10 - Postures and Climate in Dyadic Interaction

Summary

Everyone's affective posture actually emerges in his or her behavior. There is probably no better way to demonstrate this observation than to examine the affective posture of our three therapists – Rogers, Perls, and Ellis – all with the same client, performing the same tasks. Of course, we will also want to know something about the affective posture of the client. Surely her unique characteristics will call out specific reactions from each therapist. The Shostrom film of Perls, Ellis, and Rogers with Gloria, a client, though not intended to be examined for affective interactions, is actually quite perfect for this task. We can compare the behavior of the therapist with his goals in therapy – his philosophy or theory of therapy, if you will, as well as compare how each therapist gets along with this particular client.

In this chapter we try to bring Gloria as a client more to life in the written text both as a figure in her own right and as an integral part of our discussion of the affective postures of each therapist. Even though we continue to focus primarily on Rogers, Perls, and Ellis, and do not have enough material to do justice to Gloria as a whole person, the unique ways that she expressed her thoughts and emotions reveals a depth to hidden aspects of the emotion system that cannot be sensed except in the dynamic interaction of people.