Kafka

What is it about?

Franz Kafka’s Letters to Felice is instructive for the therapist/reader since it provides a first-person narrative of Kafka’s immersion in a fundamentally relational-experiential process. It is argued that the underlying ‘We’ of Kafka’s letters implies that their correspondence expressed and constituted their relationship. Significant aspects of his experiencing are discussed from a person-centered perspective. It is argued that his experiences were initially subceived prior to awareness, in the moment, bodily-felt, and process-like. The parallels that exist between the experience of reading Letters to Felice and being in a person-centered therapeutic relationship are discussed. Both endeavors are experiential and phenomenological, and from a contemporary person-centered perspective, are based upon a refinement of Carl Rogers’ original formulation.

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Why is it important?

This article attempts to depict Kafka's experiencing as a relational-experiential process rather that as one that reflects a stereotypical "tortured genius" (even if he was) who was a "consummate neurotic" (as described by one humanistic psychologist). It also tries to capture contemporary person-centred therapy that has moved on from the "individualistic" approach associated with Rogers.