Person-Centred Encounter Groups Feedback – Aberdeen - 6th June 2026

Sheila

I am delighted to have participated in the first Aberdeen Encounter Group & hope its 'success' will create a momentum for future EGs being held in the Ferryhill Community Centre.

This is a great central venue with welcoming staff & a cafe where homemade soup can be an option if they get enough notice!

I was raring to go, looking forward  to a change of scene after at least 12 days of a viral infection & a horrible lingering cough which I think has started my addiction to Strepsils!!

A small group. 3 men, 5 women. Not all working as counsellors including students & a couple of participants curious about how Encounter Group might serve their personal & professional development.

I've always seen EG's as an opportunity for a 'work out', happy to discover what matters to me & others on that particular day with these participants. A magical mystery experience, highs & lows. Just one day's micro exploration which can have macro impact upon how I relate to myself & others.

It was particularly helpful that the group was invited to consider something right at the start which focused participants on how they perceived what this gathering was about. Was it ok for ' a.n.other ' to pop in & say ' Hello' at lunchtime? The answer was NO.

We made the group our own & I think this really helped a more trusting, trustworthy space be created quickly.

I used the group to extend my self acceptance.I attempted to own & describe aspects of how I have functioned in previous groups & life! . Challenging because this focus takes me to places where it's hard to distinguish between ' Then' & 'Now'. This time, I felt supported  to be much more focused & explicit about my presentation. It was exhilarating not to hold myself in this revelation & ride the waves of intense feelings simultaneously. I felt relieved to receive feedback which reinforced my future responsibility to take a bit more space & be explicit about my process.

It seemed to be a healing experience for those whose PC  training/community meetings  had been tortuous at times.... That's music to my ears. I think EG have great potential  to explore this painful thread of development in a less 'high- stakes' context .

Visiting Aberdeen was well worth it for me...Foodstory vegetarian restaurant in Thistle Street gets my custom next time.

When's the next one please?

Matthew

This encounter, my third so far, and being experienced from a lay person's perspective, was somewhat dissatisfactory. There seemed a great deal of fear and trepidation, and an attempt to control and "professionalise" the encounter. Everyone introduced themselves, and as usual, stated what they where and what they do. The contracting at the beginning felt like a leash being put on what would feel like it is supposed to be a natural and spontaneous event. 

The imposition of structure to engender a feeling of safety feels like a murder. A death of the "real" and an entry into the land of "hyper-reality". How can one be true, and real in a "frame"? Intellectual models kill reality, and kill complexity.

You can be yourself along these lines. The destruction of self for entry into the corporate body.

People's negative experience of the past altered who I felt I could be at that point, the compassionate side of me wanted to ensure that they had a "nice" experience. But this meant that I didn't be myself in the way that perhaps I would have before, or is the ability to act polite and wear the mark of genteel evidence of "growth"? 

I suppose in that event, the need to help another, or at least feel like I am helping, meant that I had to sacrifice some of the selfish desires or designs of my own for the day. Is that what a counselor, or someone in a helping role is supposed to do? 

I don't know, but again, it leaves a lot of room for reflection, and more steps to be carefully examined before climbing. 

Jessica

Feedback for attending - June PCT Scotland Encounter Group in Aberdeen Saturday 6 June 2026 - happy to share my spontaneous thoughts and feelings about it. 

On Saturday, I stepped out of my comfort zone to attend the first face to face encounter group since doing my PGDip Person-Centred Counselling a few of years ago. 

I went with the intention to explore, hear and possibly share whatever came up for me in the moment. 

I run a small PCC private practice nestled on the North East Aberdeenshire coast. https://www.jessicagrasham-counselling.com  - I can easily pass time just seeing my clients and supervisor and not having much other 'counselling connections'. I'm a bit of a hermit.

I decided it would be a good thing for me to poke my head up and go. I am really interested in hearing about other people's ways of being - mindsets, emotions, experiences. The idea presented itself to me that this might be a place where 'magic' could happen. Where a group holds each other, creates a safe space. As a PCC event I assumed empathy, congruence and mutual unconditional positive regard would be present and prized. I would meet 'other' and 'be'.

I'm still processing what went on what i felt, heard and shared there. When I think about it now I realise it's an ongoing realisation and experience. Life as a continuum. Like counselling, encountering is not just an single immediate thing. It's a rich live, thing. It's significance can be pondered on, picked up and dropped as required or as it happens. It's not just 'in the room', afterwards the understanding, feelings and thoughts carry on inside our own being. Well they are in mine anyway. 

I also want to say that I really liked the fact this was held in Aberdeen. I do like Edinburgh and Glasgow but they do seem reeeeeeaaaalllllly far away. Good to have something on home turf. I look forward to more up here.

PS saying that I was impressed that some of the attendees on Saturday were from afar, so it did make me think maybe I would travel further at some point when it felt right...