Desarrollo Humano training

1. Introduction

Version followed: the Mexican Desarrollo Humano (DH) tradition founded by Juan Lafarga Corona SJ at the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA, Mexico City) and carried to ITESO (Guadalajara) by José Gómez del Campo. Its practice is the person-centred approach (Rogers) applied to individual helping relationships, encounter groups, talleres vivenciales (experiential workshops) and community and educational projects. The training structure used here is the current ITESO Maestría en Desarrollo Humano curriculum. The core texts by Lafarga and Gómez del Campo are not drawn on (Lafarga & Gómez del Campo, Desarrollo del potencial humano; Lafarga 2010; Gómez del Campo, Salazar & Rodríguez 2014). Their content here comes through theses and articles that quote them [uncertain].

What it is. DH is not a single manualised therapy. It is a training and practice tradition: a university-based movement, with master's and doctoral programmes, that forms "facilitators" of human growth. It draws on Rogers, Maslow, Allport and Teilhard de Chardin, and Lafarga called it a philosophy of the person, of society and of interpersonal relationships [source: González Caballero 2024, pp. 212, 218]. Lafarga defined DH as the study of the basic intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamisms that drive a person's evolution [source: Lafarga 2010, p. 11, quoted in Fuerte Reyes 2019].

Core idea of change. Every person has a basic tendency toward growth. A relationship in which the person perceives empathy, unconditional acceptance and congruence frees that tendency, and the person's own values then emerge. The facilitator creates the relationship, not the direction of change [source: Lafarga 1992, p. 6 and 2005, p. 45, quoted in Fuerte Reyes 2019 and López Martínez 2021].

History, for orientation:

• Lafarga studied at the University of Chicago (1961–66), where he met Rogers' work and later became a personal friend of Rogers. He returned to Mexico in mid-1966 and worked with the UIA's Centro de Orientación Psicológica (COP) and Department of Psychology.
• The psychiatrists who ran the clinical master's rejected his proposal for person-centred psychotherapy training. He then ran an "Introductory Counselling Course" and, later, a five-year experimental programme for psychologists that the UIA accredited as a postgraduate in Psicoterapia Autodirectiva and that ended in the early 1970s.
• 1972: Maestría en Orientación y Desarrollo Humano. 1974: doctorate. 1982: family-orientation specialisation.
• Gómez del Campo, trained in the UIA programme, founded the ITESO master's.
• Rogers took part in Mexican events: Cuernavaca 1975, a residential community-building seminar at Amecameca in 1977, and Guadalajara and Oaxtepec in 1982 [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, pp. 27–36].
• ITESO dates its DH postgraduate to 1976 [source: ITESO MDH brochure].
• Lafarga founded INIDH (Instituto Nacional de Investigación en Desarrollo Humano) in 2006 [source: González Caballero 2024, p. 218].

A start date of "1967–68" is sometimes given, but the sources give mid-1966 for Lafarga's arrival and leave the first course undated [uncertain].

Who teaches it now: master's programmes in DH at IBERO and at ITESO (the latter person-centred, with supervised intervention projects). Programmes have also existed at the Universidad Veracruzana and Universidad La Salle Bajío [source: Segrera c.1997; González Caballero 2024; ITESO MDH brochure; Mextudia IBERO page].

2. Framework

DH has no fixed treatment phases. Read the framework at two levels: (A) how a facilitator is formed, and (B) the formats in which facilitators work with people.

A. Formation pathway (ITESO MDH, five cycles; the curriculum is updated periodically) [source: ITESO MDH brochure]

1. Cycle 1: grounding and the facilitative relationship.
   • Courses: Human Development; Research, Development & Innovation I; Skills for the facilitative relationship.
   • Goal: become able to offer empathy, acceptance, respect and congruence one-to-one.
2. Cycle 2: group facilitation.
   • Courses: Skills for group facilitation; Research II; Elaborating personal involvement I.
   • Goal: hold a growth climate in a group and begin working on one's own involvement in the helping process.
3. Cycle 3 (summer): elective.
4. Cycle 4: supervised intervention.
   • Courses: Supervision of the intervention; Research III; Elaborating personal involvement II.
   • Goal: run a real DH intervention project under supervision.
5. Cycle 5: evaluation and report.
   • Courses: Research IV; Elaborating personal involvement III.
   • Goal: evaluate the project and report on it.

Throughout, each student has a personal tutor. Graduation requires designing, applying and evaluating a supervised intervention project.

Criteria for moving on:

• The sources give no explicit competence criteria for moving between cycles [uncertain].
• In practice, progression is by course completion and an approved, supervised project.
• Clinically, a sensible criterion is that you can sustain the three attitudes one-to-one before you lead groups [synthesis].

IBERO's published plan has a similar arc: person-centred approach and anthropo-philosophical foundations, then psychosocial foundations and a communication workshop, then Personal Development I–II alongside DH Projects I–III [source: Mextudia IBERO page; third-party aggregator, uncertain].

In the historical UIA training, early seminars mixed psychologists with priests, nuns and teachers. Lafarga's five-year programme was for psychologists only [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, pp. 30–31].

B. Working formats

The Iztacala community project of 1982, a DH-inspired example, ran in stages:

1. Assess the "problem" cases referred by schools, and give talks and courses for parents on general themes.
2. Offer Axline-style play therapy to the children and small discussion and follow-up groups to the parents.
3. Evaluate, with a child adjustment questionnaire under development [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, pp. 47–49].

Within groups:

• Rogers described about 15 overlapping process patterns with no fixed order, from milling around through resistance, expression of negative feelings, crumbling of façades, feedback and confrontation, to basic encounter and behaviour change [source: Rogers, On Encounter Groups, summarised in García Yedra 2015, pp. 38–40].
• Some Spanish-language DH teaching uses Barceló's 7-phase model, which matches a predominant facilitator attitude to each phase [source: Barceló 2003, in García Yedra 2015, pp. 40–42]. Barceló works in Spain, so this model is secondary to the Mexican founders [uncertain whether it is used in UIA or ITESO training].
• Move on when the group, not the facilitator, signals it: when members bring present-tense feelings, give each other feedback and own their direction [synthesis from the Rogers stages].

3. Guiding principles

• Basic growth tendency. Assume the person has the resources. Your job is to remove obstacles, not supply direction [source: Lafarga 1992, p. 6, in Fuerte Reyes 2019].
• Self-actualisation is lifelong. No one "finishes". Frame work as one stage of an ongoing process, not a cure [source: Lafarga 2010, pp. 20–21, in Fuerte Reyes 2019].
• Shared responsibility for growth. Each person is responsible for their own growth and for promoting others'. Invite clients and group members to act as facilitators of each other [source: Lafarga 2010, p. 15, in Fuerte Reyes 2019].
• Own values must emerge. Help clients find what they value. Never install your values [source: Lafarga 2005, p. 45, in López Martínez 2021].
• The relationship is the instrument. Change comes from the quality of the relationship, not from techniques. Check the relationship before reaching for an exercise [source: Lafarga 2005, p. 45, in López Martínez 2021].
• The three attitudes, perceived and not announced. Empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence must be felt by the client. Do not explain them; embody them [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, pp. 19, 22].
• No persuasion; accompany decisions. You do not persuade clients toward what you think is best. Reflect, clarify and stay with them while they decide [source: Lafarga 2013, in Fuerte Reyes 2019].
• Against guilt-based guidance. Lafarga criticised persuasion, guidance and manipulation through guilt in religious direction. Watch for "should" and moral pressure in your own responses [source: González Caballero 2024, p. 215].
• Here and now. Start from present experience. Bring stories back to what the person feels now, including in the room [source: Lafarga 2013, pp. 26–27, in Fuerte Reyes 2019].
• Dialogue as the privileged means of communication. Prefer genuine two-way exchange to instruction or lecture, even in workshops [source: Lafarga 2010, pp. 16–17, in Fuerte Reyes 2019].
• Being Rogerian is not imitating Rogers. Adapt the approach to context and culture rather than copying his procedures [source: Lafarga 2010, p. 18, in Fuerte Reyes 2019].
• Facilitator, not leader. In groups, set only practical conditions (time, place, membership) and let goals emerge from members [source: Rogers and O'Hara, in García Yedra 2015, pp. 27–36].
• Facilitate your own learning first. Your own growth work is part of competence, which is why the curriculum has personal-involvement courses [source: Rogers & Freiberg, in Sánchez Muñoz 2016; ITESO MDH brochure].
• Health promotion is psychotherapeutic; training forms facilitators. DH work is legitimate outside clinical settings, and non-psychologists can be trained to facilitate. Keep clinical treatment within your licence [source: Lafarga 2010, pp. 14–15, in Fuerte Reyes 2019; the scope caveat is synthesis].
• No pathology required. Groups are for growth and prevention, not only for patients [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, pp. 46–47].
• Community stance. In community work aim to deprofessionalise and to build horizontality, autonomy, responsibility and awareness, oriented to health. Share power with the community [source: Gómez del Campo 2011, in Guzmán Dávila et al. 2025, p. 39].
• Social commitment. Lafarga held that everyday practice should promote justice, honesty and solidarity. Link personal growth to social context [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, p. 44].

