Carl Rogers: Self Actualization
Personal life (1902 - 1987)
● Born in 1902 in Illinois in a strictly religious family that suppressed all views of emotion
and emphasized moral behavior. He escaped into books and learned to appreciate the
scientific process
● Would break from his parents’ beliefs and trained in clinical/education psychology
● Was a resident fellow at the Western Behavioral Sciences institute in California where he
applied his person-centered philosophy to worldwide peace problems through tension
reductions
● Underwent a breakdown after he was unable to help a disturbed client
● Found himself after therapy where he discovered the ability to give/receive love and
formed deep emotional relationships with clients and others
His work
● The self and tendency towards actualization
○ Early research focused on the importance of the self in the formation of
personality
■ Involved investigated childhood background for factors he believed would
influence behavior (family environment, health, intellectual development,
economic circumstances, cultural influences, social interactions, and level
of education
■ The factor that most accurately predicted later behavior was self-insight.
He thought it would be family environment and social interactions
○ He came to believe that the focus of counselors should be trying to modify
children’s self-insight
○ He also believed people are motivated by an innate tendency to actualize,
maintain, and enhance the self and that this drive is part of a larger actualization
tendency which encompasses all needs
○ He believed that actualization tendency starts in the womb and is responsible for
maturation and the process involves struggle and pain.
○ The organismic valuing process: the governing process driven by actualization
tendency throughout the lifespan
● The Experiential World
○ Def: A very important variable that influences one’s growth. The experiential
world is the reality of their environment that is contingent and their perception of it
which may not always coincide with reality
○ One’s early experience becomes the basis for his or her judgment and
behaviors/experiential world
● The self and positive regard
○ The self-concept begins to develop in childhood and is the only part separate
from the rest of their experiences.
Personal life (1902 - 1987)
● Born in 1902 in Illinois in a strictly religious family that suppressed all views of emotion
and emphasized moral behavior. He escaped into books and learned to appreciate the
scientific process
● Would break from his parents’ beliefs and trained in clinical/education psychology
● Was a resident fellow at the Western Behavioral Sciences institute in California where he
applied his person-centered philosophy to worldwide peace problems through tension
reductions
● Underwent a breakdown after he was unable to help a disturbed client
● Found himself after therapy where he discovered the ability to give/receive love and
formed deep emotional relationships with clients and others
His work
● The self and tendency towards actualization
○ Early research focused on the importance of the self in the formation of
personality
■ Involved investigated childhood background for factors he believed would
influence behavior (family environment, health, intellectual development,
economic circumstances, cultural influences, social interactions, and level
of education
■ The factor that most accurately predicted later behavior was self-insight.
He thought it would be family environment and social interactions
○ He came to believe that the focus of counselors should be trying to modify
children’s self-insight
○ He also believed people are motivated by an innate tendency to actualize,
maintain, and enhance the self and that this drive is part of a larger actualization
tendency which encompasses all needs
○ He believed that actualization tendency starts in the womb and is responsible for
maturation and the process involves struggle and pain.
○ The organismic valuing process: the governing process driven by actualization
tendency throughout the lifespan
● The Experiential World
○ Def: A very important variable that influences one’s growth. The experiential
world is the reality of their environment that is contingent and their perception of it
which may not always coincide with reality
○ One’s early experience becomes the basis for his or her judgment and
behaviors/experiential world
● The self and positive regard
○ The self-concept begins to develop in childhood and is the only part separate
from the rest of their experiences.
