Carl R. Rogers, the originator of client-centered therapy, did not intend to found a school of psychotherapy with a set practice. Instead, he worked with his clients, reflected on the therapy process and, at a certain point, he advanced a set of hypotheses (1957) about the causes of constructive personality change. He presented the theory so it could be tried out by others and so it could be used as a basis for further research on psychotherapy.
Rogers thought his theory was an approximation to the truth about therapy. But he was, also, committed to protecting and encouraging a spirit of experimentation, discovery and creativity about psychotherapy. He did not want client-centered therapy to be "frozen" but, rather, to be a working hypothesis, a stimulus to further inquiry about the therapy process.
Rogers always has been committed to promoting openness, growth and change in the pursuit of truth about therapeutic process. He has always encouraged and supported research projects and theorizing by others. And, very importantly, his presentation of the theory in terms of attitudinal conditions, not techniques, fostered openness to different ideas about therapeutic practice. His theory left it up to the practitioner to choose which behaviors or techniques could be used to communicate the therapeutic attitudinal conditions to the client. This development in client-centered theory opened the way for practitioners from many different therapeutic schools to incorporate the basic premise and thypothesesees of attitudinal conditions into their own therapy without abandoning their original orientations. It also set the stage for the creation of a variety of new therapeutic methods based on the fundamental principles of client-centered theory.
It is my impression that there are many different therapy practices, and more therapies continually developing, which share the basic theory of client-centered therapy. This situation, of many evolving therapies which are often referred to as client-centered therapies, is confusing to students and confusing when one wishes to discuss differences in therapy practice with colleagues.
I think it would clarify this situation to classify a therapy practice as a person-centered therapy whenever a therapist is trying to work from the basic hypotheses: the inherent growth principle and the major attitudinal conditions for constructive change. Once this classification is made, we can distinguish among the various person-centered therapies by their observable form, or their techniques, or by the additional principles, values or theoretical elements they encompass.
I believe there are many evolving person-centered therapies and the practice of client-centered therapy is one of those. Client-centered therapy can be described in terms of the theory it shares with the other person-centered therapies and by its distinctive features.
My view is that client-centered therapy is a distinctive and important practice and that it can be defined as a practice and its parameters clarified. I do not believe it would, by defining it in a delimiting way, become static or not evolve further. Rather, its evolution would be conceived within certain limits. Functioning therapeutically outside those limits would be considered, perhaps, a new and other person-centered therapy. Or someone might, also, be developing a practice outside the defined limits of the person-centered therapies. Certainly many of those already exist. The point is, this system of classification gets around the problem of freezing client-centered therapy but also permits distinctions in respect to the practices of therapy that are out there in the reality of therapeutic work.
The differences distinguishable among person-centered therapies probably make substantial differences in the experience of therapy by both client and therapist and make differences in what is observable on tapes and films and, probably, make differences in the effects of the therapy on the lives of its clients. We can study and understand these different effects much better if we distinguish practices. But most important to me, the clarification and definition of client-centered therapy as distinguishable from other person-centered therapy practices can contribute to the presentation and evolution of this unique and extremely effective way of working with clients. I have felt, for some time, that client-centered therapy has been misunderstood, underestimated and underused, in part, because of its ambiguities as a practice and because of its confusion with other person-centered therapeutic practices.
The central hypothesis of this approach can be briefly stated. It is that the individual has within him or her self vast resources for selfunderstanding, for altering her or his selfconcept, attitudes, and self-directed behavior--and that these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided.Additional assumptions, beliefs and hypotheses that are central to the person-centered approach are the following:There are three conditions which constitute this growth-promoting climate, whether we are speaking of the relationship between therapist and client, parent and child, leader and group, teacher and student, or administrator and staff. The conditions apply, in fact, in any situation in which the development of the person is a goal. I have described these conditions at length in previous writings (Rogers, 1959, 1961). I present here a brief summary from the point of view of psychotherapy, but the description applies to all of the foregoing relationships.
The first element has to do with genuineness, realness, or congruence. The more the therapist is him or herself in the relationship, putting up no professional front or personal facade, the greater is the likelihood that the client will change and grow in a constructive manner. . . .
The second attitude of importance in creating a climate for change is acceptance, or caring or prizing--unconditional positive regard. It means that when the therapist is experiencing a positive, nonjudgmental, accepting attitude toward whatever the client is at that moment, therapeutic movement or change is more likely. . . .
