helping people, not telling them what to do, not saving their lives, everything it's so difficult.

So that's why I wrote the book. I wrote the book to say to people who want to be a client centered therapist, oh, wow, you're really in for a lot of learning. And I think that's true. And those people who are using more directive therapies, it's so much easier. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: The authority. This [00:17:00] is the hardest way to be in the world, and yet, I'm sure it's the bit, I just, the world, the world is so screwed up now, and about eight years ago, I wrote a paper, I'm looking at it now, because an evolutionary shift and emerging heroes.

Yeah. And I talk about the people who will save us in an evolutionary shift as being client centered people. 

Sheila Haugh: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Dr Peggy Natiello: People who listen. People who care. People who don't have the answers because none of us, none of us have the answer. Yeah. So that's why I wrote the book because I'm so passionate about, no, no, no, you can't say you're a client centered therapist until you have gone through the the ringer.

Sheila Haugh: Well, I think I was saying to you last week, Ernesto Spinelli, who's um, a very, very well known [00:18:00] existential philosopher in this country, I think in Europe. I mean, I fell in love with him the day I read somewhere in one of his books that he thought client centered therapy is the most difficult therapy to practice.

Dr Peggy Natiello: Really? 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah, yeah. Because you only have yourself. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: That's exactly right. 

Sheila Haugh: Speaking to your point about being 94 and still sometimes, okay, that's not the best thing I could have done.

The, um. David Murphy at a recent presentation, part of what I took from it, and you mentioning John Dewey, um, was that therapy, person centered therapy, he, he's talking about trying to take therapy out of the medical system, out of the healthcare system, and more it's like a learning experience. Um, which I really, really liked and that, you know, we go back and look at John Dey, you can really see the roots of Roger's work in John Dey stuff.

Um, and it just catches me [00:19:00] when you say that bit about, you know, here I am in 94 and no, maybe that wasn't the right thing to do. So I'm still learning because you're still alive, you're still thinking and becoming yes. And that's what, some of what Roger's theory really encompasses for me, a sort of, always, you know, I'm trying not to say becoming a person, but that's what it is.

I mean, that always It really is. Yeah, yeah. It's never boring, that's for sure. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 

Dr Peter Blundell: But I wonder if I There is why there is so many misconceptions because on paper, the theory potentially seems quite simple in terms of six conditions, but actually in practice, the complexity of how those things come together within a person or within a relationship is so infinite that, you know, it's, [00:20:00] it's, it's so complex to practice.

Dr Peggy Natiello: But I do believe. That if you ask yourself, I mean, I think it's the world we live in. We have been raised in an authoritarian world. We are all imbued with those values and to turn around and do this kind of work, which flies in the face of everything everybody else is doing. It's really hard. It's really hard.

It's such a gift though, to, to have to work at it. 

Dr Peter Blundell: Yeah. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: The practice is such a gift for sure. 

Sheila Haugh: For sure. I mean, I think that was, um, I mean the other two things in that book and anybody watching, you should read it. It's really brilliant. Um, the other two chapters, the other, the other bits that caught my fancy as [00:21:00] well. And maybe don't want to spend too much time on this because it's really about. You know what Rogers theory and your your take on it, but I really loved your chapters on systems theory and on power, both of those chapters, which I think, um, I mean, I know Rogers are done on on personal power, but somehow that your chapter on power.

I read that and it's like, I think that still could be read today. It really can be read today.

I haven't really heard. Many people talk about that. And I think you'll see then who wrote the forward, nothing to my book mentioned. She said, Peggy seems to want to add another condition. She talks about power.

Well, I don't want to add another condition. Everything we try to do is we have to resist those values that we've been raised with that we're going to [00:22:00] fix this person. What's bad, blah, blah, blah. It's yeah. It's so, I'm really glad to be talking to people who recognize how hard it is and how wonderful, instead of how simplistic.

They just don't do anything, those therapists. They just don't do anything. They sit there and they listen. That's what people say about clients, centred therapists. 

Yeah, yeah, they just listen. I mean, I actually heard students saying, well, I was just being empathic, and it's like, okay, let's go back a step.

