Bernard
Guilbert Guerney, Jr., died at age 89 from complications of
cancer, under hospice care at home, and surrounded by his
loving family. Bernie, as family, friends and colleagues
knew him, is survived by his wife of 65 years, Louise
Guerney, three adult children, Janis, Bruce and Robert, and
three grandchildren, Aaron, Liana and Cole.
A tribute to Bernard G.
Guerney, Jr., Ph.D.
Bernard G. Guerney,
Jr., was one of the giants of 20th century psychotherapy.
Dr. Guerney was Professor Emeritus of Family Studies and
Counseling Psychology at Pennsylvania State University, and
has been internationally recognized as one of the most
prominent and innovative practitioners of marital and family
therapy. His presentations and workshops elicited high
praise and great enthusiasm on four continents. Alone or
with others he produced over 80 articles and chapters, four
books, and numerous manuals, training tapes, and films in
the areas of individual, marital, group, and family therapy.
He was the recipient of numerous life-time achievement and
other awards from the American Association of Marriage and
Family Therapy, the American Psychological Association, the
Association for Play Therapy, the National Conference on
Family Relations, and the Smart Marriages
Conference.
Bernie, together with
his wife, Dr. Louise Guerney, created and developed Filial
Family Therapy at a time when play therapy had only recently
been in common usage, and at the time represented a radical
departure in therapeutic practice. Filial Therapy teaches
parents the principles and techniques of Child-Centered Play
Therapy so parents can lead therapeutically oriented play
sessions with their own children, under the supervision of
the therapist.
Bernie’s first
published article presenting Filial Therapy to the world
appeared in 1964. Many in the mental health fields initially
scoffed at the idea of involving parents in the therapy
process. However, Bernie was prescient, and way ahead of his
time. Today, a meta-analysis of all play therapy modalities
for which research existed at the time demonstrated that
Filial Therapy is the single most effective form of play
therapy. If that were Bernie’s only contribution to
the field of psychotherapy, his legacy would be
secure.
But Bernie did not
stop there. On the basis of the early success of Filial
Therapy, Bernie began to think about how to help improve the
adult couple’s relationship. The underlying principle
of both methods is that relationships could be improved by
teaching concrete skills to help clients develop more
functional and respectful patterns of communication and
interaction in order to enhance the quality of their
relationship(s). Relationship Enhancement Therapy, and the
Relationship Enhancement Program, were born. The name
“Relationship Enhancement” was a perfect choice
for his approach as it embodied Bernie’s belief that
any relationship could be improved at any point in time,
regardless of its status and regardless of the nature of the
issues involved. His groundbreaking work Relationship
Enhancement: Skill Training Programs for Therapy, Problem
Prevention, and Enrichment was published in 1977, and has
been called, by Dr. Douglas Sprenkle, “a seminal and
potentially revolutionary work … perhaps the best
… integration of theory, research, and practice in
the family intervention field.”
Central to both Filial
Therapy and RE Therapy is the Rogerian heritage of the
fundamental importance of empathy to the success of the
therapeutic process. Bernie’s genius, and his
signature advance over Carl Rogers’s own practice of
therapy, was the insight that empathy need not be limited to
a skill used by therapists with clients. Instead, Bernie
initiated the further step of explicitly teaching the skill
of empathy to clients, out of the further conviction that
empathy is both a natural human endowment and a skill that
can be developed and refined over time with supervised
practice and regular use.
Bernie did not stop
there either. Another part of his genius was to employ the
insights of Learning Theory to develop a set of systematic
guidelines and teaching strategies to significantly increase
the odds that people would be able to learn and implement a
whole range of relationship skills, including most
importantly the skill of empathy. Over two dozen research
studies have validated the effectiveness of RE therapy,
including two studies which demonstrated that clients
continued to make additional gains from post-test to
follow-up, which is a fairly rare outcome in psychotherapy
research. RE Therapy remains unique amongst various other
therapy models by incorporating a systematic skills training
approach as an intrinsic part of the couples and family
therapy process.
Yet another of
Bernie’s innovative, and ahead of his time
contributions was his book Psychotherapeutic Agents: New
Roles for Nonprofessionals, Parents and Teachers (1969), in
which Bernie systematically laid out his vision and methods
for involving non-mental health professionals in the
delivery of skills-based educational programs. Bernie, along
with others at the time, recognized there was no conceivable
way that mental health professionals could meet all the
mental health, relationship and systems needs of the
American population. Bernie set out to meet those needs by
advocating and explaining how more of the nation’s
needs could be met by training and supervising lay educators
who could reach larger groups of people. Bernie then
implemented that approach himself with the Relationship
Enhancement Program version of the RE model, where lay
educators were trained and supervised to teach the RE skills
in educational group settings. All told, Bernie’s
contributions to psychology and the practice of
psychotherapy represented a significant shift away from the
traditional medical model that dominated the mental health
professions in order to incorporate more of an educational
approach to the practice of psychotherapy.
For some 25 years
Bernie taught psychology, Filial Therapy, Relationship
Enhancement Therapy and the RE Program at Pennsylvania State
University. He also led training workshops around the
country and around the world. He was an esteemed teacher and
mentor for many professors, researchers, teachers and
clinicians over his forty-year career. Bernie founded the
National Institute of Relationship Enhancement® in
Bethesda, MD to continue the advancement of his innovative
therapeutic methods. Today, Guerney methods are widely used
around the world in the United Kingdom, Australia, New
Zealand, Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and, most prominently, in
France through IFRE, the Institut Francophone de
Relationship Enhancement, which itself has trained dozens of
clinicians in that country.
A tribute to Bernie
cannot end here. Bernie as a human being was one of the most
empathetic, kind, generous and appreciative persons I have
ever known. And he always had a warm smile to greet you. At
the core Bernie modeled what he taught. Countless hundreds,
probably thousands, of people have been blessed by Bernie's
presence, wisdom and dedication as a spouse, parent and
grandparent, teacher and mentor. To have met and known
Bernie is to have been touched by him.
On a personal note, I
have been incredibly fortunate, and will be forever
indebted, to Bernie, with whom I have had the good fortune
to be associated with personally and professionally for the
past 25 years. As a new, second career mental health
professional, I was introduced to Relationship Enhancement
Therapy, Child-Centered Play Therapy and Filial Therapy
virtually from the beginning, and those methods have shaped
everything I do as a teacher and clinician. I have learned
and use other therapy models, but RE Therapy is the bedrock
and foundation that orients me in all my work. I also cannot
thank Bernie enough for having confidence in me to carry on
his work. Today, I am committed to preserving and furthering
his legacy, because the world still needs and will continue
to benefit from Bernie’s multi-faceted
contributions.
Bernie, may you rest
in peace.
Robert F. Scuka,
Ph.D.
Executive
Director
National Institute of
Relationship Enhancement®
PS. When plans are
made by the family, I will forward information about a
memorial service.
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