Renate Motschnig, Selina Gartner and Michael Jemetz participated in the 17th World Conference on Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling (PCE), which was held from the 8th to the 11th of June in Cologne.
The person-centered approach, which emerged in the context of therapy, already quickly found its way into education through its founder, Carl Rogers. Therefore, in addition to therapy and counseling, PCE also covers person-centered education in the broadest sense. In this context, the consortium members engaged in dialogue with the person-centered community and networked with experts in the field. This also included a reunion with Jeffrey Cornelius-White and Yasuko Kanamori, who served as guest facilitators in the Significant Learning Community of the doctoral program, which was presented by Renate Motschnig in a workshop at the conference.
The conference’s connection to computer science became evident, among other things, in Jeffrey Cornelius-White‘s joint keynote presentation with Charlotte Blease on the topic of generative AI in person-centered therapy. Renate Motschnig continued the AI theme in her talk, focusing on person-centered education and the application of motivational interviewing with generative AI. But the connection to computer science didn’t end there. Bernhard Standl, who has also previously served as a guest facilitator at SILC and will assume the professorship in computer science education at the University of Vienna starting in August, for example, also brought this connection to the conference with a workshop on empathy and problem-solving. This way, participants had the opportunity to theoretically and experientially engage with the relationship between the person-centered approach and computer science.
Many thanks to the conference organizers and the PCE community for the wonderful and enriching experience!
More on the Significant Learning Community:
general information on the course
article on the sessions with Bernhard Standl
article on the sessions with Jeffrey Cornelius-White and Yasuko Kanamori