The third facilitative aspect of the relationship is empathic understanding. This means that the therapist senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that are being experienced by the client and communicates this acceptant understanding to the client. (Rogers, 1986).
Empathic understanding responses are the observable responses which communicate empathic understanding to the client. They are responses intended to express and check the therapist's empathic understanding experience of the client. In a given empathic understanding response process between therapist and client many different types of empathic understanding responses may be involved. Examples of common types oempathic understandingng responses are the following: literal responses; restatements; summaries; statements which point toward the felt experience of the client but do not name or describe the experience; interpretive or inferential guesses concerning what the client is attempting to express; metaphors; questions that strive to express understandings of ambiguious experience of the client; gestures of the therapist's face, hands, body; vocal gestures, etc.
What makes these types of response function as empathic understanding responses is that the therapist expresses them to the client with the intention to ask the client - 'is this what you are telling me?' or 'is this what you mean?', or 'is this what you are feeling?'. These types of response, and others, may be the vehicle for the expression of empathic understanding as long as their sole intended function is to help the therapist in his attempt to understand the client's internal frame of reference as the client is searching himself and communicates to the therapist.
The empathic understanding response process can appear to be very different from therapist to therapist, and between therapies with different clients by the same therapist, depending upon the types of responses which are used by the therapist. The particular way the therapist expresses empathic understanding to the particular client does not matter, from the point of view of remaining within the client-centered framework, however, as long as the way communicates to the client the therapist's intention to understand and as long as the client feels understood by the therapist.
Client-centered therapy is also distinguishable by the extreme emphasis the practice places on the non-directiveness of the therapist. In client-centered therapy the therapist is intensely mindful to respect and protect the autonomy and self-direction of the client. The client is viewed as the expert about himself and the therapist views himself as expert only in maintaining the attitudinal conditions in the relationship with the client, not as an expert on the client.
The therapeutic relationship is inherently an unequal relation in which the client is self-defined as vulnerable and in need of help and the therapist is self-defined as one who can help. An element in the person/client-centered perspective is the belief that unequal relationships are naturally, to some extent, hurtful or harmful to the persons involved in them.
Unequal relationships are sometimes necessary, for example the physician and patient or the teacher and student, because they offer desired benefits. But the person/client-centered perspective fosters the abdication of the pursuit of power and would argue for minimizing the hurt or harm by sharing the authority as much as possible.
The client-centered therapist is particularly mindful of the harmful potential side-effect of the unequal therapeutic relation and tries to share his authority as much as possible. This awareness and effort influences all of his actions in relations to the client. Basically, the client centered therapist's view on this matter is - the authority for the client's experience is the client and the way the client uses the relationship is always left up to the client.
This non-directive attitude has a significant influence on the way therapy is conducted, influencing what is done and what is not done. For example, the client-centered therapist answers client's questions. Obviously, if the therapist decides what questions it is appropriate to answer, or takes the view that certain questions are expression of a client's avoidance of something and the therapist interprets this to help the client get on the right track, or if the therapist takes the view that the client's question is an aspect of seeking dependence on the therapist and the therapist raises this interpretation, then the therapist is acting in ways that direct the client's process. From a client-centered viewpoint, the idea that the therapist should evaluate the desirability for the client of having his questions answered is paternalistic and an exercise of authority over the client.
A client-centered therapist remains free to not answer a question asked by the client. But the reason for not answering would be explained to be a personal one - the therapist feels he does not know enough, or he feels uncomfortable in divulging the particular information, etc. - not as something that is good for the client. There are many, many implications for the way therapy is practiced when the client-centered therapist is acting from this strongly felt attitude that the client is his own best expert and that the therapist maintain non-directiveness.
The non-directive character of client-centered therapy is not only for the purpose of protecting the client's autonomy and to enhance the client's self-direction. Client-centered therapy is a fundamentally non-directive therapy because being so contributes to the distinctive therapeutic quality of the relationship between therapist and client. This quality involves the fostering in the client of a combination of feelings - of freedom, of a positive sense of self, and of empowerment The therapist provides the basic therapeutic attitudes of congruence, acceptance and empathy. He combines these in his way of being, with non-directiveness - the absence of directive attitudes and behaviors that would determine the content of the client's expression, that would determine the form of the client's expression or determine the processes that take place in the client. This whole way of being produces a unique experience of an authority (the therapist, inherently an authority) consistently behaving in a non-authoritative manner. This abdication of the usual forms of authority carries meaning to most clients. It conveys that they are not being evaluated, not being supervised and not being controlled. That they are not being treated in these usual ways by an authority also carries the meaning that they are being treated with respect, are being trusted, and are free, to a great extent, in the relationship. As a consequence the relationship takes on the qualities referred to above, of freedom, of enhancement of the client's sense of self and sense of personal power.
Client-centered therapy is a practice in which the hypothesis of the inherent growth principle is put into action. It is also a therapy wherein the theory of therapeutic attitudes as conditions for growth is taken as the basis for functioning with the client. It is also a therapy practice that is distinguishable by the form that it usually takes (or the form it reverts to if other forms come into play) - the empathic understanding response process. It is also a therapy which emphasizes non-directiveness and wherein this principle is maximized in the relation with the client. All together, these features distinguish client-centered therapy from other extant and possible person-centered therapies.
Second, the EURP is an optimal process, as a means to express empathic understanding and express the other therapeutic attitudes to the client, for most clients who choose to engage in therapy and wish to talk about themselves and their problems. But client-centered therapy is not limited to this population of clients. The realization of the theory of therapy with clients who do not choose therapy, or clients who are unable to talk about themselves, or clients whose illness or defects distort their relation to reality or to a relationship, may require forms of interaction which appear quite different from empathic understanding response process.
Third, there are, in the usual therapy situation when EURP is the salient form, often other forms of interaction which occur in the practice. These forms, such as answering questions, giving explanations, shaping experiments for the client to try, etc., occur in and may be an integral part of a particular therapy relationship. These forms occur in client-centered therapy, however, only when they are requested by the client or when they become the way to be with the client that gets clarified out of expressed needs or desires of the client. If forms of interaction other than EURP occur in a particular client-centered relation, the way they are expressed or done is shaped by the belief in the growth principle, the presence of the therapeutic attitudes in the therapist and the non-directiveness of the therapist.
It should be obvious, that to hold the view that a particular way of functioning by the client in the therapy relation is the way to make happen would necessarily involve some form of directiveness and be inconsistent with the basic conception of client-centered therapy. Given the premises of client-centered therapy, it is not possible to justify directiveness regardless of the advantages that might derive from directiveness in a particular instance.
The second way the therapist is not restricted in the forms of help that may be given to the client is that the client-centered therapist may serve as a source of information about other therapies or treatments and as the person who helps the client utilize the therapies or treatments provided by others. Sometimes helping the client utilize other therapies means minimizing their damage to the client that takes place as they are benefiting him. Until other helpers - physicians, psychological and behavioral therapists, psychopharmacologists, etc., are, themselves, person-centered it remains the case that many of these experts violate the self-regard or the autonomy of their patients and clients.
The client-centered therapist performs a crucial service in maintaining the basic client-centered therapeutic relation while his client goes through various treatments and therapies. These treatments may, in their specifics, be helpful to the client - even necessary - for his well-being. But without the grounding in the client-centered relation the client may be totally unable to use the services of these experts, or may be hurt or damaged in the process.
In the same way that the nature of client-centered therapy, in providing optimal conditions for growth and change, facilitates the client's constructive experience of, and way of relating to, his world, it also facilitates the client's strength, confidence and good judgement in utilizing the resources of the world, including its myriad therapies, treatments and educational and remedial resources.
There is a marked similarity among client-centered therapists in their shared values and in the salient form of the therapeutic relation - the empathic understanding response process. Within that form, however, the unique mind and experience of a therapist shapes his empathic grasp of the client's presented experience and shapes the specific responses that are expressed to the client.
Individuality is also expressed in the extent of personal openness and the qualities brought out in self-disclosures when they are in answer to personal questions by the client or when they are an expression of congruence.
The natural personality of the therapist is generally enhanced and developed by the practice of client-centered therapy itself. The practice requires the development of the attitudinal conditions in relation to clients. In this development, for that context, the client-centered therapist tends to develop those qualities towards himself and is, thereby self-therapeutic and self-fostering of his own individuality.
The achievement of insights, or the reduction of specific symptoms, in client-centered therapy, is only considered therapeutic if it is in the context of the larger perspective of preserving the therapeutic attitudinal qualities of the relationship perceived by the client. [2]
Client-centered therapy stems from ethical values and beliefs, even though they are held with the reservation that they are hypotheses. These values assert respect for the individual person and the belief that unconditional caring for the person is constructive for the person and also for the social milieu of the person. Whatever scientific support there may be for the client-centered theory of therapy - and there is considerable support for it (Patterson, 1984), the science is not the start of the practice for the practitioner. It simply gives support for where we place our faith. Because no-one knows the truth about therapy and no-one knows what is right.