4. Intervention inventory

DH's own sources treat attitudes and the relationship as primary and "techniques" as secondary. The inventory below lists the concrete procedures that DH authors and DH theses describe:

• A. Individual relationship procedures.
• B. Group procedures.
• C. Workshop, project and community procedures.
• D. Facilitator formation procedures.

One caveat applies throughout. The founders' own procedural texts are not drawn on (Desarrollo del potencial humano; Gómez del Campo, Salazar & Rodríguez 2014 on talleres vivenciales), so the step lists below are built from Rogers-derived descriptions in DH theses and are partly [synthesis].

A1. Establishing the facilitative relationship (the three attitudes)

• Purpose / when: The base of every DH intervention, individual or group. Use it from the first contact.
• Steps:
  1. Before the session, notice your own judgements and agendas about the client and set them aside (congruence starts with self-awareness).
  2. Open with an unstructured invitation; let the client choose the starting point.
  3. Listen for the felt meaning, not just the content.
  4. Respond so the client can check whether you understood (see A2).
  5. Keep a steady acceptance of the person, including of feelings you would not share.
  6. When your own reaction is persistent and relevant, voice it briefly and as your own (congruence).
  7. Do not label or explain the attitudes to the client; they must be perceived, not announced.
• Example language (illustrative): "Where would you like to start today?" / "I want to make sure I'm following you, not getting ahead of you."
• Watch for:
  • It is working when the client talks more in the first person and in the present, and becomes less defensive.
  • It is not working if the client keeps seeking your verdict or performing for you. Check whether you have been signalling evaluation.
• [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, pp. 19–22; López Martínez 2021 citing Rogers 1987, pp. 44–45; steps synthesis]

A2. Empathic reflection (respuesta reflejo)

• Purpose / when: Shows the client that you understand. It helps the client hear and deepen their own experience. Use it as the default response.
• Steps:
  1. Take in the whole message: words, tone, posture.
  2. Choose one way to respond. Martínez Chilpa describes reflection as summarising, interpreting or accentuating the client's communication, always from the three attitudes. Pick one:
     • Summarise: restate the gist.
     • Accentuate: highlight the feeling or the part said most quietly.
     • Interpret: offer the implicit meaning tentatively, as a guess the client can correct.
  3. Say it briefly, in the client's register.
  4. Leave a pause and let the client confirm, correct or go further.
  5. If the client corrects you, take up the correction without defending your version.
• Example language (illustrative):
  • "So underneath the anger there's something closer to feeling betrayed."
  • "You said it almost in passing, that you've never told anyone."
  • "I'm wondering if part of you already knows what you want, and that's what scares you. Is that close?"
• Watch for:
  • Parroting the words back mechanically.
  • Interpreting from your theory rather than from the client's frame.
  • It is working when the client says "yes, and…" and goes deeper.
• [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, p. 21; Barceló 2012 on empathy, in López Martínez 2021, p. 134]

A3. Here-and-now focusing

• Purpose / when: Use when narration about the past or about other people keeps the client away from present experience.
• Steps:
  1. Notice a shift into report mode.
  2. Gently ask what the client feels now, as they tell it.
  3. If the client wants to stay with the story, follow; do not force the present.
  4. In groups, invite members to say what they feel toward each other in the room.
• Example language (illustrative): "As you tell me this now, what's happening inside you?" / "What is it like to say this here, with me?"
• Watch for:
  • The client experiencing this as a demand to emote.
  • Signs it is working: shorter, more felt statements, and new awareness.
• [source: Lafarga 2013, pp. 26–27, in Fuerte Reyes 2019; steps synthesis]

A4. Accompanying decisions without persuasion

• Purpose / when: Use when the client faces a choice and wants you to decide, or when you have a strong opinion.
• Steps:
  1. Reflect each side of the dilemma as the client experiences it.
  2. Help the client name the values behind each side.
  3. If asked for your opinion, you may give it congruently, but only once, labelled as yours, and then return to the client's frame.
  4. Respect a decision you disagree with, unless there is a safety issue (then see section 5).
• Example language (illustrative): "You'd like me to tell you which one. What do you notice when you imagine having chosen each?" / "If you want my view I'll give it, but your reasons matter more here than mine."
• Watch for:
  • Subtle steering through selective reflection: reflecting only the side you prefer.
  • Guilt or "should" language from you.
• [source: Lafarga 2013, in Fuerte Reyes 2019; González Caballero 2024, p. 215; step 3 synthesis]

A5. Facilitating the emergence of the client's own values

• Purpose / when: The DH aim of moving from imported "shoulds" to self-chosen values. Use it in growth, vocational, religious or family-conflict work.
• Steps:
  1. When the client uses "should", "have to" or "they expect", reflect where the standard comes from.
  2. Explore how the client actually experiences that standard.
  3. Invite the client to put into words what they themselves prize.
  4. Explore what acting on it would mean concretely.
• Example language (illustrative): "Whose voice is that 'should'?" / "Setting aside what's expected, what matters to you here?"
• Watch for:
  • Replacing their values with yours under a humanist label.
  • Cultural and family obligations the client genuinely holds: these are values too, not obstacles.
• [source: Lafarga 2005, p. 45, in López Martínez 2021; steps synthesis]

B1. Convening and running a person-centred encounter group

• Purpose / when: For personal growth, improving relationships and preventing social problems in non-patients. Lafarga facilitated groups this way, and DH groups such as Grupo Norte, IMMANTY and CRESCERE ran workshops and encounter groups.
• Steps:
  1. Set only the practical frame: time, place, membership and confidentiality. Prefer an intensive format, such as a weekend or several consecutive days. Keep the group to about 20 or fewer.
  2. Open with minimal structure: say who you are, the time frame and that the group will decide how to use it.
  3. Tolerate the initial milling, polite talk and frustration at the lack of agenda. Reflect the frustration rather than filling the vacuum.
  4. Respond to each person with the A1/A2 attitudes. Model listening.
  5. Welcome negative feelings, including those aimed at you, and do not defend yourself.
  6. Allow conflict and pain rather than smoothing them over. Stay with the people involved.
  7. Encourage direct feedback between members, owned and specific.
  8. Close by giving members time to say what they take away and how it will continue outside.
• Example language (illustrative): "This time is ours; I'm not going to set a topic. I notice some impatience about that." / "You're angry with me for not leading. I'd rather hear that than have you hold it in."
• Watch for:
  • Group pressure that forces disclosure.
  • Scapegoating.
  • Members who withdraw or are overwhelmed (see section 5).
  • Signs it is working: present-tense feelings, mutual help, and façades dropping.
• [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, pp. 31, 40–41, 46–47; Rogers' stages and facilitator role, in García Yedra 2015, pp. 26–40; steps partly synthesis]

B2. Reading the group process (Rogers' patterns)

• Purpose / when: To understand what is happening without steering it. Use it continuously and in supervision.
• Steps:
  1. Track which patterns are present. They are Rogers' concepts, in paraphrase:
     • milling around
     • resistance to personal expression
     • talk about past feelings
     • negative feelings
     • meaningful personal material
     • immediate feelings toward each other
     • members' capacity to help each other
     • self-acceptance
     • façades cracking
     • feedback
     • confrontation
     • relationships outside sessions
     • basic encounter
     • expressions of closeness
     • behaviour change
  2. Do not push the group to a "next" stage; Rogers held that there is no fixed order.
  3. Use the patterns to understand your own reactions (for example, defensiveness when negative feelings target you).
• Example language: none; this is an internal map.
• Watch for: using the list as a checklist to drive the group.
• [source: Rogers, On Encounter Groups, summarised in García Yedra 2015, pp. 38–40]

