Person-centered counseling for alcohol-related problems: the client's experience of self in the therapeutic relationship

Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) is an intensive method of qualitative inquiry that has the potential to identify distinct aspects of the client's experience of therapy in relation to different problem domains. This paper presents an account of the client's experience in person-centered counseling for alcohol-related problems. Six clients receiving person-centered counseling for longstanding issues associated with alcohol abuse engaged in Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) interviews, which were transcribed and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Three main domains were identified: the experience of self; experiencing the counselor in the therapeutic relationship; experiencing the impact of counseling. The findings show that the clients overwhelmingly focused on the experience of the self, which was described as both anguished/uncooperative and connecting/emergent.