{Ed. note: the remainder of the paper has not yet been made web-nice, due to time and terminal constraints. I'll stick it in "pre" tags so it'll be somewhat readable. (Caveat emptor - this is scanned text.) There are four therapy transcripts after the bibliography. I hope to have this done by mid-October. -MR}
References Bozarth, Jerold and "The Core Values and Theory of Brodley, Barbara Temaner the Person-Centered Approach". A paper prepared for the First Annual Meeting of the Association for the Development of the Person Centered Approach, in Chicago, Illinois, September 3 - 7, 1986. Patterson, C.H. "Empathy, Warmth and Genuineness in Psychotherapy: A Review of Reviews:. Psychotherapy. 21, 1984, 431-438. Rogers, Carl R. "The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change". Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21, 1957, pp 95-103. Rogers, Carl R. "A Theory of Therapy, Personality, and Interpersonal Relationships, as Developed in the Client-centered framework", S. Koch (ed.), Psychology: A Study of a Science, Vol III, Formulations of the Person and the Social Context. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959, pp 184-256. Rogers, Carl R. On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. Temaner, Barbara "The Empathic Understanding Response Process". Chicago Counseling Center Discussion Paper. A paper based on a lecture presented to Changes on March 6th, 1977. APPENDIX Segment I C1: I was thinking the other night I was feeling very blue about the way I felt, and I thought, well, maybe I wish I had my mother here in the way that she was because she used to be sort of reassuring when I was ill and she would do little things, make some special dish like custard or something. And it was sort of reassuring to have her around. Th: Uh um. C1: And of course I know that she isn't able to be that way any longer...I don't know what that all means, but for a minute I thought well I really miss her and I sort of need a mother at this point and yet ( ) it's impossible. Th: But even though it's factually impossible, the feeling was... "gee, I miss her, I wish she was here to take care of me and look after me." C1: Uh um. C1: Yet, at the same time I felt, well a little later ( ) maybe that wasn't what I needed, maybe it was a more adult sort of...companionship in some way, rather than a mother. But I needed something, or somebody. Th: You really didn't feel sure in yourself whether what you wanted was someone to really give you close mothering...or whether you wanted some more grown up kind of relationship. C1: And then in another sense I felt well, (sigh) maybe it's just something I have to go through alone. Th: Maybe it's just hopeless to wish that that could really be in a relationship with anybody...maybe I have to be alone. 3The first segment is a transcript from a film of Carl Rogers with "Mrs Mun". The second segment is part of a therapy interview by Carl Rogers that was used in a research study - Studies of Therapeutic Orientation: Ideology and Practice by Nathaniel Raskin, 1974. The third segment is from a demonstration interview by Barbara Temaner Brodley with Monika done is Szeged, Hungary, 1986. The fourth segment is from an interview by Usha Surabhi with a client, 1986. C1: Uh um...the thing that's sort of thrown me this week is that...well I feel better about the physical condition (compared to last week). I talked to ( ) and I sort of made friends with my doctor which makes me feel a little better (laughs) so we're not sort of quietly fighting without saying anything and I think I have more confidence in my ( ). I read an article about this and it said it's very hard to diagnose so I don't hold that against him any longer. But he feels he has to be sure. This is what it is and so they're giving me X rays and I'm frightened because I kind of feel they're having to be sure that it isn't cancer and that really frightens me terribly. Th: Uh um. Uh um. . . It' s, "If it's really something like that, then it just feels so alone. C1: And it's really a frightening kind of loneliness because I don't know who could be with you in a ( ). Th: . . . Is this what you're saying? "Could anyone be with you in fear or in a loneliness like that?" C1: (Cries) Th: It just really cuts so deep. C1: I don't know what it would feel like if there was somebody around that I could feel. . . could feel as though I, as though I did have someone to lean on. I don't know whether that would make me feel better or not. I kind of think this is something that you just have to grow within yourself, ( ) stand. You can just ( ) it will take two weeks I guess before they know. Would it help to have somebody else around? Or is it just something that you just have to really be intensely alone in? I just felt that way this week, just dreadfully, dreadfully all by myself. Th: Uh um...Is the feeling as though you're so terribly alone, in the universe almost, and