Goodbye Pete Sanders and thank you.

Today, after completing a subject search in my emails, I came across a piece of devastating news sent to me and others, on the 5th February. The news was, is, that Pete Sanders has died. I feel sad, tearful and strangely unanchored. Pete Sanders is a cornerstone of humanistic counselling and psychotherapy and now he has gone. Somehow, it feels almost impossible. His voice was the voice many humanistic therapists turned to, if only in our own heads, to ask, ‘what would Pete say about that?” I know I have been doing just that for over 28 years.

I trained with Pete Sanders at PCCS back in the mid 1990’s and I’ll never forget the mixture of wisdom and insight he delivered in that soft brummy accent of his. And the excitement! Discovering the humanistic field of therapy was both like coming home and finding an exotic new world. Our training rooms were lined with shelves of books, papers and debates that would spark and fizz during coffee breaks. Hope shone through the windows. You see, Person-centred therapy – if done well - is a therapy of hope. It hands back power to those who have been hurt, traumatised or abused, because the approach requires the therapist to work with the client in a way which embraces their core integrity, value and ability to grow. It is fundamentally humanist. It is also, contrary to what some practitioners claim, open to new insights and amendments, because it requires the self-aware therapist to be active in the therapy. One can only be active if one retains a life-long passion and interest in the discoveries of psychobiology and engages with existential questions; a curiosity about what it means to be human. Why do we hurt, and how can we heal? How can we relate to each other which enable us to be all we can be? How can we help clients find meaning in their lives? How can we take the values we espouse in the therapy room and embody them in our wider lives? Knowledge, wisdom was not concluded by the death of Carl Rogers. It won’t be with Pete’s death either.

Pete was very clever but very modest. He inspired several generations of person-centred counsellors and he pushed the profession in practice and theory through his teaching, the numerous articles and chapters he authored, and the multitude of books he published via PCCS Books, his and Maggie’s (his wife and business partner) publishing company. I personally admired his drive to get things done, but equally I admired his ability to deeply reflect.

I have a lot to thank Pete for. Although we were not friends and spoke very rarely - the last time was about a year ago, and this was conducted mainly by email - he inspired me to do things with my life. Great teachers do that. In 2001, I established a digital mental health company called Xenzone (now Kooth PLC) which was committed to delivering therapy at the time people needed it.  The internet opened doors to accessibility. In 2004, we developed Kooth.com, our children and young people service. It was built on person-centred principles, and the therapists who came to work with me were humanistic. Listening to the debates at PCCS and the many, many discussions I had during our training and beyond, the team we built at Xenzone wanted to design a place where young people could come, no questions asked, free of charge, to find support at the time they needed it. I am no longer involved with Kooth PLC as it is now, and yet, like the field of counselling itself, Kooth has continued to grow and develop, and thank goodness for that.

It’s funny isn’t it, how everything we do in life is interlinked with what came before? My humanistic training continues to lead the work we are dong at ZunTold. My encounter with Pete Sanders as a teacher, has had a profound impact on me, as it has on therapists over the world. I doubt whether Kooth would have existed without him. All those thousands of young people who have come through its doors may never even know his name, and strangely enough, I think that would have pleased Pete greatly.

For those interested, the reason I missed the email was because I am trying to spend less time staring at emails and on Twitter and LinkedIn. Instead, I am spending time to build a business and service. I am trying to favour substance over show. It is so easy to become paralysed by the fear of failure and the 'here today, gone tomorrow' culture we are in danger of emulating. Drive is important, but so is taking the time to reflect, don't you think?

So, thank you Pete, for all you taught me.

Rest in peace and know that your light will continue to shine.