Rapport as mutual respect

Rapport in testing and counseling contexts is usually described by a listing of conditions said to produce optimal performance through eliciting or inhibiting certain behaviors and traits. In this article, the traditional conditions are criticized as grounded in a combination of inadequate faculty-trait and behavioristic theories. “Mutual respect” is proposed as a more accurate and practical alternative, one that is explicitly grounded in a conception of the person as always involved with his total situation and acting in accordance with his experience of it. Rapport, then, exists when each person recognizes and respects the reality of the other's experience.