You weren't just being empathic. I mean, that's the job in many ways. If you're going to do something, Be empathic, but it's, it's more about, you know, sitting there with that attitude of, I really want to understand. I really, really want to get what you're saying in like every single cell right in the middle of me.

Dr Peggy Natiello: Absolutely. And it's so understated and [00:23:00] so misunderstood. You're right. They just listen. not what empathy is. 

Sheila Haugh: And one of the other critiques I've heard is that person centered therapy has not progressed since Rogers. And I sort of think, well, I, I don't agree with that either. I mean, I think Margaret Warner has done a wonderful, um, from a sort of more experiential, but she's done a wonderful deconstruction of, um, some of those. so called, you know, the psychiatric diagnoses and actually what might be going on. And I like the way she's written them quite gently as well. I mean, she's not, she's not sort of like, it's like, you know, here's some ideas. But I do think, when I think about my training, Um, which was started the year Rogers died.

So my trainers had been, I mean, you know, them, uh, Irene, Irene Firhurst, Tony Merry um, Dave Buck was around at that point, and Chuck, Charles Devonshire. [00:24:00] Um, I think that we think of empathy now much more deeply than I experienced on my training project or training program. Now, that might be because I wasn't, um, attuned enough.

So I think that's part of it. I was a newbie. So, you know, it took me a while and I just think that the depth of empathy, the breadth, because certainly I seem to remember and I might be doing them all a disservice here. So forgive me if I am. Um, but we were, there was this sort of, it took a while to realize that empathy wasn't just about feelings.

Dr Peter Blundell: Yeah.

Sheila Haugh: And that's a big misunderstanding.

Yeah, you know, and if you're talking about if your clients talking about computers for half an hour, but we're not really doing the work, are they? It's like, well, hold on a moment. Who [00:25:00] says? Yeah. And what's the work? It's sort of at every point what you're saying about radical for me. At every point, I feel like and I'm quite happy.

You know, when they say children go through that stage of going why? Why? Why? What? What? What? What? That's what I often find myself doing. Why? No, no, no, that's, that's because there's so much. information and knowledge that is not challenged, is not critiqued. And I think person centered offers that critique.

Dr Peter Blundell: There's so much in UK, like somebody talking about computers for half an hour or people saying they're not doing the work because there is a pressure in a lot of the systems for outcomes for, um, movement. And like what Peggy is saying, there is authority behind that, what we should be doing in therapy, where people should be going and what should be [00:26:00] happening.

There's a whole system around that now in terms of expectations around what people think should be happening. And as a person centred approach, this, this, you know, Unpacks all of that. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Yeah, yeah, but you're saying people think something should be happening for the client 

Dr Peter Blundell: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and 

Sheila Haugh: I was listening to someone the other week and that if something's not happening for the client or if Uh, if we can't show Outcomes that meet what people want then we're doing a disservice And I think I think this is I think this is sort of I hope I'm not misrepresenting you, David Murphy.

I think this is what he's pushing back against, is that sort of idea of, while we're, we're in danger of losing ourselves in the effort to get, to show results that people want. [00:27:00] Apparently want to see it's it's a real it's really tangled. It's really to me. It's not got a lot to do with therapy anymore. It really hasn't.

Dr Peggy Natiello: I, I think that's the other thing that I ran into when I wrote that book. I tell a lot of stories. Because what we're talking about is so subtle. Yes. That sometimes I feel a need to say, well, let me tell you this story. I don't know how you teach. No. Think experiences like that. I really don't. And that's one of the things I love about client centered therapy is you, now we're going to talk, never, now we're going to talk about your early childhood.

How was your relationship with your father? You just get a lot of stuff that you don't expect. So that's partly what I was doing too in that book, just writing the [00:28:00] stories, you know. 

Sheila Haugh: Because you're, I think you're really right. I mean, I think that's sort of when I was rereading your book and the story of how you accepted the gun off a client with the promise you would give it back.

That was, yeah. And when we were talking about it the other night, I really, I mean, I think it's really, Exquisitely written, Peggy. You know, it's, it's, it's really exquisitely written. And even when we were talking about it, the feel of it, the nuances, the, the hearing your voice in remembering that really brought home the, I mean, it sounds a bit cold, this, the interpersonalness of it.

