On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

Product Information

I had learned to be more subtle and patient in interpreting a client’s behaviour to him, attempting to time it in a gentle fashion which would gain acceptance. I had been working with a highly intelligent mother whose boy was something of a hellion. The problem was clearly her early rejection of the boy, but over many interviews, I could not help her to this insight. I drew her out, I gently pulled together the evidence she had given, trying to help her see the pattern. But we got nowhere. Finally, I gave up. told her that it seemed we had both tried, but we had failed, and that we might as well give up our contracts. She agreed. So we concluded the interview, shook hands, and she walked to the door of the office. Then she turned and asked, ‘Do you ever take adults for counselling here?’ When I replied in the affirmative, she said. ‘Well then, I would like some help.” She came to the chair she had left, and began to pour out her despair about her marriage, her troubled relationship with her husband, her sense of failure and confusion, all very different from the sterile ‘case history’ she had given before. Real therapy began then, and ultimately it was very successful.” The self is the humanistic term for who we really are as a person. The self is our inner personality, and can be likened to the soul, or Freud’s psyche. The self is influenced by the experiences a person has in their life, and out interpretations of those experiences. This isn’t exactly Rogers at his most succinct and poetic, but it’s certainly a useful way of looking at the definition of a helping relationship.

Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology (1956, APA); Award for Distinguished Contributions to Applied Psychology as a Professional Practice (1972, APA); 1964 Humanist of the Year ( American Humanist Association) Two primary sources that influence our self-concept are childhood experiences and evaluation by others.Rogers, C.R., Raskin, N.J., et al. (1949). A coordinated research in psychotherapy. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 13, 149–200. Cited in: N.J. Raskin, The first 50 years and the next 10. Person-Centered Review, 5(4), November 1990, 364–372. Unconditional positive regard is where parents, significant others (and the humanist therapist) accept and loves the person for what he or she is, and refrain from any judgment or criticism. The development of congruence is dependent on unconditional positive regard. Carl Rogers believed that for a person to achieve self-actualization, they must be in a state of congruence. Rogers rejected the deterministic nature of both psychoanalysis and behaviorism and maintained that we behave as we do because of the way we perceive our situation. “As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves.” Rogers continued teaching at the University of Wisconsin until 1963, when he became a resident at the new Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI) in La Jolla, California. Rogers left the WBSI to help found the Center for Studies of the Person in 1968. His later books include Carl Rogers on Personal Power (1977) and Freedom to Learn for the '80s (1983). He remained a La Jolla resident for the rest of his life, doing therapy, giving speeches and writing.

On the whole,” writes Rogers, “the viewpoint of the professional worker as well as the layman is that man as he is, in his basic nature, had best be kept under control or under cover or both.” Reliability and constructiveness: they can be trusted to act constructively. An individual who is open to all their needs will be able to maintain a balance between them. Even aggressive needs will be matched and balanced by intrinsic goodness in congruent individuals. It has been criticized as potentially inauthentic, as it might require therapists to suppress their own feelings and judgments.

I get defeated sometimes, I get hurt sometimes, but I’m learning that these experiences are not fatal.”

Rogers, Carl. (1959). "A theory of therapy, personality relationships as developed in the client-centered framework.". In S. Koch (ed.). Psychology: A study of a science. Vol. 3: Formulations of the person and the social context. New York: McGraw Hill.Despite most of his work being very challenging, Rogers will occasionally treat the reader to beautifully-written insights into the human condition, words of profound wisdom, or paragraphs that perfectly sum up the how and why of what we’re trying to achieve as therapists. In many ways, Rogers regarded the fully functioning person as an ideal and one that people do not ultimately achieve. To use psychological terms, it is not a state of drive-reduction, or tension-reduction, or homeostasis. As the individual perceives and accepts into his self structure more of his organic experiences, he finds that he is replacing his present value system—based extensively on introjections which have been distortedly symbolized—with a continuing organismic valuing process. Rogers was born on January 8, 1902, in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His father, Walter A. Rogers, was a civil engineer, a Congregationalist by denomination. His mother, Julia M. Cushing, [5] [6] was a homemaker and devout Baptist. Carl was the fourth of their six children. [7]

Rogers, Carl (1989). The Carl Rogers Reader. Google Books: Houghton Mifflin. p. 457. ISBN 978-0-395-48357-2. 1985 the rust peace workshop. Behavior is basically the goal-directed attempt of the organism to satisfy its needs as experienced, in the field as perceived. The structure and organization of self appears to become more rigid under threats and to relax its boundaries when completely free from threat" (Rogers, 1951). If students believe that concepts are being forced upon them, they might become uncomfortable and fearful. A barrier is created by a tone of threat in the classroom. Therefore, an open, friendly environment in which trust is developed is essential in the classroom. Fear of retribution for not agreeing with a concept should be eliminated. A supportive classroom tone helps to alleviate fears and encourages students to have the courage to explore concepts and beliefs that vary from those they bring to the classroom. Also, new information might threaten the student's concept of themself; therefore, the less vulnerable the student feels, the more likely they will be able to open up to the learning process.

Rogers, C.R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 21: 95-103.