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Transpersonal Pioneers: Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers was a founder of humanistic psychology whose contributions to psychology and psychotherapy continue to resonate throughout
the eld. His theory and practice shifted the authoritarian paradigm of therapist-led psychotherapy toward a client-centered practice, which gave
primacy to the clients self-knowledge and impulses toward healing ones own problems. In addition to radically changing therapeutic practices,
Rogers applied his person-centered psychological theory to other elds including education, couples counseling, and group work within industry
and governments.

The Life of Carl Rogers

It is impossible to grasp the profundity of Rogerss contributions to the eld without an overview of his formative years and his academic and
professional pursuits, as his journey through life greatly inuenced the scope and direction of both his theory and practice.
Born January 8, 1902 into a strict Protestant family living in Oak Park, Illinois, Rogers was an isolated loner who sought solace in academia. His
family was prosperous and moved to a farm away from the temptations of suburban life when Rogers was twelve (Rogers, 1989, p. 8). There
he developed a keen interest in science through the observation of the natural world around him and the cultivation of his familys farmland.

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These experiences led him to the University of Wisconsin to study agriculture.
During his junior year of college, Rogers traveled to China as part of a youth ministry conference.
While abroad, some of the rigid fundamentalism impressed upon him during his formative years
diminished. Reminiscing about what he learned on his journey, in hindsight Rogers viewed this
period as a time of personal growth.
It was 1922, four years after the close of World War I. I saw how bitterly the French and Germans
still hated each other, even though as individuals they seemed very likable. I was forced to stretch
my thinking, to realize that sincere and honest people could believe in very divergent religious
doctrines. In major ways I for the rst time emancipated myself from the religious thinking of my
parents, and realized that I could no longer go along with them (Rogers, 1989, p. 9).
Upon his return and the completion of his undergraduate degree, Rogers married and moved to
New York City to study for the ministry at Union Theological Seminary. Ultimately, however, Rogers
decided against the life of a preacher and completed a degree in clinical psychology at Teachers
College, Columbia University. It was during this phase of his education that he was exposed to the
dynamic Freudian views of the clinicians supervising his internship which starkly contrasted the

rigorous, scientic, coldly objective, statistical point of view presented at school (Rogers, 1989, p. 10). Rogerss evolution toward a humanistic
approach to psychotherapy was clearly inuenced by this clinical training and inspired him to pursue an independent, unorthodox professional
career.
He moved to Rochester, New York directly after graduation from Teachers College to work in a childrens counseling center. While there, he
discovered that the directive therapeutic approach in vogue at this time was not effective in the counseling room. His rst book, The Clinical
Treatment of the Problem Child (1939) was developed out of this early clinical work and led to an appointment to full professorship at Ohio
State University. There he wrote Counseling and Psychotherapy (1942). Subsequently, in 1945, he moved to the University of Chicago, where he
opened a clinic based upon his primary theoretical paradigms, which evolved into a psychotherapeutic approach called client-centered therapy,
and later renamed person-centered therapy. The 1951 book, Client-Centered Therapy outlined Rogerss distinctive therapeutic philosophy and
style: the client should be free to determine her/his own therapeutic path rather than being led by a clinician toward self-awareness. This
paradigm was expanded further, based upon Rogerss many years of clinical experience in his 1961 book On Becoming a Person, published
during his tenure at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Simultaneous with his work in psychotherapy, Rogers was also an educator and applied the person-centered approach to theories about
education. Rogers believed strongly that graduate students learn best when engaged in learning what they are truly interested in and that
institutions that are too proscriptive are doing disservice to the creative aspects of the elds of education and scienceviews he expressed and
expanded upon in the book Freedom to Learn (1969) and later updated in Freedom to Learn for the 80s (1983).
However, Rogers chose to leave the elite world of academia in 1963, moving to California and working at the Western Behavioral Science
Institute. In 1968 he helped found the Center for Studies of the Person, an organization of person-centered professionals conducting
workshops, research, and activist initiatives. The mandate of the center is to:
. . . explore the richness of the Person: to help individuals discover and experience more fully in their own lives and relationships even in their
organizations the wealth of what it means to be personal. Of what it means, for example, to be private as well as to be open, of what it means
to yield to others and what it means to be self-controlling.
. . . . This Center intends to experience anew and in its own life the meaning of democracy and of community. In its scientic aims, it intends to
go beyond the narrow limits of existing social science methodologies. It intends to invent and submit to the public methods of study suited to
the dignity and depth of its subject, being human. It will use means of knowing designed to expand a persons hope for him- or herself. This is a
center for persons. (Center for Studies of the Person, 2005).
Rogers remained active with the Center for the rest of his life, traveling internationally and facilitating groups on person-centered approaches.
Through the Center, Rogers was instrumental in the development of the use of encounter groups and applied his person-centered approach to
improving group dynamics in corporate, government, and international diplomatic arenas. The political implications of the person-centered
approach are outlined in Rogerss 1978 book, Carl Rogers on Personal Power. While working with the center, Rogers continued to write, both
personal reections and professional observations, until his death at age 85 in 1987.