In fact, what it was like for you and what you were trying to hold. in that encounter. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: That's another thing, Sheila, too, though, the engagement of the therapist. If you're the expert, you don't have to engage at all. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah, [00:29:00] yeah. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: But we engage. I mean, the relationship, it's the relationship that Irv Yalom, it's the relationship that Changes I can't remember what, but so that part of the therapy is, I think, unknown to a lot of autocratic or authoritarian therapists.

Yes, you have to be there with you or your heart and your soul and your feelings and your hurts and your wounds and when they interrupt. The relationship, you have to own up to them, so that increases our absolute essential need to be, to be aware of what's going to be self aware gift. And yes, I thank you because I think in [00:30:00] some of the, some of the times it's only in a story that that, that you can express what that's like.

Sheila Haugh: Yes, yes. And of course, one of the challenges that story actually then only expresses what it was like between you and him. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Exactly, exactly. You can't learn what it's going to be like for you. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah, and I was thinking about that listening to something the other week when someone said well, would a person centered therapist give give advice about how to relax and The other person was oh, well, you know It's like and I was sitting there thinking it that's impossible to answer All I can say is I might do that's all I can tell you I might do And it's like that's just not satisfactory for some people it's not sort of You But you know, yeah, it depends.

How long [00:31:00] have I known them? Have I known them for one session? Have I been meeting them every week? Have I been, you know, it's like, well, had I eaten before I met them or after? Have I been to the toilet? I mean, the whole thing. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Of course, of course. Who can ever put that into a single line of theory? Those kinds of things.

Sheila Haugh: No. Because your whole life is in that moment. 

Dr Peter Blundell: And that's, that's what it's about for me. And even when you make those decisions, Sheila, you then, by afterwards, Be happy or not happy that you're doing it.

Sheila Haugh: Yeah.

Dr Peggy Natiello: You can't make a rule about a relationship between two people. You can't. You can't. What's there is only there for the moment between those two people. But you can [00:32:00] try to sharpen your ability to be present. That's, that's what I think it's all about in a way.

Sheila Haugh: Um, Gillian Proctor was at the World Conference this last, this past summer in Athens. She was talking about congruence and I like, I don't, I don't know where to go with it, but I like some of this. Um, congruence might not just be, she didn't put it like this, what I took from it. Congruence might not just be about being, um, knowing yourself and always doing work on yourself.

It's also about something to do with congruence. in relation, how did you put it, to others as well. And I had a feeling this was a bit new and at the same time that if you really, if we really thought Well, this is a question, [00:33:00] actually, for both of you, but more to Peggy, because I'll see you more frequently, Peter.

Um, but something about the actualizing tendency is a description of a very pro No, the, the, the image of the person, the hypothetical fully functioning is very pro social, is very pro linked with others, um, and yet that does seem to be a part of Roger's work that hasn't didn't flourish in his writing, let's say, although it is there, I think, is the relationship for the person is, is, is connected, is in community is not, you know, it's that sort of, to put it really crudely, you know, the sort of like the global north, you know, The white western view of the individual is the self is the primary unit.

And then, um, [00:34:00] what if the self wasn't the primary unit, it's the group. So those, that sort of ideas of those two cultures. Now, I think it's in Roger's work. I think it's in the idea of the fully functioning person. I think it's in the statements like the world as we perceive it, because we are in, we can't, we can't, I don't think it's possible.

Is it possible to perceive a world where you're not in connection. I don't know. Does this make any sense? 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Yeah, I, I have to tease it apart, but, but Rogers talks about living systems having this unwavering thrust towards health and wholeness. 

Sheila Haugh: Systems. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Yeah, and I, and there's no [00:35:00] way to discriminate and say what you will deal with today Calls that thrust forward and the way you were, there's no rule or regulation about it around Sheila or whatever.

So, it, it doesn't depend on anybody else, but it changes the world. Mm hmm. 

Sheila Haugh: I think that's what I'm trying to draw out somehow, where in Roger's work do I feel, I mean, no, I feel it in Roger's work, I sometimes can't draw it out, the, the interconnectedness of people.

So 

Dr Peter Blundell: But is that where Gillian's work was coming in in terms of having congruent relationships? 