B3. Phase-matched attitude emphasis (Barceló)

• Purpose / when: An optional teaching heuristic for which attitude to lean on in each group phase.
• Steps: Match emphasis to phase:
  • birth of the group: unconditional positive regard
  • expectation and dependence: empathy
  • frustration and counter-dependence: empathy plus regard
  • resolution and cooperation: all three
  • enchantment and flight: authenticity
  • disenchantment and struggle: all three
  • validation and cohesion: authenticity
• Example language (illustrative), in the enchantment phase: "I'm enjoying this closeness too, and I also notice we haven't talked about what was hard yesterday."
• Watch for: This is a Spanish (Barceló) model, not Lafarga's or Gómez del Campo's [uncertain whether it is taught at UIA or ITESO].
• [source: Barceló 2003, in García Yedra 2015, pp. 40–42]

B4. Inter-member feedback

• Purpose / when: Members learn how they affect others. Use it once some trust exists.
• Steps:
  1. Invite, do not require, feedback.
  2. Ask the giver to speak in the first person about a specific behaviour and their own feeling.
  3. Reflect the receiver's reaction.
  4. Allow positive as well as critical feedback.
• Example language (illustrative): "Could you tell her directly, and say what it does in you?"
• Watch for:
  • Pile-ons.
  • Feedback used as attack.
  • Members who receive only criticism.
• [source: Rogers' feedback and confrontation patterns, in García Yedra 2015; López Martínez 2021, p. 26; steps synthesis]

C1. Designing and running a taller vivencial (experiential workshop)

• Purpose / when: The workhorse format of DH graduates. It offers experiential, person-centred learning on a theme (leadership, communication, decision-making, parenting, self-knowledge) for staff, students, parents or communities. Gómez del Campo, Salazar & Rodríguez (2014) is the dedicated DH text; it is not drawn on, so the steps below come from DH workshop reports [uncertain].
• Steps:
  1. Assess needs. Interview stakeholders and a sample of future participants about what they need.
  2. Set aims and plan.
     • Write a general aim framed as a relational or experiential change, plus specific aims.
     • Plan a sequence of sessions; reported examples run 5 to 10 sessions of 2 to 3 hours each.
     • For each session plan an experiential activity, time to share and process it, and a closing.
  3. Session 1 framing (encuadre).
     • Introduce yourself and your background.
     • State the expectations (participation, punctuality, confidentiality).
     • Invite questions.
     • Ask participants to propose topics, and fit them to the plan wherever the frame allows.
  4. In each session.
     • Run the activity, then leave silence so people can choose what to share.
     • Respond with reflection rather than correction.
     • Avoid pressuring the group.
  5. Monitor regularly. Ask how participants are experiencing the sessions, and adjust your stance rather than piling on content.
  6. Shift ownership. As the group grows, let participants organise parts of the work so your role recedes.
  7. Closing session. Ask what each person takes away and what they will do with it, gather what was learned, and say goodbye.
  8. Evaluate. Use qualitative material: a facilitator's process diary, participants' journals or brief questionnaires, and closing statements.
• Example language (illustrative): "There's no right answer to this exercise; what matters is what you notice in yourself." / "Take a moment; share only what you want to share." For closing, Doval used "¿Qué te llevas?, ¿Qué harás con eso?" ("What are you taking with you? What will you do with it?") [source: Doval 2017, in López Martínez 2021, pp. 41–42].
• Watch for:
  • A workshop that slides into lecturing.
  • Activities, including borrowed Gestalt exercises such as the "hot seat", that push disclosure beyond what the frame can hold.
  • Signs it is working: participants link the activity to their own lives and start giving each other feedback.
• [source: Sánchez Muñoz 2016; López Martínez 2021, pp. 6–8, 20–29, 40–44; Iztacala course bibliography; the hot-seat caution is synthesis]

C2. DH intervention project (needs → design → application → evaluation → report)

