ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the political and ethical dimensions of personalisation through an analysis of the Person-Centred Approach (PCA) as found in psychotherapy practice and research, political conciliation and education. It introduces some details of Rogers' development of a PCA to psychotherapy, to indicate how its principles have been generalised into the PCA and to identify how it underpins our development of a PCA to design. The chapter discusses models of the person found in the mindsets of design research, and in the different modes of psychotherapy practice, and positions the PCA as a generative framework, and as holistic, rather than behavioural, cognitive or systemic. It allows design researchers to recognise that there are different modes of practice within the healthcare professions, and within psychology, and that these can have a significant impact on research methodology, including the configuration of participants within projects. Jayne Wallace has developed design-led techniques for empathy with participants.