Sheila Haugh: No, no, it wasn't just congruent relationships. It was congruent, congruence with, with the other, [00:36:00] which is congruent relationships. 

Dr Peter Blundell: Yeah. 

Sheila Haugh: But something about, um, it's like the, I mean, the other chapter I really liked with your systems chapter in that book, there's something about, you know, quantum, for example, you know, and there's, there's, there's a, there's a, there's an electron there and it's one there and when one shifts the other shifts exactly the same time even if they're thousands upon thousands of miles away so that sort of interconnectedness and I think that's in Roger's work somehow but I can't quite catch it but I think it's one of the critiques that or that was one of Roger's theory is very much simply a product of uh, white western gender male male type of psychology and somehow that I don't think I'm being defensive for Rogers or missing it but somehow I [00:37:00] feel like because every time I've got hold of an idea around Rogers you go back into his work and it's there everything people are thinking about seem to me to be prefigured this one I can't quite get hold of my I can't quite get hold of in Roger's work.

So I just sort of wondered what you thought about that when you wrote about a systems theory.

Dr Peggy Natiello: Well, I'm doing exactly what you said. I'm going back and thinking about individual interactions. And I think both people impact. a relationship. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah, that's how I feel and that's how I feel. I just can't quite catch it sometimes. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: How can there be a hard and fast rule for the development of relationships? I mean, I think what he's done, which is [00:38:00] identified the, uh, the principles that can help. a person to become more fully functioning.

That's about as specific as you can get. 

Sheila Haugh: That's what I like about his work. Yeah, 

Dr Peggy Natiello: you're not about to say what would that look like. But you can say that will happen. Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr Peter Blundell: Is, and is that, is that where the critique comes in? Because, like you were talking about Peggy, you're, you're expressing it through telling stories.

So if people have heard Rogers tell stories or seen his work recorded, then that's from his perspective how a white male connects with other people. That's how he interpreted it. But what I love about his theory is that we all have to do that ourselves individually. 

Sheila Haugh: Yes. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Yes, I absolutely think that's true.

And it's going to look different in [00:39:00] everybody. And it's going to look different. 

Sheila Haugh: I mean, when you compare those two videos, and the commentaries that have been made, you did one of them, Peggy, on Roger's working with a black client, the two different ones, the change in him that X number of years later, as well, as he was more open, he'd developed, he'd grown, if you like.

Yeah. Well, our 45 minutes is nearly up and I so quick.

 There was just so much more that I don't know. I don't know where to start. Peter, you weren't with us last week.

What's, what's, what's. 

Dr Peter Blundell: I, I was, I suppose one of the things we said before we came on was when I was reading your book and rereading your book and there was the misconceptions about the person the misunderstandings that you've listed in there. Yeah, interesting, yeah. Yeah, and how I notice how those are [00:40:00] still present today around - therapists, and it shocked me a little bit.

I don't know why, but that almost as if things haven't moved on as if we're still perceived in the same way. Way and misunderstood all of the time by other therapists and other people as well. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah But well, I thought we had a bit of a golden There was a couple of years somewhere in the middle of then and now where it seemed like that misunderstanding was starting to Dissipate a little bit, but it seems to be back with a bang at the moment the last few years 

Dr Peggy Natiello: See, I'm not in a position right now to even talk to many therapists, but when we had our training program, which we did until I moved to Arizona, we had a lot of people who wanted to come to it, who already had their doctorates have been practicing for years.[00:41:00]

And they, every single one of them was blown away because the way we did our training program, Was pretty much what we're doing now. We had no agenda. We'd send out, sometimes the students would say next week I'd like to discuss, uh, unconditional positive regard. We'd say, good, you were reading stuff, but the interactive quality of the education was like a person centered relationship.

The people who practice in other ways were blown away and we did a 10 year We had an independent researcher put out to the student from the last 10 years, and almost to a last person, the therapist people said, my work is forever different. 

Dr Peter Blundell: Hmm. [00:42:00] Hmm. Hmm. Um, we have them. They didn't, 

Dr Peggy Natiello: nobody was teaching them it, they were simply having the experience.

