ABSTRACT
Probably the most important general guideline for facilitators is that people must start from where the other person is, and they need to understand precisely why this is so. It was Carl Rogers who developed the term and the practice of 'client-centred' therapy. This was based on the notion that, for people to be able to solve their problems, they had first to accept that they had them in their own terms, not just because someone else, however qualified, told them. A catalyst in chemistry is something that creates a reaction without itself being changed by it. In the sense that people are using the word, the therapist causes the change to happen where it would otherwise not, but the precise nature of the change is determined by the client. While Rogers was dealing with people in therapy, facilitators are dealing with people during the normal course of their lives.
