TECHNIQUE OF COMPANIONSHIP THERAP MODEL

Goodman’s  project took place in Berkeley in the mid-sixties. The “clients”  were 5th-grade and  6th-grade boys,  selected  by a systematic citywide screening  of the public schools. The counselors were male      Berkeley undergraduates, recruited through advertisements in the  newspaper.  The “companionships”  were structured to meet from one to four hours per visit, with  two  visits  per  week, and to  last  for  the duration of the academic year. The typical pair met approximately  fifty times over a span of  eight months, and their average meeting  lasted almost three  hours.

The techniques of  Companionship Therapy  do  not exist so much  at the level of  the response —  such as  interpretation in psychoanalysis, or confrontation in encounter  —  but more  at the level  of  the      relationship as  a whole. They consist of  the methods used to compose  and structure the individual  companionships.

The   program was influenced by the client-centered  tradition.  Following Carl Rogers…