ABSTRACT
With respect to psychological contact and mental distress and person-centred therapy, the work of Garry Prouty is of pre-eminence (Points 15 and 68). Proutyg asked the fundamental question ‘What happens if the first of the necessary and sufficient conditions is not met?’ This led to the development of a person-centred system of thought and practice embracing clients with (for example) profound learning difficulties or schizophrenia. This became known as pre-therapy (see Prouty 2002a and 2002b) which (2002b: 55) is described as ‘a theory of psychological contact … rooted in Rogers’ conception of psychological contact as the first condition of a therapeutic relationship’. According to Krietemeyer and Prouty (2003: 152) pre-therapy theory ‘was developed in the context of treating mentally retarded or psychotic populations’. This is because, in Prouty’s experience, such people are ‘contact-impaired’ and have difficulty forming interpersonal connections. Pre-therapy theory led to the development of a set of practices by which psychological contact could be established (see case studies presented by Krietemeyer and Prouty 2003: 154-160 and Van Werde 1994: 125-128) and for which Dekeyser et al. (2014: 206-222) and Prouty (2001: 595-596) summarise the research evidence.
