ABSTRACT
Confirmation is the acknowledgement of one’s whole being and communicating this to the other. Whereas ‘Inclusion is the stance of fully taking in the other… confirmation is the act of communicating this’ (Cole & Reese, 2018: 24, original italics). In looking at these different aspects of dialogue individually we create a false separation, the boundaries between inclusion, presence and confirmation can be blurred, for example my practicing presence can be confirming. Each different aspect works with all other aspects as with the different structures in our cardio-vascular system, but we need an understanding of how those different structures function if we are to understand the whole. Martin Buber in conversation with the founder of the person-centred approach, Carl Rogers, said that confirmation means, ‘accepting the whole potentiality of the other and making even a decisive difference in his potentiality’ (Buber, 1999: 266). What I take from this is that my conveying belief in the others potential consistently in the here and now has the capacity to change the trajectory of that person’s life in the future, confirmation can be truly transformative for, ‘in the present lies hidden what can become’ (Buber, 1999: 243, original italics).
