An exploration of counselling and psychotherapy as a form of learning, with particular reference to people with a facial difference

• Main Author: Rose, Theresa
• Published: University of Surrey 2002
• Subjects: 150; Therapy
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.390848

The aim of this study is to open up a conversation on how counselling and psychotherapy can be positioned in relation to teaching and learning. "Is therapy a form of learning for people with a facial difference?" is the question that will be explored. The underpinning ethos of the study is an emphasis on the place of humanness in the research process. From the researcher's 'interpretative lens' a paradigm is developed to situate this study's research activity. Meaning emerges in the in-between and known to those involved (ontological perspective); knowing is achieved through a relationship with another, it is an interactional subjective activity (epistemological perspective), meaning is generated through a reflexive and dialectical process (methodological perspective). To guide the research process, a methodological framework is created that is cognisant with the research paradigm. The framework comprises of two cycles of interpretation and supports the notion of a multiplicity of meanings. The research method of heuristics generates data for analysis. This method through the second cycle of interpretation is expanded to incorporate a post-heuristic perspective; where there is a shift from the modernist self at the centre of the meaning making process, to a postmodernist de-centred self that is 'subject to'. Seventeen people shared their experience of either providing therapy for people with a facial difference, or their experience or opinions of therapy for people with a facial difference (this latter group included people who live with someone with a facial difference). The findings provided evidence of how previous learning experiences can create distortions in meaning making perspectives; distortions that are barriers to learning from experience, for they provide a template for the evaluation of experience. Therapy provides an opportunity for the uncovering and working through of distortions to enable a return to learning from experience. For the person to experience their experience. Facial difference pre-therapy is a label that can define a person, post-therapy there is recognition of how the label does not need to define the person; there is a return to learning from experience. In conclusion a model is developed to enable others to open further conversations on therapy as a means to learning. A model premised on Levinas' ethical relationship and Buber's 'I-It' and 'I- Thou' relationship. Therapy as a means to learning can represent a transition from an 'I-It' (non- reflective). To an 'I-Thou' (reflective). To a responsibility to the other relationship (pre-reflective), and each transition offers the potential to return to learning from experience; to be more open to experience of the other.