whether... C1: Uh um Th: whether it even, whether anyone could help, whether it would help if you did have someone to lean on or not, you don't know. C1: I guess sort of basically that would be a problem you would have to do alone, I mean you just couldn't maybe do it with anybody, you just couldn't take anybody along with some of the feelings, and yet it would be sort of a comfort I guess not to be alone. Th: It surely would be nice if you could take someone with you a good deal of the way into your feelings of aloneness and fear. C1: I guess I just have. Th: Maybe that's what you're feeling right this minute. C1: And I think it is a comfort. C1: And I guess the feeling I have now is, well, I'm probably looking on the very blackest part of it and maybe there's no real need for that...it may just take time to reassure me and then this will all be sort of unimportant. Th: Um C1: Although it's something I shan't forget, I'm sure (laughs). Th: Humm. -23 Seqment II C1: It's just the same old story. Mothers and fathers try to tell the kids what to do, and the kids revolt. So, that's the only thing right now, that's between my parents and me. Th: So I guess you are saying,this is true in general but it's also true of you, that your parents try to tell you what to do and you feel, "I won't take that." C1: Well, I don't feel it. I say it. Of course, what I say and what I do are two different things though. Th: Uh huh. - I am not quite clear there. You say, you say it but you don't really feel it? C1: Well, let's put it this way: If my mother tells me what to do, and whether I like it or not, I have to do it. But boy I let her know that I'm not too happy about having to do it, either. Th: Uh huh. Are you saying there, "She may be able to make me behave in certain ways or do certain things, but she can't control the way I feel and I let her know how I feel." C1: That's exactly it. And about twice...after about two times of it straight in a row, I think she usually gives in to save the mess and bother of breaking them dishes and stuff like that. Th: So that, what are you saying, that when you sort of stand up on your hind legs strong enough a couple of times in a row, then no matter what she thinks, she kind of gives in to save the broken dishes. C1: Well, not the broken dishes. Just she sees she's gone a ~ little too far. Th: Ah. C1: You see I have a stepfather. Th: I see. C1: Let's put it this way: my stepfather and I are not on the happiest terms in the world. And so, when he states something and, of course, she goes along, an-d I stand up and let her know that I don't like what he is telling me, well she usually - gives in to me. Th: I see. C1: Sometimes, and sometimes it's just the opposite. Th: But part of what really makes for difficulty is the fact that you and your stepfather, as you say, are not --- the relationship isn't completely rosy. C1: Let's just put it this way, I hate him and he hates me. It's that way. Th: But you really hate him and you feel he really hates you. C1: Well, I don't know if he hates me or not, but I know one thing, I don't like him whatsoever. Th: You can't speak for sure about his feelings because only he knows exactly what those are, but as far as you are concerned... C1: . . . he knows how I feel about it. Th: You don't have any use for him. C1: Not whatsoever. And that's been for about 8 years now. Th: So for about eight years you've lived with a person whom you have no respect for and really hate. C1: Oh, I respect him. Th: Ah. Excuse me. I got that wrong. C1: I have to respect him. I don't have to but I do. But I don't love him. I hate him. I can't stand him. Th: There are certain things you respect him for but that doesn't alter the fact that you definitely hate him and don't love him. C1: That's the truth. I respect anybody who has bravery and courage, and he does. Th: I see. C1: And I still, uh, though I respect him, I don't like him. Th: But you do give him credit for the fact that he is brave, he has guts or something. C1: Yeah. He shows that he can do a lot of things that, well, a lot of men can't. Th: M-hm, m-hm. C1: And also he has asthma and the doctor hasn't given him very long to live. And he, even though he knows he is going to die, he keeps working and he works at a killing pace, so I respect him for that too. Th: M-hm. So I guess you're saying he really has... C1: . . . what it takes. Th: ...quite a few, yeah, he has what it takes in quite a few ways. He has a number of good qualities. But that doesn't mean that you care for him at all. Quite the reverse. C1: That is the truth. The only reason I put up with being around is because for my mother's sake. Th: M-hm, m-hm. Seqme~- III C1: I was angry. (T: Um.) I was so angry. And it's good for me that I'm taking all this time before I go to Greece, I, I mean this workshop now, and then I'm going to travel. And then I going to go to Greece at a certain point in