Introductive remarks

Just coming back from Bruges where took place my second session of Leadership Program I feel ready to respond to Ernie's request: "My criticisms about PCA skills as a system of value". After nine days experiencing about where I am with PCA skills, I feel differently about this statement and I'd like to let know in a first part of this article what means for me to see PCA Skills as a system of value and what I'm more aware about, and in a second part, how I see if it could be possible to "teach" PCA Skills without making of it a system of value. To give my criticism about that subject means for me to let know what I have learned about myself through my interactions with the consultant and the participants during the learning process.

PCA Skills: a system of value?

I have been very much influenced by my education and family context. So, I have been very dependent. When I met PCA through an article written by Carl Rogers, I realized it was the way to follow I was looking for a long time. I thought it will be a very powerful way of being which could help me to put in action my own values. It was to be a "good" person, loving and positive towards other human beings. I was not the actor, but PCA had the power on myself. In fact, I thought more of the others than of me. I wanted to take care of the others but I was forgetting me. Step by step I have been more aware of myself and that I am the center of the process. Today I see the skills as something I can choose to use when I feel it's appropriate to the situation. I realize that when I act like that, it has a very effective and positive influence to the situation. My question is: if I agree that skill is not a value, is the value not the origin of the choice of using one of the skills? And more of that, it looks to me that skills are making possible for me to get my own value. It is a paradox. But what happened to me during this week, in Bruges? The clue was in this sentence from Ernie: "Provide the skills, don't encourage them". I have understood it like that:

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