ARINA DOGARU

I was born and raised in Romania in a nice town near the Danube river (Galati) and left home right after high school when I started my university studies in Bucharest. Since then my life is developing in this continuing growing city.

I discovered Person Centered Approach when I was in my first year of masters degree. I remember that period being quite confusing. I wasn’t really sure about myself, was starting working with my family history which was following me on so many levels and was very frustrated about the job I was having.

Person Centered Approach came to me while reading a book about different therapeutic approaches and I started looking if there was a community like this in Bucharest. My luck was that there was one and that it was organizing a training group for psychologists to become person centered psychotherapists. I knew I wanted to start seeing a therapist and this training was including a process like this.

I started doing this in 2010 without knowing or having an idea about where it will take me. Only in my 3rd year of training a thought came that this could mean a profession for me and that was also the moment when I started travelling as much as I could in order to see how this approach looks in different countries and cultures and also to meet as many people as I could that worked and met Carl Rogers.

At some point I have decided that all the things I have seen and learned could be available and closer to home and in 2018 I started planning the first 6 days encounter group at home, in my country. Now ‘encounter people*encounter nature’ is organized yearly and has become a 8 day encounter group. Besides these longer groups, shorter ones happen almost monthly. To be the person offering this space and process, that came with so much responsibility, doubts, fears, but also trust, hope and belief, was not and it is still not easy.

Soon I will be celebrating 11 years of person centered approach, person centered psychotherapy, conferences, forums, encounter groups and all the processes that these brought into my awareness. Last year I felt attracted to FOT (Focusing oriented therapy) and starting this new training within the focusing institute has contributed a lot to my understanding of the approach and provided more clarity about my future path.

I have never started doing things wanting to obtain something or having in mind a result. I keep following my core and what speaks to me and until now this took me in the most wonderful places. I do hope I will be able to keep this way of being.