• Purpose / when: The ITESO MDH requires one for graduation. Use it whenever you bring DH into an organisation, school or community.
• Steps:
  1. Diagnose needs, for example with semi-structured interviews and organisational indicators.
  2. Define the problem as a human-development need, not a deficit.
  3. Set general and specific aims.
  4. Choose the format (C1, B1 or C3).
  5. Apply it under supervision.
  6. Evaluate, usually with qualitative or phenomenological methods.
  7. Write a report.
  8. Include in the report a reflection on your own personal involvement.
• Example language (illustrative), to a sponsor: "Before proposing anything, I'd like to hear from the people who would take part about what they actually need."
• Watch for:
  • Sponsors' fixed syllabi that limit participant choice; negotiate the zones of freedom.
  • Incomplete delivery, as when a 5-session workshop was cut to 3 by the pandemic; plan a minimal closing for any session that might be the last.
• [source: ITESO MDH brochure; López Martínez 2021, pp. 6–8, 22–29; Sánchez Muñoz 2016]

C3. Community DH work (Gómez del Campo's community psychology line)

• Purpose / when: Prevention and growth with communities, schools and community leaders.
• Steps:
  1. Enter as a collaborator, not an expert.
  2. Map needs with the community.
  3. Train community members, such as leaders, to manage groups themselves (the deprofessionalising aim). ITESO's Centro Polanco (1972) combined adult clinical care, group-management training for community leaders, and special education for children.
  4. Share decisions horizontally.
  5. Keep the focus on health and growth.
  6. Hand over progressively.
• Example language (illustrative): "You know this neighbourhood; I can offer ways of running groups that you can use without me."
• Watch for: Professionals quietly keeping control. Success is when community members run the groups themselves.
• [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, p. 38; Gómez del Campo 2005, 2011, cited in Iztacala bibliography and Guzmán Dávila et al. 2025, pp. 39, 44; steps partly synthesis]

C4. School-community programme with child play therapy and parent groups (Iztacala 1982 model)

• Purpose / when: For school-referred children and their families in primary schools.
• Steps:
  1. Assess the cases the school has referred.
  2. Give talks and short courses for parents on general themes.
  3. Offer individual non-directive play therapy (Axline) to the children.
  4. Run small discussion and follow-up groups for the parents.
  5. Have students deliver the work under continuous supervision from the project leads.
  6. Evaluate, for example with a child adjustment questionnaire.
• Example language (illustrative), in play therapy: "You're really making that truck crash hard."
• Watch for:
  • Labelling children as "problems".
  • Parent groups turning into advice lectures.
• [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, pp. 47–49; Axline 1947]

C5. Learning community / facilitation of learning (DH in education)

• Purpose / when: Use when DH is applied in classrooms and training courses; this is a major application in Mexico.
• Steps:
  1. Treat the class as a learning community with free expression.
  2. Let participants propose content within the curriculum.
  3. Replace correction with understanding responses.
  4. Use participatory methods in which students build learning units together.
  5. Combine weekly service or practice with weekly reflection (one example ran 2 hours of service and 2 hours of reflection each week).
  6. Evaluate with process questionnaires and interviews.
• Example language (illustrative): "Rather than me telling you whether that's right, what led you there?"
• Watch for: institutional grading demands that collide with non-evaluation; be explicit about which parts are graded.
• [source: Álvarez Gil 2008, pp. 6–17, 21–44; Sánchez Muñoz 2016; Esparza Muguiro 2001, p. 46]

C6. Residential community-building workshop

• Purpose / when: Members live the formation of a temporary community, as in the 1977 Amecameca seminar with Rogers on individual growth and its social implications. It also connects to the large-group work Rogers did in his later years.
• Steps:
  1. Run it residentially over several days.
  2. Combine whole-community meetings with smaller groups.
  3. Keep facilitator structure minimal, as in B1.
  4. Let the community set its own agenda, including tensions between subgroups.
• Example language (illustrative): "How do we, all of us here, want to use tomorrow morning?"
• Watch for:
  • Large groups can be chaotic, and quieter members get lost.
  • Detail on how the Mexican workshops were run was not found [uncertain].
• [source: Martínez Chilpa 1989, p. 33; García Yedra 2015, p. 36, citing O'Hara]

D1. Facilitator formation: elaborating personal involvement (elaboración de la implicación personal)