Sheila Haugh: That's what you said last week. I think you touched on it earlier. It's, it's almost impossible to teach this approach. People have to learn it. And there's a real difference. And yeah, I think sometimes we forget, I have forgotten some of that. 

Dr Peter Blundell: I, that really. That really resonates with me. I'm thinking about, um, we have a mix of students who come on our course.

So we've had some students who have actually trained in other approaches who come on the course and say, I've been trained in all these different approaches and I don't know what I'm doing and come on the course and, and want to focus on person centered, um, and really kind of understand what, what that approach is about.

And I was also thinking, we also have students who come on our [00:43:00] course who, um, have no understanding about person centered therapy whatsoever. They think they're doing therapy training and when they learn about the approach, they're so cynical, they're so cynical, like how can, how can they say, How can this, how can this work because it's just, but because it's just theoretical because at that point it's just, it's just theoretical.

And I always say, I can't convince you and sell this to you. You need to experience this for yourself. You know, go on your training, go on your placement and give it a go and work towards and you will see and only through working with your clients will you see the transformative approach that it is.

There's no other way. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: No, I don't think so. I don't. Yeah, it can. It can't be taught. It can only be learned. I think that's true. Well, and when we started our [00:44:00] training program, uh, Carl, the center for the space, the person had started a training program. The exact same year. So I went out to it to see what I could learn.

I was so shocked. There were calendars and presentations all over the walls. And when I got back, I wrote to Carl and I said, what are you doing? Everything is set up. You have scheduled what, what are you doing? And he wrote to me and he said, Peggy, I gave up all my power. You're absolutely right. And he loved our training program.

But he said, I gave up all my power. It's so hard to do, even when you're a known, experienced, client centered therapist. Yes. I mean, those people at the Center for the Studies, how could [00:45:00] they do that? 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah, yeah, I think it's making me think about courses I've been involved in. And of course, the minute, well, it seems to me the minute you start, you know, I've been quite open about this.

I'm quite ambivalent about having got courses through the British Association for Counseling Psychotherapy and the United Kingdom Council on Psychotherapy. Getting courses, a couple of courses through those processes. A bit of a deal with the devil. The, you know, whatever you gain in keeping something going.

And so people can be registered and earn a living and yada, yada, yada. Um, what is that actually damaged as well? What's that damage. And there's just a bit of me, and maybe this is easy to say what, you know, given where I am in my career now, I'm not starting out, but I'm not sure. Um, I have these moments where I'm not sure the advantages [00:46:00] of doing that have been. worth it. Um, because when you were talking, I said anything. Okay. So what, what those, what those two organizations want is there is content they want in there. So, okay. It seems fairly legitimate to me. Maybe there's some content. Um, but actually I'm sat here now but thinking how much, you know, well maybe you do need to know about what psychiatrists talk about and what psychiatrists do and what medicines do.

But that has sort of trickled into then and how you then deal with it, how you then respond to it. So the, The teaching, I mean, I'm talking a bit extremely now, I think it's more subtle, it's not maybe, it's more subtleness, so it's not as bad as this, but the teaching has become more teaching than learning, maybe, are we talking about it in this context?

Dr Peggy Natiello: Yeah, we're [00:47:00] talking about, I think we're talking about something very complicated. Yes, yes, yeah. We're teaching is an authoritarian profession. Yes. 

Dr Peter Blundell: And Sheila, this, you know, the course I teach on is not accredited. And we've made a specific choice not to be. I don't see many counseling courses in the UK making that decision.

The assumption seems to be That they need to be accredited and people scrabble for that. And sometimes I just question why people 

Sheila Haugh: I mean, we built it ourselves. I mean, I think that, you know, um, there was a big dis in the institute I've just left, um, I remember literally 30 years ago about the, maybe, there being this really big discussion about whether the organisation should have its, uh, [00:48:00] um, courses, it's undergraduate should go for undergraduate validation.

And it was a long, long discussion. There was a lot of ins and outs about it. The organization in the end decided yes. And I was really sad about that because metanoia in those days, it still is a thing, was quite a big player. I've been quite open about this opinion. And, um, Then by Metanoia, I think it was one of the first ones that went for a degree at that, with that sort of thing.