Major Concepts of Carl Rogers

The main crux of Rogerian theory is that the human experience is unique to each individual and, if given appropriate conditions for selfexploration and inquiry, people will shed defenses (masks or false selves as Rogers called them) and gravitate toward psychological health.
This core belief developed into a theorycoined Becoming a Personwhich grew out of experience gained through thousands of hours in
clinical practice. Thus, Rogers was an applied psychologist, following in the footsteps of Freud and Jung in his own work, using what he learned
while practicing psychotherapy to develop theories about the human condition and human relationships, including the relationship of client and
therapist.
Rogers wrote extensively on Becoming a Person. Primary to this theoretical construct is the belief that human beings are not static

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constructions or unchanging personalities, but are dynamic, ever-changing entities: the person (or self) is a process. In addition, Rogers believed
in the inherent positive potentialities of all living things. Such capacity is evident in all organic and human lifeto expand, extend, become
autonomous, develop, maturethe tendency to express and activate all the capacities of the organism, to the extent that such activation
enhances the organism or the self (1961, p. 35).
These central ideas were supported by several suppositions about the nature of the human being. First, human beings are motivated toward
self-actualization, as stated above. Human beings also have personal power, or vast resources for self-understanding, for altering self-concept,
his attitudes, and his self-directed behavior (Rogers, 1978, p. 7). Problems arise for people for whom this personal power is diminished or
restricted due to domination from others, either overt (such as martial law) or covert (such as nding ones self in a manipulative relationship).
The implication for placing so much power squarely upon the individual is great; including the potential for personal, social, and political change
if all persons are granted the innate ability to move toward self-actualization. As noted above, Rogers applied this theory both within the
psychotherapeutic container, and in the elds of education, business, and government. Nonetheless, the primacy of the power of the individual
and how that power can be realized and enhanced through the psychotherapeutic relationship is fundamental to all of the ways in which personcentered approaches have been applied.
In addition to the problems that arise when personal power is diminished, discrepancies between a perceived Ideal Self and a Real Self may lead
to psychological distress. The Ideal Self is a self-concept held by an individual that may or may not accurately reect reality. If ones Ideal Self
and Real Self are in alignment, psychological congruence is present. If the Ideal Self is out of alignment with the Real Self, incongruence occurs
and is generally expressed through psychological distress.
If the individual dimly perceives such an incongruence in himself, then a tension state occurs which is known as anxiety. The incongruence need
not be sharply perceived. It is enough that it is subceivedthat is, discriminated as threatening to the self without any awareness of the content
of the threat. Such anxiety is often seen in therapy as the individual approaches awareness of some element of his experience which is in sharp
contradiction to his self-concept. (Rogers, 1989, p. 223)

