Joining With the Client in an Open Event

Abstract

In this article, we respond to the insightful commentary offered by Drs. Anstoos and Davidson. In particular, we discuss our humanist assumptions behind our original article and explicitly address the issue of uncertainty in psychotherapy relative to the event itself as well as to therapeutic outcome. We assert, however, that even in the face of this uncertainty, we can still open ourselves to the event and prompt the patient to do likewise, if they are willing. This openness is not without risk, so we detail the importance of enduring the experience. Such evential experiences can change the thrownness of the participants in that event, such that their experience of prison can change, although it does not necessarily. We also address the open/closed position of the therapist and patient by addressing the issue of action and potential, the Husserl’s “horizon” compared with Marion’s “manifest.” By doing so, we argue that using the language of the event, nonexclusive to the language of the horizon but rather inclusive of it, we can produce a compelling phenomenology of the event of offender treatment.