And so by going for the degree, or straight away, a lot of diplomas lost their, lost their, um, standing. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: We, in our training program, we went through the same struggle. I negotiated with the Education Association and we decided we couldn't do What we were doing and getting accreditation. And so we, we said to the students, we're going to leave it up to you.

We'll write any documentation you need. [00:49:00] Uh, but for us to agree to the way they say we have to do it, it'll ruin that course. 

Sheila Haugh: Did you, did you, your, were your courses, because my partner was involved in courses like that here in, um, continental Europe and for, if I'm understanding right, what they could do at one point is the students could create an individual, um, learning, you know, so that the, the institute could write a letter for this individual student, but actually they were all students, I think, who passed their first lot of, you know, They were doing clinical psychology and this was a part of it, actually, so scrub that, scrub that.

It's not a question because it's not the same.

Dr Peggy Natiello: Our people had to agree that they wanted a course in client centered therapy, even if it didn't have accreditation. And I was always surprised. I think it was such a great [00:50:00] training program. Yeah. So beloved, but I was always surprised that people would put out money to come to a course where you don't get accreditation, but to get the accreditation would have destroyed.

Sheila Haugh: So, I don't know why, because I don't know if you remember, you worked on the program I was, um, I was working on. You and I worked together back in the day. Yeah. Um, I will always remember that. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: After, uh, Irene and, okay. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah, and there'd been, we'd had a bit, but there'd been a, there'd been a fallout on that, and the staff team split, and half the team carried on with a program without accreditation, so they set up a different institute with Chuck, and we got accreditation, we went for BACP accreditation, the British Association accreditation, and What I remember was one of the, one of the whole reasons the discussion came up in the first [00:51:00] place was because we just weren't getting people coming on the course anymore.

The first year we were able to advertise it as BACP, it was full and the people who came all wanted to be counsellors, whereas previously it had been a bit of a mix. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Yeah, ours was a mix. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah, and that's why we went for it and maybe well, maybe it's for babies. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: It's a long time ago, but that that was it's hard not to go for it.

Yeah. When most professional lives depend on it. It's a terrible sacrifice to give up accreditation. But I couldn't figure out how to do the kind of thing we were doing if it was accredited. 

Sheila Haugh: I liked our, I mean I'd say this, I mean I really liked our IPC because I mean Tony Murray was a great, great, was really really good at being able to articulate [00:52:00] Um, the learning and everything on our program.

So, you know, our little booklet was really small. These were the areas we're probably clever. And I remember the word in there was probably. And then when they came to visit, he basically chomped birds off the trees in a good way, everybody. Um, because he knew what he was talking about. I mean, that was part of it.

He really, you know, it was in his soul. And people were prepared then to take more chances as well, I think. Something's changed. It's not just us. 

Dr Peter Blundell: It's something for me about trying to, it's like trying to work within the system, but still do your own thing. And I think almost what you're saying, Sheila, is that you almost managed to do that, find a way to do that.

And Peggy's kind of saying, actually, she wasn't able to do that. It was much, it was too [00:53:00] difficult to go there. 

Sheila Haugh: And I, I sometimes think. I was saying to you last week, Peggy, that, um, and I don't say this easily, but if person centered therapy were to disappear because we won't buy into these systems anymore, let's say, I think it will come back.

I think it will come back in a different guise because it says something very essential about us as a species and how we need to be together and how most people want to be together as well, even with our incongruences and whatever else you want to call it. Most people on this planet want to be Um, uh, okay with their neighbors getting on with their neighbors, loving their family that I think it's something to do with our species.

It's not it's not a anyway. That's my belief. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: So, I think I, I mean, I believe that we are in a [00:54:00] paradigm shift. I think institutions are starting to crumble. Yes, churches, the schools, the medical profession here. Doctors anymore, they go to healers. Yes. And, and I believe that the replacement of these systems, the best thing that could ever happen in this world would be if they were person centered.

I believe the person centered approach has a real opportunity to really influence culture because we're gonna have to build a new culture. 

Dr Peter Blundell: I was thinking that Sheila, when you were talking about, well, you know, can this approach only exist if it abides by the systems and I wondered whether, and I wondered whether maybe this approach can't exist within those systems and it has to.