Applications of Theory
Since Rogers believed that the human experience is a process rather than a product, the evolution of the self is ever-evolving and thus the
unlimited human potential present in all people is ever-present. Rogers also believed that the unmasking of the incongruence between the
selves was most effectively achieved in relationship. If this inherent strength can be nurtured through a relationship such as in psychotherapy, it
would lead toward healing for those involved. Rogers elucidated six necessary conditions that must occur over a sustained period of time to
achieve personality change.
Two persons are in psychological contact.
The rst, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable and anxious.
The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship.
The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.
The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the clients internal frame of reference and endeavors to communicate this experience
to the client.
The communication to the client of the therapists empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved.
(Rogers, 1989, p. 221)
Through this therapeutic relationship, Rogers posited that the client becomes more integrated, more effective . . . . He changes his perception
of himself, becoming more realistic in his views of self. He becomes more like the person he wishes to be. He values himself more highly. He is
more self-condent and self-directing Rogers, 1961, p. 36). This is what is meant by Becoming a Person (1961).
Rogers developed four criteria through which one could discern when one Becomes a Person:
1. Openness to Experience: his own and that around him. It is the opposite of defensiveness (Rogers, 1961, p. 115). This openness includes
the ability to see variation of truths rather than monolithic patterns which may have caused discordance and misunderstanding (incongruence)
in the past. As Rogers noted, it enables a client to tolerate ambiguity (Rogers, 1961, p. 115).
2. Trust in Ones Organism: There is a gradual growth of trust in and even affection for the complex, rich, varied assortment of feelings and
tendencies which exist in him at the organic level (Rogers, 1961, p. 119). This trust leads to greater self-acceptance and reliance on ones inner
wisdom. Consciousness, instead of being the watchman over a dangerous and unpredictable lot of impulses, of which few can be permitted to
see the light of day, becomes the comfortable inhabitant of a society of impulses and feelings and thoughts, which are discovered to be very
satisfactorily self-governing when not fearfully guarded (Rogers, 1961, p. 119).
3. An Internal Locus of Evaluation: Authority lies within the self rather than in society or another person. The central question shifts from trying
to live up to or please others to: Am I living in a way which is deeply satisfying to me, and which truly expresses me? (Rogers, 1961, p119).
4. Willingness to be a Process: As stated earlier, Rogers believed the human experience is process rather than product. Thus, there needs to be
recognition by the client that therapy does not end in the result of a xed state in which problems are solved. Rather, it is the enabling of the
person-as-process to be able to handle situations as they arise in each present moment and remain congruent and true to ones self. This is the
essence of a process of becoming (Rogers, 1961, p.122).The Role and Quality of the Therapist
As the six criteria that facilitate psychological change listed above suggest, the relationship between therapist and client is of profound
importance. Rogers was very clear in his writing to stress that within the relationship techniques and methods are less critical to successful
psychotherapy than the attitudes and qualities developed by and consciously held by the therapist (Rogers, 1951). Rogers stressed that
unconditional positive regard for the individual is tantamount among the qualities necessary for successful therapy to occur (1961, p. 239).

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Through this he meant that it is necessary for therapists to develop an orientation which stresses the signicance and worth of each person
as an individual capable of operating from a place of inner wisdom (Rogers, 1951, p. 21). Thus, the process of therapy should be non-directive.
The core of the role of the therapist in client-centered therapy is related to the quality of the psychotherapeutic relationship:
How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth? . . . . If I can provide a certain type of relationship, the
other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change and personal development will occur.
(Rogers, 1961, pp. 32-33)
Rogers often pointed out the folly of using techniques or methods without the therapist maintaining proper attention to unconditional positive
regard for the client and personal self-awareness.
The client is apt to be quick to discern when the counselor is using a method, an intellectually chosen tool which he has selected for a
purpose. On the other hand, the counselor is always implementing, both in conscious and nonconscious ways, the attitudes which he holds
toward the client . . . Thus a counselor who basically does not hold the hypothesis that the person has signicant capacity for integrating
himself may think that he has used nondirective methods and techniques, and proved to his own satisfaction that these techniques are
unsuccessful. (Rogers, 1951, pp. 25-26)
He suggested that an effective tool a therapist may use to develop and hone her/his therapeutic process is voice recording and transcription of
actual sessions. Through detailed observation, the therapist may uncover times when the therapeutic process may be derailed by unconscious
personal agenda or bias, or breaks in the empathic relationship. The role of the therapist in client-centered therapy is to afrm and acknowledge
the experience and feelings of the client without being directive. Rogers asserted often that if this attitudinal stance can be maintained by the
therapist, change would occur for the client.

