Pandas in a zoo: facilitating encounter in institutional settings.

This paper outlines a personal experience of facilitating encounter groups within person-centered training in some UK's universities and colleges. It centered around the following questions: Does the person-centered approach (PCA) become sterilized within institutions increasingly run like businesses, where trainees are seen as customers and tutors as functionaries? What are the challenges and rewards of facilitating encounter within these settings? What are the contradictions, if any, within the philosophy of encounter within the PCA? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]