Person Centred Approach and Neuroscience

THE PERSON-CENTERED
APPROACH MEETS NEUROSCIENCE:

MUTUAL SUPPORT FOR C. R. ROGERSS
AND A. DAMASIOS THEORIES
RENATE MOTSCHNIG-PITRIK is a professor of computer

science at the University of Vienna, Austria, and head of
the Research Lab for Educational Technologies since March
2005. Since her studies in the early 1980s, she has been
deeply interested in cognitive and humanistic psychology,
understanding, and processes of learning including personal growth and their foundations in neuroscience. More
recently, she has participated in national and international
encounter groups and the La Jolla Program. Currently, she
is determined to foster a style in higher education that is based on personcentered attitudes as well as Web-based technology, to allow for synergies
between presence and distance, cognition and feeling/meaning, and the scientific and the personal.
MICHAEL LUX is working as a person-centered psychotherapist and clinical neuropsychologist in a neurological

rehabilitation center in Bad Wildbad, Germany. He holds
academic grades in psychology and gerontology. Recently, he
has been intensively engaged with linkages between the
Person-Centered Approach and neuroscience. He has presented these repeatedly in conferences and publications.
Summary
Neuroscience offers new ways and levels to look into the functioning of our organisms. It thus can be used as a means to confirm or
AUTHORS NOTE: Renate Motschnig-Pitrik sincerely thanks her colleagues
Ladislav Nykl, Helmuth Beutel, and Antonio Santos for numerous insightful dialogues and discussions. Both authors thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that have evoked further thought and
encouragement to continue the bridge-building process.
Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 48 No. 3, July 2008 287-319
DOI: 10.1177/0022167807306044
2008 Sage Publications
Downloaded from jhp.sagepub.com at University of Derby on November 22, 2016
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The Person-Centered Approach Meets Neuroscience
question psychological phenomena. In this article, the authors aim

to view Carl Rogerss theory of personality and behavior in light of
Antonio Damasios theories and hypotheses concerning emotions,
feelings, and conscious thought. The results indicate a tight correspondence of basic concepts and hypotheses such as the actualizing tendency and the vital role of feelings in thought. Furthermore,
several ways accrue in which neuroscience and psychology complement one another in producing a more complete and, hence, reliable image of human functioning.
Keywords:
Person-Centered Approach; Carl Ransom Rogers;

Antonio Damasio; cognitive neuroscience; feelings; experience; well-being
INTRODUCTION
Novel and refined investigation methods such as positron
emission tomography (PET) and Functional Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (fMRI) open up new levels and perspectives of investigating human functioning and uncovering some of the secrets
nature has built into our organisms. However, neural patterns
and pathways tend to be highly complex such that hypotheses
and theories from other sciences such as biology, anthropology,
psychology, social sciences, and so on tend to provide valuable
inputs for the confirmation of individual theories.
Within the past decade, Antonio Damasio has suggested a
theory on the role of emotions and feelings in human functioning.
Whereas his theory is based on numerous experiments from cognitive neuroscience, it also takes into account aspects of related
disciplines such as anthropology, philosophy, and the social sciences and considers a phenomenological component based on personal experience. It is interesting that Damasios concepts and
findings appear to match and thus to confirm the visionary theories of personality and behavior of Carl Rogers, the most influential American psychologist of the past century and the founder of
the Person-Centered Approach.
We emphasize that we do not at all intend to substitute or
reduce human behavior to its neuroscience perspective, much in
the same way as a psychological theory could not explain all subtleties of neuro-anatomic functioning. Nevertheless, in our view,
embracing multiple perspectives has the potential of opening ones
Renate Motschnig-Pitrik, Michael Lux
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mind and provoking further thought. The good news is that both
theories can, in the authors view, benefit from the exploration of
congenial concepts and ideas (see also Lux, 2004, 2007; MotschnigPitrik & Nykl, 2003). Rogerss theory is confirmed by the grounding of several of its concepts such as the actualizing tendency,
feelings, subception, experience, and so on in neuroscience and by
their more detailed and explicit understanding. Damasios theory
can be complemented and enriched by Rogerss insights on particular attitudes, in Damasios terminology non-automated devices,
that have been proven to bring people closer to their own optimum,
in Damasios terminology perfection, and by the principle of reciprocity, also to the optimal being of their peers. More precisely,
Rogerss theory complements Damasios in supplying the psychological and social preconditions that are necessary and sufficient
for the development and maintenance of a trustworthy self as the
base for the organization of feelings and meanings.
Further good news is that Rogerss theory applies to all persons, irrespective of their particular culture, and that Rogers has
suggested ways in which facilitative conditions or attitudes can
be developed. Ongoing research will address yet further complements between neuroscience and the Person-Centered Approach
aimed at promoting wise conscious choices in integrating intellect and feeling in learning and creative problem solving.
ROGERSS THEORY OF PERSONALITY AND BEHAVIOR