Applications Beyond Therapy

I realize that whatever I have learned is applicable to all of my human relationships, not just working with clients with problems (Rogers, 1961,
p. 32).
Client-centered therapy and the evolution of humanistic psychology have radically altered the eld of psychotherapy. But Rogers believed that
much of the use of unconditional positive regard was not limited to the psychotherapeutic container. As noted above, person-centered
approaches continue to be applied in a variety of settings. Most notably in the last decade of Rogerss life, he devoted much of his time to
traveling throughout the world, including Brazil, Japan, the former Soviet Union, and South Africa facilitating the training of helping professionals
and organizational leaderships in person-centered approaches. The same principles applied in client-centered therapy that Rogers had found so
affective proved to have direct and profound applications for regional and international conicts.
One example of Rogerss work on an international level was the 1985 Rust Workshop, a four-day gathering of international leaders and notable
people from various elds including authors, professors, and peace activists, brought together to discuss the tensions at the time in Central
America. Attended by fty inuential people from seventeen nations, the workshop utilized the processes Rogers and his staff from the Center
for Studies of the Person had developed over two decades for use in encounter groups, professional training sessions, and conict resolution
settings: no set agenda for the workshop and the staff facilitated each session holding an attitude of unconditional positive regard (Rogers,
1989). This work, as well as his other international peace projects, including work in Northern Ireland and South Africa led to Rogers being
nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize days before he passed away in February, 1987.
The legacy left by Carl Rogers continues on in multiple arenas. In honor of the remembrance of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rogers,
Kirschenbaum (2004) made note of the continuing inuence Rogerss theory and practice has on the counseling and helping professions:
Moreover, Rogerss work continues to serve as a foundation for the counseling profession (Capuzzi & Gross, 2001; Gibson & Mitchell, 1999;
Gladding, 2000; Nugent, 2000). It also plays a major part in the practice of the vast number of counselors, clinical psychologists, and
psychotherapists who describe their practice as eclectic or integrative, including the client-centered approach as a major component in their
repertoire (Aspy, Aspy, Russel, & Wedel, 2000; Bergin & Gareld, 1994; Sharf, 2000). And it continues to exert a signicant inuence on numerous
helping professions from social work to pastoral counseling to the health professions. (p. 123)
But Rogerss inuence extends beyond the eld of psychology, just as the career of the man did during his lifetime. While some of Rogerss
critics felt that his theory was supercial (DeMott 1979), overly optimistic, and underestimated the capacity for human evil (May, 1982), the
simplicity of his message and his unyielding belief in the strength and power of human potential is carried on in humanistic and transpersonal
elds today (Sharf, 2000; Cowley, 1993). Rogers did not simply practice psychotherapy differently than other psychologists of his day. He
instead developed an entire way of beinga lived expression of positivity and reverence for othersthat changed the face of the helping
professions in many ways. From this perspective, Rogers envisioned a new world, a place of peace and harmony that he did not see come to
complete fruition in his lifetime, but one in which he was able to capture glimpses in the successes in counseling rooms, encounter groups, and
peace initiatives. His vision began, and continued to be founded on the central principle of the strength of the individual.
This new world will be more human and humane. It will explore and develop the richness and capacities of the human mind and spirit. It will
produce individuals who are more integrated and whole. It will be a world that prizes the individual personthe greatest of our resources.
(Rogers, 1980, p. 356)

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References
Center for Studies of the Person, (2005). Purpose of the center. Retrieved fromhttp://centerfortheperson.org/on August 19, 2005.
Cowley, A. S. (1993). Transpersonal social work: A theory for the 1990s. Social Work: 38(5), pp. 527-534.
DeMott, B. (1979, January). Mr. Rogers neighborhood. Psychology Today, 90, 94, 95.
Kirschenbaum, H. (2004). Carl Rogerss life and work: An assessment on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Journal of Counseling and
Development: 82(1), 116-124.
May, R. (1982, Summer). The problem of evil: An open letter to Carl Rogers. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 22(3), 10-21.
Rogers, C. R. (1939). The clinical treatment of the problem child. Boston: Houghton Mifin.
Rogers, C. R. (1942). Counseling and psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifin.
Rogers, C. R. (1951). Client-centered therapy: Its current practice, implications and theory. Boston: Houghton Mifin.
Rogers, C.R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapists view of psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifin.
Rogers, C. R. (1969). Freedom to learn. Columbus, OH: Merrill.
Rogers, C. R. (1978). Carl Rogers on personal power. New York: Dell.
Rogers, C. R. (1980). A way of being. Boston: Houghton Mifin.
Rogers, C. R. (1983). Freedom to learn for the 80s. Columbus, OH: Merrill.
Rogers, C. R. (1989). This is me. In H. Kirschenbaum & V. L. Henderson (Eds.), The Carl Rogers reader (pp. 6-28). Boston: Houghton Mifin.
Rogers, C. R. (1989). The necessary and sufcient conditions of therapeutic personality change. In H. Kirschenbaum & V. L. Henderson (Eds.),
The Carl Rogers reader (pp. 219-235). Boston: Houghton Mifin.
Rogers, C. R. (1989). The Rust workshop. In H. Kirschenbaum & V. L. Henderson (Eds.), The Carl Rogers reader (pp. 457-477). Boston: Houghton
Mifin.
Sharf, R. S. (2000). Comparison, critique, and integration. In R.S. Sharf, Theories of psychotherapy and counseling: Concepts and cases (2nd ed.,
pp. 599-645). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

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