Dr Peggy Natiello: Well, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Look, look what happened to Carl. [00:55:00] wrote up the, his belief system, his philosophy, they kicked him out of the American Psychological Association for years, maybe two or three. And then before he died, he received their major medal twice. The only psychologist who had ever received it while he was alive.

So he didn't give up to the system. Did he? I'm saying, wow, Carl didn't accommodate the system. And then when it came to destroy this, uh, training program, he, he, everybody accommodated the system and he, he was really crushed. Because I think it is not adaptable to the autocratic system that we live under.

Sheila Haugh: I think, I think that's right. I think that's right. [00:56:00] A colleague of ours, Peter and ours, they did a presentation at one of the World Conferences on about how, um, person centered therapist could maybe, you know, remember Pete Sanders talked about, I think it was, well, somebody talked about there being, you know, people who work within the system, people who work outside the system, and maybe there's some people who should be bridges.

And I think they, that was really what they wanted to be. They wanted to be that sort of bridge, in and out, and, um, took a job in what used to be called IAPT, the Increasing I, uh, what is it Peter? Increasing access to IAPT. Financial therapies. Thank you. It's not called that anymore, so I really shouldn't worry too much that I can't remember what it stands for.

Um, but he took a job there, and I know that now it's just really, really unhappy, and has sort of quite changed their mind in terms of there [00:57:00] cannot be a bridge. It just, it doesn't work. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: When you, as soon as you went like this, and talked about it briefly, I said to myself, I don't know if that is possible.

It's something incredibly different. I can't modify it. If you think about client centered therapy, you can't modify empathy. You can't modify the feeling. The therapist not having the power, the client having the power. I don't know if it can be bridged, but I really believe that everybody who's alive at this point in human history has an opportunity here.

And when I look at the training program, we did hundreds of people went through that program, and we just did not capitulate. And we didn't get as many people probably as, oh, I'm sure we didn't. But the people that went through that training program are definitely [00:58:00] changing the world. I really believe they're changing the world.

Sheila Haugh: So, I mean, I really don't think it's, that the world is, I mean, it looks pretty bad. But, you know, all we ever hear about are the unusual events. So we hear about the unusual things that are happening, which are usually naff, are usually bad. Um, and so, I mean, I, I, I, I, I've got a, I think an Instagram channel, which is called Today's the Good News.

You know, and I just dip into that when everything gets a bit dark. Um, and I've just finished a book, I don't know if I was saying this to you last week, Peggy, called Humankind. by a Dutch philosopher, um, Bregman, and you know, he's just, he's just drilled down into some of these, um, experiments that have shown how people will electrocute people if you keep pushing them, that'll turn into really sadistic gods, all those ones that are churned out.

As this shows what, and it's just [00:59:00] torn them apart, basically, you know, that in terms of how they were set up and it wasn't transparent, etc, etc, and doesn't ignore the point of, uh, you know, things like the Holocaust or the Rwandan, um, uh, Uh, massacres and, uh, genocide. Oh, he doesn't, he doesn't ignore those.

He goes into them. The conclusion he comes to, along with a lot of people, is that, you know, a lot of things don't happen because human beings look after each other, actually. You know, when a car goes into a river, total strangers will jump into that river to get people out. And it's even talking about the acts of terrorism are usually or what some people call terrorism.

Other people wouldn't call the same act terrorism, but they're often the people involved are often very close units. They're actually related. or their close unit. And so people are often not [01:00:00] doing these things for some greater good, exactly. They're doing it for their comrades. And he sort of, he says, you can interpret that as actually this is about caring.

This is about connection. This is about support and help. And it's a very, in a very strange way, it's quite an uplifting book. And that's the majority of human beings. So I don't think this is a loser. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Well, I think, you know, as Carl said to me 20 years ago, you're living in the age of a shift in consciousness.

Yes. It will be very painful, Peggy, but remember the process is perfect. And somebody, we did a thing, a fundraising thing, yes, a couple of days ago, I think I told you, and found out that it was too dangerous to do it in the next community. [01:01:00] And, uh, now, why am I forgetting why I'm telling you this? Somebody asked me, well, what, what the hell does that mean?