In the following, let us revisit the 19 Theses of Rogerss Theory
of Personality and Behavior (Rogers, 1951/1995) and see how, in
the authors view, tightly related statements or hypotheses can be
aligned to them from Damasios theory and thought.
Proposition I: Every individual exists in a continually changing world
of experience of which he or she is the center.
Rogers (1951/1995) makes this proposition more precise by writing,

An important truth in regard to this private world of the individual is that it can only be known, in any genuine or complete sense,
to the individual himself. No matter how adequately we attempt to
measure the stimuluswhether it be a beam of light, a pinprick, a
failure on an examination, or some more complex situationand
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no matter how we attempt to measure the perceiving organism

whether by psychometric tests or by physiological calibrationsit
is still true that the individual is the only one who can know how
the experience was perceived. (pp. 483-484)
In a highly resonant view, Damasio emphasizes the uniqueness

of our individual, subjective perspective that cannot be held by any
other person in exactly the same way. Not even by applying the
most precise measurement techniques will it ever be possible to
access the subjective experience of another person. In the authors
view, Damasio and Rogers would agree that trying to analyze others to find out about them is bound to have limits. Damasio (2000)
expresses this perspective, among others, as follows:
The idea that the nature of scientific experiences can be grasped
effectively by the study of their behavioral correlates is wrong.
Although both mind and behavior are biological phenomena, mind
is mind and behavior is behavior. Mind and behavior can be correlated, and the correlation will become closer as science progresses,
but in their respective specifications, mind and behavior are different. This is why, in all likelihood, I will never know your
thoughts unless you tell me, and you will never know mine until I
tell you. (p. 309)
In neuroscience terminology, the first proposition is explained by

the fact that there is a constant flow in each living organism and
each individual perceives other objects (term used in a general
sense, including persons) in terms of the changes that they make
on the individuals organism. Because each change is relative to
the individual organisms state (protoself) as well as to his or her
autobiographic self, the individual is the center. To understand the
high importance of Damasios observations on how we perceive
objects and the immanent role of feelings in this process, Appendix
A contains a quote from Damasio (2000) on these issues.
The first proposition makes clear that we necessarily tend to
perceive and to evaluate everything from our viewpoint, taking
us as the center. Acknowledging that our innate subjectivity
applies to us and consciously accepting that it applies to others
may, in our view, contribute to an increased willingness to be open
to and to understand viewpoints of others, instead of stubbornly
defending our view as the only one possible.
Proposition II: The organism reacts to the field as it is experienced
and perceived. This perceptual field is, for the individual, reality.
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To explain the notion of perceptual field, Rogers (1951/1995)

writes,
It should be recognized that in this private world of experience of
the individual [referred to as experiential or phenomenal field],
only a portion of that experience, and probably a very small portion, is consciously experienced. Many of our sensory and visceral
experiences are not symbolized. It is also true, however, that a
large portion of this world of experience is available to consciousness, and may become conscious if the need of the individual
causes certain sensations to come into focus because they are associated with the satisfaction of a need. In other words, most of the
individuals experiences constitute the ground of the perceptual
field, but they can easily become figure, while other experiences
slip back into ground. (p. 483)
Rogers (1951/1995) continues,

To understand this concept that reality is, for the individual, his perceptions, we may find it helpful to borrow a phrase from the semanticists. They have pointed out that the words and symbols bear to the
world of reality the same relationship as a map to the territory which
it represents. This relationship also applies to perceptions and reality. We live by a perceptual map which is never reality itself. This is
a useful concept to keep in mind, for it may help to convey the nature
of the world in which the individual lives. (p. 485)
From neuroscience it is known that each individual constructs