• Purpose / when: Personal growth work that runs through the whole training (three ITESO courses), on the principle that facilitators must first facilitate their own learning.
• Steps:
  1. Take part in growth groups and workshops as a member.
  2. Keep a process diary of your reactions to clients and groups.
  3. Bring your own involvement (resonances, judgements, needs) to tutor and supervision.
  4. Take part in personal therapy where the programme or your judgement calls for it. The sources do not say whether it is required [uncertain].
• Example language (illustrative), self-reflection prompt: "What in me was touched when she said that, and how did it shape my response?"
• Watch for: the content of these courses is not described in the sources [uncertain].
• [source: ITESO MDH brochure; Rogers & Freiberg, in Sánchez Muñoz 2016]

D2. Supervision of the intervention and personal tutoring

• Purpose / when: Throughout practice; in the ITESO curriculum it is formalised in Cycle 4.
• Steps:
  1. Present your work: sessions, workshop plans, your process diary.
  2. Review how far you offered the three attitudes.
  3. Examine group-process moments and your own reactions to them.
  4. Check ethics and participant safety.
  5. Adjust the design.
• Example language (illustrative), supervisor: "Where in this session did you feel least accepting, and what did you do then?"
• Watch for: The format of supervision (recordings, live observation) is not stated in the sources [uncertain].
• [source: ITESO MDH brochure; Martínez Chilpa 1989, p. 47]

5. Handling problems

The sources say little about difficulties beyond Rogers' account of group resistance and negative feelings. Most of what follows is [synthesis] consistent with DH principles; source-based points are tagged.

• Group milling, frustration and demands for structure (expected early).
  • Do not rescue the group with an exercise. Reflect the frustration and the wish for direction, and restate that the time belongs to the group.
  • If an institution has contracted a structured workshop, offer the structure you promised and keep choice within it.
  • [source: Rogers' stages I–II, in García Yedra 2015; Sánchez Muñoz 2016]
• Negative feelings toward the facilitator.
  • Treat them as a sign of growing trust, not an attack.
  • Reflect them without justifying yourself. If you are actually at fault (late, inconsistent), own it plainly.
  • [source: Rogers' stage IV, in García Yedra 2015; congruence response synthesis]
• Stuck individual client (circling, intellectualising).
  • Check first whether the client experiences your attitudes, especially whether you have been subtly evaluating.
  • Then move to here-and-now focusing (A3), and name the stuckness congruently, as shared rather than as the client's failure.
  • Example (illustrative): "I notice we keep coming back to the same place, and I'm not sure I'm helping you get underneath it. What's it like for you?"
  • [synthesis]
• Resistance as protection.
  • Do not confront it. Reflect the hesitation and respect the client's pace, because self-direction includes the right not to explore.
  • [synthesis, consistent with Lafarga's non-persuasion principle]
• Overwhelm or decompensation in an intensive group or workshop.
  • Rogers and Gibb (as cited) played down the risk of trauma, yet DH theses still require the facilitator to guarantee each member's psychological well-being and a safe space.
  • In practice:
    • Screen applicants for intensive or residential groups (recent psychosis, active suicidality, acute crisis, recent trauma), or refer them to individual care.
    • Let anyone pass or step out.
    • Stop group pressure on a member.
    • Offer an individual follow-up.
    • Keep a referral pathway.
  • Older research on encounter-group "casualties" (Lieberman, Yalom & Miles 1973) is relevant but is not drawn on [uncertain].
  • [source: Armenta and Corey, in García Yedra 2015, pp. 33–36; screening steps synthesis]
• Coercive disclosure techniques.
  • Gestalt-style "hot seat" or confrontation exercises sometimes appear in Mexican DH workshops. They are not person-centred and can override choice. Use invitation only, and drop exercises that single a person out without consent.
  • [source: hot seat attributed to López 2008 in Fuerte Reyes 2019; Iztacala course bibliography mixes Gestalt texts; judgement synthesis]
• Non-attendance and drop-out in workshops.
  • Explore what made attendance hard, without blame.
  • Design each session so it stands on its own.
  • Run a mid-course check-in to adapt.
  • Plan a portable closing in case the course is cut short.
  • [synthesis; López Martínez 2021 for an interrupted workshop]
• Rupture in an individual relationship.
  • Name it, invite the client's experience of what went wrong, and acknowledge your part without over-apologising.
  • Reflect until the client feels understood about the rupture itself.
  • [synthesis]
• Facilitator drifting into leading, advising or moralising (a DH-specific risk in religious, educational and organisational settings).
  • Use supervision (D2) and your process diary (D1) to catch "should" language, persuasion and guilt.
  • Lafarga explicitly rejected guidance by guilt.
  • [source: González Caballero 2024, p. 215; ITESO MDH brochure]
• Scope of practice and "facilitator" vs psychotherapist.
  • DH trains non-psychologists to facilitate, and Lafarga called all health promotion psychotherapeutic. Licensing law still applies.
  • Assess risk using current standard practice, and refer any client with a clinical disorder, suicidality or a safeguarding issue to licensed care.
  • Make clear in contracts whether you are offering growth work or treatment.
  • [source: Lafarga 2010, pp. 14–15, in Fuerte Reyes 2019; scope rule synthesis]
• Dual relationships in training.
  • When trainees are both group members and graded students, or a sponsor's employees are in a workshop, set explicit rules about confidentiality and about what is and is not evaluated.
  • Keep any personal-growth material out of grading.
  • [synthesis; Álvarez Gil 2008 and Sánchez Muñoz 2016 describe such graded contexts]
• Cultural and family values.
  • In Mexican and other collectivist contexts, "emergence of one's own values" can be misread as individualism against the family. Reflect loyalty as a genuinely held value and explore how to honour it alongside personal wishes.
  • [synthesis]
• Applying Rogers literally.
  • Lafarga's dictum that being Rogerian is not repeating Rogers permits adaptation. Document any adaptation and the reason for it.
  • [source: Lafarga 2010, p. 18, in Fuerte Reyes 2019]

