Reflections on the development and experiences of the encounter groups at PCE 2022

In January 2020, each of the authors was invited to come together to organize a pre-conference encounter group at the Person Centered and Experiential (PCE) World Conference to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark 2022. This paper started life as a promised report to the organizing committee of PCE 2022. In the writing, we became aware of our wish to share with others in the PCE world community our thinking and process as 6 of us joined together over 2 years, in our attempt to organize an encounter space in a manner that we thought – hoped – to be facilitative. We describe how we worked together, the main areas we considered in anticipation of the encounter group(s), and present feedback from some participants and ourselves after the event. From our experience, we suggest that a preparation group having a significant amount of time together, the importance of practical arrangements (rooms, refreshments, etc.) and a concentration on aspects of 'welcome' form an influential and helpful context for an encounter group in the frame of the Person-Centered and Experiential Approach.