It’s a Kind of Magic: A Heuristic Study into Relational Depth in Person-Centred Therapy (Research)

In 2026, I presented this research at the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy International Research Conference in London.

The project explored how Person-Centred practitioners experience relational depth - not as a rare “special moment”, but as an ongoing relational process that may already be moving within therapeutic contact.

Rather than positioning depth as something therapists create, the research suggests therapy may involve learning to recognise, trust, and gently steward forms of contact already emerging within the relationship.

Themes explored included:

• psychological contact as continuum

• rhythm rather than arrival

• mutuality and reverberation

• differentiation within connection

• the possibility of spiritual or existential resonance within therapeutic presence
  

The research draws from:

• Person-Centred Approach

• heuristic inquiry

• relational philosophy

• trauma-informed and neurobiological perspectives

• phenomenological understandings of presence and encounter
  

For those interested in the full academic work, the Paper and conference manuscript are available via ResearchGate below. Read the Full Paper Read the Conference Manuscript