Sources

Sources:

• Segrera, El enfoque centrado en la persona: vigente y pujante (Revista de Psicoterapia)
• Martínez Chilpa 1989, El desarrollo de la corriente existencial humanista en México (UNAM thesis)
• González Caballero 2024, Relevancia de los Ejercicios espirituales ignacianos… (En-claves del pensamiento)
• Fuerte Reyes 2019, Desarrollo Humano: una herramienta de apoyo en el trabajo psicoterapéutico (UNAM)
• García Yedra 2015, Grupos de encuentro desde el enfoque centrado en la persona (UNAM)
• López Martínez 2021, El liderazgo… (ITESO MDH thesis)
• Sánchez Muñoz 2016, Capacitación desde una perspectiva humanista… (ITESO MDH)
• Álvarez Gil 2008, El crecimiento humano de un grupo de alumnos de psicología… (ITESO MDH)
• Esparza Muguiro 2001, Aportaciones del Desarrollo Humano a la práctica educativa (UNAM)
• Guzmán Dávila et al. 2025, Toma de decisiones y bienestar psicológico… (REPI)
• ITESO, Maestría en Desarrollo Humano (brochure)
• Mextudia, IBERO Maestría en Desarrollo Humano (third-party)
• FES Iztacala, Trabajo en grupo: grupos de encuentro abiertos y cerrados (course criteria and bibliography)
• ITESO library record: Desarrollo del potencial humano

Further reading (not drawn on; known through the sources above):

• Lafarga, J. & Gómez del Campo, J. (1978; 2nd ed. 1992). Desarrollo del potencial humano: aportaciones de una psicología humanista. Trillas. Esparza Muguiro 2001 refers to four volumes [uncertain].
• Lafarga, J. (2005; 2013). Works quoted in López Martínez 2021 and Fuerte Reyes 2019.
• Lafarga, J. (2010). ¿Qué es el Desarrollo Humano en México? INIDH Cuaderno 3.
• Gómez del Campo, J., Salazar, & Rodríguez (2014). Los talleres vivenciales con enfoque centrado en la persona.
• Gómez del Campo, J. (2005). Psicología de la comunidad. In Modelo de Desarrollo Humano Comunitario, pp. 141–159.
• Rogers, C. (1970). Carl Rogers on Encounter Groups (Spanish edition: Grupos de encuentro).
• Rogers, C. & Freiberg, H. J. (1994/1996). Freedom to Learn (Spanish edition: Libertad y creatividad en la educación).
• Barceló, T. (2003). Work on group phases and the person-centred approach, as cited in García Yedra 2015.
• Axline, V. (1947). Play Therapy.
• Lieberman, M., Yalom, I. & Miles, M. (1973). Encounter Groups: First Facts (mentioned as relevant).