Carl Rogers
Life highlights
- Influence of religiosity
• Given importance in the family
• Became deeply involved in religious events in China – made him have his own religious
view separate from his parents
- University life and shift to psychology
• Married his childhood friend and had two children
• Move from clinical to academic setting
• Undergone therapy after being unable to help a severely disturbed client
• Became APA president (like Maslow)
Person-Centered Theory (Therapy)
- Nondirective
• Therapist does not give instructions but listens
- Also known as
• Client-centered (therapy)
• Person-centered (theory)
• Student-centered
• Group-centered
• Person-to-person
- “If the therapist is congruent and communicates unconditional positive regard, and empathy to
the client, then therapeutic change will occur; if therapeutic change occurs, then the client will
experience more self-acceptance, greater trust of self, and so on.”
Basic Assumptions
1. Formative tendency
- Tendency for all matter, both organic and inorganic, to evolve from a simper to more complex
forms through a creative process
2. Actualizing tendency
- Tendency within all species to move toward completion or fulfillment of potentials
- Basic human motivation to enhance and improve the self; movement towards growth of the self
- People use their creative power within to solve problems, alter self-concepts, and become
increasingly self-directed
- Conditions to realize actualizing tendency
• A relationship with a congruent and authentic partner
• Empathy
• Unconditional positive regard
3. Maintenance tendency
- Conservative (desire to protect current comfortable self-concept)
- Like the lower needs of Maslow
, - Resists change and seeks status quo
4. Enhancement tendency
- Need to become more, develop, and achieve growth
- Need for enhancing the self is seen in people’ willingness to learn things that are not immediately
rewarding
- Forms: curiosity, playfulness, self-exploration, friendship, confidence
The Experiential World
- Provides a frame of reference or context that influences an individual’s growth
- Exposure to countless simulations everyday
- Reality of our environment depends on our perception
- “Experience is the highest authority” – Rogers
- With our experiences, we have awareness
Awareness
- Symbolic representation of some portion of our own experiences
- Levels
• Below the threshold of awareness (ignored or denied)
• Accurately symbolized and freely admitted to the self-structure
• Experiences perceived in a distorted manner
- Organismic Valuing Process
• Process by which people judge experience in terms of their value for fostering or
hindering actualization and growth
The Self and Self-actualization
• Infants get to have a vague concept of self when a portion of their experiences becomes
personalized and differentiated in awareness as “I” or “me” experiences
o Organismic valuing process; pleasant and unpleasant experiences
• Self-actualization
o A subset of actualizing tendency
o Tendency to actualize the self as perceived in awareness
Self subsystems
1. Self-concept
- All aspects of one’s being and one’s experiences that are perceived in awareness (though not
always accurately) by an individual
- “An established self-concept does not make change impossible, merely difficult”
2. Ideal self
- One’s view of the self as one wishes to be
- Contains all attributes, usually positive, that people aspire to possess
- “Little discrepancy between the self-concept and ideal self is a manifestation of a healthy
personality, while a wide gap, an unhealthy personality”
Life highlights
- Influence of religiosity
• Given importance in the family
• Became deeply involved in religious events in China – made him have his own religious
view separate from his parents
- University life and shift to psychology
• Married his childhood friend and had two children
• Move from clinical to academic setting
• Undergone therapy after being unable to help a severely disturbed client
• Became APA president (like Maslow)
Person-Centered Theory (Therapy)
- Nondirective
• Therapist does not give instructions but listens
- Also known as
• Client-centered (therapy)
• Person-centered (theory)
• Student-centered
• Group-centered
• Person-to-person
- “If the therapist is congruent and communicates unconditional positive regard, and empathy to
the client, then therapeutic change will occur; if therapeutic change occurs, then the client will
experience more self-acceptance, greater trust of self, and so on.”
Basic Assumptions
1. Formative tendency
- Tendency for all matter, both organic and inorganic, to evolve from a simper to more complex
forms through a creative process
2. Actualizing tendency
- Tendency within all species to move toward completion or fulfillment of potentials
- Basic human motivation to enhance and improve the self; movement towards growth of the self
- People use their creative power within to solve problems, alter self-concepts, and become
increasingly self-directed
- Conditions to realize actualizing tendency
• A relationship with a congruent and authentic partner
• Empathy
• Unconditional positive regard
3. Maintenance tendency
- Conservative (desire to protect current comfortable self-concept)
- Like the lower needs of Maslow
, - Resists change and seeks status quo
4. Enhancement tendency
- Need to become more, develop, and achieve growth
- Need for enhancing the self is seen in people’ willingness to learn things that are not immediately
rewarding
- Forms: curiosity, playfulness, self-exploration, friendship, confidence
The Experiential World
- Provides a frame of reference or context that influences an individual’s growth
- Exposure to countless simulations everyday
- Reality of our environment depends on our perception
- “Experience is the highest authority” – Rogers
- With our experiences, we have awareness
Awareness
- Symbolic representation of some portion of our own experiences
- Levels
• Below the threshold of awareness (ignored or denied)
• Accurately symbolized and freely admitted to the self-structure
• Experiences perceived in a distorted manner
- Organismic Valuing Process
• Process by which people judge experience in terms of their value for fostering or
hindering actualization and growth
The Self and Self-actualization
• Infants get to have a vague concept of self when a portion of their experiences becomes
personalized and differentiated in awareness as “I” or “me” experiences
o Organismic valuing process; pleasant and unpleasant experiences
• Self-actualization
o A subset of actualizing tendency
o Tendency to actualize the self as perceived in awareness
Self subsystems
1. Self-concept
- All aspects of one’s being and one’s experiences that are perceived in awareness (though not
always accurately) by an individual
- “An established self-concept does not make change impossible, merely difficult”
2. Ideal self
- One’s view of the self as one wishes to be
- Contains all attributes, usually positive, that people aspire to possess
- “Little discrepancy between the self-concept and ideal self is a manifestation of a healthy
personality, while a wide gap, an unhealthy personality”