The process is perfect. And I said, well, I think what it means is, That the world is in a state of upheaval and we're paying, we're going to pay for some of the things we've done, like the inequities, the racisms, the sexisms, the, the, the inequalities and, and the thing is blowing up now. 

Sheila Haugh: Yeah. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: It feels like it's blowing up all over here in this country, especially around this election.

Of course, it's not doing a lot of international zoom work. I hear it in every country. Yes, I think everywhere. And I think we are in a cultural shift, and it can take many, many years for a [01:02:00] cultural shift, 100, but I do believe that the institutions are crashing and burning. And, and so, if I were, you know, well, I'm still keeping on going, but part of my hope is that we can start to penetrate some of these autocratic systems and help them to see there's a better way to go.

Yeah, give it a shot.

Sheila Haugh: I think there's going to be a lot of individual pain for some people more than others in this process, but you're making me think of that very rarely mentioned thing, the formative tendency, you know, that, that, you know, that's, we're, we're not, there's something about sometimes thinking, This is a thing for me reading about the solar system.

What's his name? The guy's got some TV program on BBC solar [01:03:00] system. And I start thinking that solar system is, do you know, it's quite big and when this planet, and if this planet disappeared out of the solar system, the solar system wouldn't be destroyed. So there's always been some sort of, for me, some sort of shift about we really aren't the center of the universe.

The sun really doesn't go around us. That's true. And, and for me, that's the formative tendency that puts us that, you know, remember that picture where there was taken from, I don't know, millions and millions of miles out into space. And somebody would put a little mark around the pixel that was Earth.

It's like, Yeah, this is, you know, and it's, it's, it's not, it's not to ignore the micro, but the macro is a different story. It really is. I don't know where that leaves me, but that's. 

Dr Peter Blundell: Well, I almost felt like it, the phrase for me is like the opposite of person centered, like we're not the center of [01:04:00] the universe, even though in therapy we are, you know, the center of our own universe.

Dr Peggy Natiello: But it sounds like both of you are involved or have been involved in training therapists with one organization or another. It's a great opportunity. But there are things that keep us from being fully what we want to be. And that seems like authorization and validation and credentialing all that. Yeah.

Sheila Haugh: And the whole idea that, um, that survival is based on expansion and getting bigger and doing this. And it's like, I just don't quite understand that model anymore. Given that's what's destroying the planet we live on. But it's okay to do it in this area, or that area, or this course, or that course. It's very, very [01:05:00] strange.

Dr Peter Blundell: And seeing some courses, I mean, we have about 30 people come in each year into our, our course, but some courses have like 90 people, you know. And, and, and then it's disproportionate in terms of, Like how many group like the size of the groups that they go into, you know, um, where you can't have that intimate connection of learning between people because there's just so many people and training.

Um, but that's the institutions that we're in is the push for more students and more students and bigger courses. 

Sheila Haugh: Actually, Peggy, you've just given me a little ray of help because that is the education system crumbling in the UK. I mean, it's falling apart at the moment, isn't it, Peter? People are leaving, tutors are leaving, it's lecturers, um 

Dr Peggy Natiello: It's certainly crumbling here.

It has not served students for years. Yeah. Well, I feel like this is an opening and an opportunity. I [01:06:00] don't know, you know. Um How we grab it or what we do, but that's losing teachers and things for me, that could provide an opportunity to do something dazzling and to sell it as something dazzling. We need more people.

Let's try something different.

 To talk to both of you and to know that you're as distressed as I have always been about the dysfunctions that you're starting to see. And you can't change the approach. Yeah, as soon as you try to, it's something different.

Dr Peggy Natiello: So I, It's very frustrating to work within the system. About 60 years ago, I will never work in an institution again. Never have. And [01:07:00] it has been a brilliant decision. And I was able to do whatever I wanted to do. And there were always people around. Who want to do what you want to do, especially now when things in the system aren't working so well.

Sheila Haugh: I feel like maybe we've come to a little bit of a, I don't want to say close, but I guess it is a close.

Dr Peter Blundell: Thanks Peggy and maybe we can do it again some other time. 

Dr Peggy Natiello: Thank you for the opportunity to re read my book.

Sheila Haugh: Thank you. 

Dr Peter Blundell: Thanks everyone for watching. Bye. Thank you.