ABSTRACT
As Sanders (2006b: 33) states, the first of Rogers’ necessary and sufficient conditions, the requirement that ‘contact’ (Rogers 1959: 213) or ‘psychological contact’ (Rogers 1957: 96) exists between client and therapist, is consistently overlooked in most books about therapy and often in the training even of person-centred therapists. This seems to be an important oversight because what is being expressed is that successful therapy depends upon there being a relationship between the client and the therapist. Rogers (1959: 207) makes this clear in his definitions of terms:
Another way of understanding this is that for therapy to be successful each person involved must, to some small degree and on some level, be aware of the presence of the other (even if not consciously) and that this awareness constitutes a relationship. Rogers (1957: 96) writes:
need for psychological contact. Warner (2002: 92) points out that ‘even moderate increases in psychological contact are of great personal and psychological value to clients’. Contact with another person, a sense of being with rather than apart, however fleeting, can lessen anxiety and existential loneliness.
