PETER F. SCHMID
Professor Peter F. Schmid was one of the three original co-editors of Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies together with Robert Elliott and me. We began work on the project in 1999 and produced the first volume in 2002. A central principle for the Journal was that it should represent the World Association for Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling in its promotion of academic rigor. As well as three editors the Journal, from its outset, carried an Editorial Board and a sixty member editorial Advisory Board who would provide peer review for submissions. The Journal invited papers about all aspects of therapy: practice, theory, research, training and the underlying philosophy and social contexts of our therapies. The editorial policy was strict about drawing the therapy boundary. There were many interesting applications of the person-centered approach in areas such as education, group work and conflict resolution, but the Journal restricted its boundary to the domain of counseling and psychotherapy, intentionally not distinguishing between these terms. Another policy position reflected the World Association in being equally open to the range of person-centered and experiential psychotherapies. The editors were especially aligned to this spirit of openness. We believed that there was much remediation to be undertaken in order to mend previous rifts so that our trainees could benefit from the thinking and research of earlier developments within the person-centered and experiential field. From the outset the journal was international with the initial eleven papers drawn from seven countries, yet we also noted in the editorial to the first volume that our aspiration was to include work from Latin America and Asia.
These editorial policies very much reflected the vision of Peter F. Schmid (Peter always liked his ‘F’ to be included because there are other ‘Peter Schmids’). Peter had amassed a huge bibliography within the approach and worked toward developing an international framework for the dissemination of the latest thinking in relation to practice, research and training. He had an appreciation of history and a comprehensive awareness of the philosophical grounding of the approach. Many people are drawn to the person-centered approach through a synchrony with their life experiences. It starts as an emotional experience. This was not true for Peter. For Peter the person-centered approach was a completely logical choice based on its inherent interpersonal philosophy. Encounter was the essence of being. It was what emanated from the human being and also what created humanness. Carl Rogers had been frustrated in his dialog with Martin Buber when the latter refused to accept the similarity between his notion of the ‘I-Thou’ relationship and Carl’s concept of the relationship in client-centered therapy. Of course there is a rousing similarity, but Peter explained it better after a logical re-naming as the ‘Thou-I’ relationship. This profound philosophical grounding of Peter Schmid is very important in understanding him and in loving him. I had come from a science background with no philosophical grounding. Coincidently, the first book I read after leaving my combined Honors course in Mathematics and Physics was Buber’s ‘I and Thou’. But that short book took me several re-starts and many hours. Perhaps my lack of philosophical baggage made it easier for me to listen to Peter. Peter was a principled man. He was not a pragmatic man. As I write this I smile, because I always see myself as pragmatic. Peter would never compromise the principles of what it was to be person-centered. He saw no need to compromise for short term practical gain. Why on earth would you compromise principles that were intellectually and philosophically sound? Another person (me for example) might see potential benefit in giving ground to an adversary in order to win wider influence. Peter F. Schmid would never do that. The thought would simply not make sense to him.
The three editors combined well together: we brought different skills, but we shared a willingness to invest the hundreds of hours the project grew to demand. Probably Peter was the strongest of us: his complete dedication to the Journal certainly kept me going. One strand that developed for the editors was to put a lot of effort into stimulating and supporting new authors. This policy had an important developmental function. We were discovering many areas within the approach where great work was being done on the ground but the discipline of expressing that academically had yet to be developed. Also there was the problem of language. I will never forget getting a note of thanks from an author whose paper was accepted after two years work from us both. It was a good piece of work, but he had had to produce it in what was his fourth language! So, this unusual effort on the part of the editors to mentor new authors served an important developmental function as well as helping to improve the stream of papers.
I remember fondly Peter’s induction to this function of senior editors. He was more used to academic editors simply making demands on contributors. I recall an exchange that will bring a smile of recognition to those who knew Peter well. Peter had been somewhat peremptory in his feedback to an author and I challenged him thus: