School of Psychology

Dr. Godfrey Barrett-Lennard

Honorary Fellow

RESEARCH:
My research interests are in theory and measurement of helping and other relationships; self-concept theory and study; inquiry into experiential group processes, adult life events and change, community and identity.

1) I’m continually involved in responding to grad students from many regions who consult me or ask for materials to use in their thesis/dissertation research. In the past year, for example, I’ve had several occasions to adapt, or consult on adapting, forms of the Relationship Inventory for newly conceived applications. I probably average at least half (and sometimes a whole) day a week in responding. This has been going on for a long time, and will continue. I won’t be around indefinitely and partly for this reason I’m seriously contemplating the next-mentioned project:

2) I have in mind another book on the working topic ‘Researching Interpersonal Relationships’, but focusing on my own work and that of other people who have drawn on it. This would give particular attention to the Relationship Inventory, now in use for nearly 50 years. My concept is that the book would assemble in one place all of the background information, the main technical reports, history and examples of the diverse applications and findings, the various tested forms of the instrument and an account of the potential new applications and versions. The book also would have a chapter on and around the ‘CSI’, mentioned next.

3) Following an earlier thesis study, I gathered substantial ‘pilot’ data with a short form of my Contextual Selves Inventory (CSI) from 65-70 individuals who participated in workshops I conducted in Europe in mid-2006.  The CSI calls on respondents to answer a modified self-concept inventory to picture there self-characteristics in several differing relationship contexts, e.g., with a spouse or partner, a parent, own child, a workgroup or boss/supervisor, a person they don't like or trust, etc. This project  reflects my own conceptual work on self-diversity (e.g., as in Chapter 1 of my 2005 book, Relationship at the Centre) and other recent literature on ‘self-plurality’.

4) Some of the potential research data from the 1960s Armidale (University of New England) intensive residential workshops with people in the mental health field has not been fully studied and reported. This includes both transcribed group sessions and interview protocols gathered much later during a long-term follow-up study. Valuable questionnaire data gathered session by session also warrants fuller reporting than has occurred. One of my priorities is to get back to these and other carefully preserved and assembled records to fill in significant gaps and perhaps also to produce a broad synthesis informed by my current thought on relationship.

WRITING AND OTHER ACTIVITIES:
My 1998 book (listed below) searches into the larger circumstances that helped to shape and give rise to a major helping system, and provides a close developmental account of the interior substance and contribution of this system to theory, research and practice. The book also reflects my own journey from a fairly exclusive focus on the person in his/her individual world to a focused concern with context and connection in human life. This later emphasis is developed most fully in my newest book Relationship at the Centre: Healing in a troubled world. A volume between these two, Steps on a mindful journey (2003), emphasises counselling-related topics: processes in therapy, families and groups, relationship research and lessons from personal experience.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

• Barrett-Lennard, G.T. (2007). Human relationship: Linkage or life form? Person-Centred and Experiential Psychotherapies, 6 (3), 183-195.
  
  

• Barrett-Lennard, G.T. (2007). The relational foundations of person-centred practice. In M. Cooper, P. F. Schmid, M. O’Hara, & G. Wyatt (Eds), The Handbook of person-centred psychotherapy and counselling (127-139). Houndmills (UK) & New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  
  

• Barrett-Lennard, G. T. (2005). Relationship at the Centre: Healing in a troubled world. London and Philadelphia: Whurr.
  
  

• Barrett-Lennard, G.T. (2002) Perceptual variables of the helping relationship: A measuring system and its fruits. G. Wyatt and P. Sanders (Eds), Contact and Perception, Volume 4. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.
  
  
• Barrett-Lennard, G.T.(1998). Carl Rogers’ helping system: Journey and substance. London: Sage.
  
  

Full List of Publications