August. (T: Uh-huh.) But sometimes, I just, I'm struck by the fact that, gosh, I'm going to see them again, and how would that be? How will that be? Th: You're making it gradual and yet at a certain point you will be there, (C: Uh-huh.) and what will that be? (C: Uh-huh.) Is. . .you have, uh, an. . .anti -ipation or fear (C: Yeah.) or (C: Yeah.) something like that... C1: Yeah, and I guess...I was thinking about my mother the other day, and...I realized, in the States I realized that she and I had a very competitive relationship. And...it was interesting but, three days ago in Budapest, I saw a lady in the street who reminded me of my mother. But, my mother, not at the age which she has right now. But my mother twenty years from now. And, I don't know why. I was so struck by that, because I saw my mother being old and, and, weak. So she was not this powerful, domineering person that she used to be in Greece which I was so much afraid of. (T: Uh-huh.) Th: But old and weakened and dim inshed. . . C1: Diminished. That's the word. (T: Uh-huh.) That's the word. (Client begins to show emotion of crying) Th: And it moved, kind of movedyou t think of that, that she would (C: Yeah.) be so weak and diminished. C1: And I think there was something in that lady's eyes that reminded me of my mother which (voice breaks - crying) I was not aware of when I was in Greece. And it was fear. (T: Uh-huh.) I saw fear in the woman's eyes. (T: Fear.) Yeah. And, I was not aware of that. Th: You mean, when you saw this woman who resembled your mother but twenty years from now, you saw in this woman's eyes something you had not realized was in fact in the eyes of your mother. (C: Yeah.) And that was the quality of fear. And that had some great impact on (C: Yeah.) you. C1: Because I felt that. This woman needed me. It feels good that I am crying now. (T: Uh-huh.) I'm feeling very well that I am crying. (T: Uh-huh.) Th: That it was also that, that it was a sense of your mother at the future, and that your mother will need you. C1: You got it! The future stuff. It's not the present stuff. (pause) It feels right here. (She places her hand over her abdomen.) And as I am going back to Greece, I don't know if I'm ready to, if I'm ready to be ready to take care of her. I don't know if I'm ready to see that need expressed by her. (Client has continued to cry as she speaks.) (~: Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.) (pause) Th: You're afraid that when you get there that will be more present in her or you will see it more than you did before, now that you've seen this woman, and that that will be a kind of demand on you and you're afraid that you're not ready to meet that. C1: That's it, yeah, and its gotten too much for me. Or, I,right now in Buda...in Hungary, I perceive it as being too much. (crying continues) Th: Uh-huh. At least, you're saying you're not sure how you will feel there, but it feels now like if that comes forth, if you see that, you, you won't be able to (C: Take it.) respond be able to take (C: Yeah.) it. (C: Yeah.) Se qrl~ent IV C1: Probably, my, my fear, fear for my need for a relationship, (laughs) too has to do with irrational feelings too (T: Hm, hm) you know uh. . . it has probably to do with, with some kind of parenting that I didn't get, I am still seeking, that I will never get you know (T: Hm, hm) trying to be taken care of by somebody. (laughs) Th: Your need for relationships is based on irrational feelings (C1: Yeah) that's what you are saying. C1: That's only partly so (T: Hm, hm) you know. Th: It's like, the parenting you missed, the need for being parented, it's like you are going to get now, if you have a relationship (C1: Yeah), wanting to be taken care of, it's very important now. C1: Yeah. I think that is one of the things I will be expecting in a relationship is, some, some kind of...being taken care of, you know, (T: Hm, hm) somebody taking care of me, but, you know, it is unrealistic, but I suppose I will always have that feeling that I want somebody to take care of me, you know. Th: What you are expecting in a relationship is that someone take care of you (C1: Yeah, (laughs)) but you think it is unrealistic probably (C1: Yeah) to expect that, (C1: Yeah, I guess so) to want someone to take care of you. C1: Yeah. (yawns) I, I don't know, that's for me like, taking care of somebody else, you know, if I have to (laughs). Th: Hm, hm. C1: It's a tremendous burden to expect somebody else to do that for you. . . uh. Th: It's a tremendous burden to expect someone else to take care of you. C1: Yeah, yeah...but I still have these thoughts, these childhood feelings that I am still looking. . . for someone to take care of me. Th: Hm, hm. You still have...these childhood feelings (C1: Yeah) strong needs. . . to be taken care of. C1: Yeah. I think I see, here again, here we go back to gambling now. It's all kind of tied in, tied in to gambling. (T: Hm, hm)