his or her reality on the basis of their biological foundation, former experience, and its current flow of experience that, at any
instant, processes the changes that objects or thoughts induce.
More precisely, Damasio (2003) writes,
The images we have in our minds, then, are the results of interactions
between each of us and objects that engaged our organisms, as
mapped in neural patterns constructed according to the organisms
design. It should be noted that this does not deny the reality of objects.
The objects are real. Nor does it deny the reality of the interactions
between objects and organism. And, of course, the images are real too.
And yet, the images we experience are brain constructions prompted
by an object, rather than mirror reflections of the object. . . . We are so
biologically similar among ourselves, however, that we construct similar neural patterns of the same thing. (pp. 199-200)
Damasio (2003) considers Proposition 26 (Spinoza, 1955a) most

important and quotes it: The human Mind does not perceive any
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external body as actually existing except through the ideas of the

modification (affections) of its own body (Damasio, 2003, p. 121).
Note the notions of figure and image used by both researchers,
as well as the reliance on some mapping, expressed as map and
pattern, respectively, for representing the relationship between
the organism and the objects that engage organisms.
Proposition III: The organism reacts as an organized whole to this
perceptual field.
Rogers (1951/1995) postulates,

The outstanding fact that must be taken into theoretical account is
that the organism is at all times a total organized system, in which
alteration of any part may produce changes in any other part. Our
study of such part phenomena must start from this central fact of
consistent, goal-directed organization. (p. 487)
Damasio (2003) writes, Because the mind arises in a brain that

is integral to the organism, the mind is a part of that well-woven
apparatus. In other words, body, brain and mind are manifestations
of a single organism (p. 195). Later, Damasio (2003) continues,
The sense of self introduces, within the mental level of processing,
the notion that all current activities represented in brain and mind
pertain to a single organism whose auto-preservation needs are
the basic cause of most events currently represented. The sense of
self orients the mental planning process towards the satisfaction of
those needs. That orientation is only possible because feelings are
integral to the cluster of operations that constitutes the sense of
self, and because feelings are continuously generating, within the
mind, a concern for the organism. (p. 208)
Body-state maps can provide only limited assistance without conscious feelings. The maps work for problems of a certain degree of
complexity and no more; when the problem gets too complicated
when it requires a mixture of automated responses and reasoning,
on accumulated knowledgeunconscious maps no longer help and
feelings come in handy. (p. 177)
In Damasios (2003) words,

One might summarize by saying that feelings are necessary
because they are mental-level expression of emotions and what lies
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beneath them. Only at that mental level of biological processing

and in the full light of consciousness is there sufficient integration
of the now, the past, and the anticipated future. Only at that level
it is possible for emotions to create, via feelings, the concern for the
individual self. The effective solution to non-standard problems
requires the flexibility and high power information gathering that
mental processes can offer, as well as the mental concern that feelings can provide. (p. 178)
In numerous places, Rogers and Damasio emphasize the

importance and synergies of emotions/feelings and conscious
mind or rational thought. On the relationship of cognitions and
feelings in our lives, Rogers (1980) notes,
It is the overstress on the conscious and the rational and the
underestimation of the wisdom of our total reacting organisms
that prevent us from living as unified, whole human beings. Yet I
can testify from personal experience that it is not easy for people
whose lives have been dichotomized for decades to achieve this
unity. I have conducted courses in which the whole group including
myself have agreed that our feelings are as important a part of the
curriculum as our ideas. . . . Only occasionally has a group been
able to be whole persons in the experience. Yet, when they have
achieved this, the results have been unforgettable. (pp. 250-251)
Note how evolutionarily younger features, such as reasoning,

are integrated and interwoven with older ones, such as emotions,
in the organization and functioning of the whole. Further note the
systems view on the whole organism, where the manipulation or
overemphasis on a particular part may affect the whole organism.
This proposition and its neuroscience grounding indicate that
simple cause-effect relationships, although important, will not suffice to explain the behavior of a system. This becomes even more
evident because the system of an organism typically interacts quite
intensively with other systems, calling for views and theories that
are capable of taking this dynamic reality into account.
Proposition IV: The organism has one basic tendency and strivingto
actualize, maintain, and expand the experiencing organism.
Damasio (2003) observes in the context of biological life-regulation:

The innate equipment of life regulation does not aim for a neitherhere-nor-there neutral state midway between life and death. Rather,
the goal of the homeostasis endeavor is to provide a better than
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neutral life state, what we as thinking and affluent creatures identify as wellness and well-being. . . . It is apparent that the continuous attempt at achieving a state of positively regulated life is a deep
and defining part of our existence. . . . Striving, endeavor, and tendency are three words that come close to rendering the Latin term
conatus, as used by Spinoza [1955b, Propositions 6, 7, and 8]. . . . [In
biological terms] it is the aggregate of dispositions laid down in brain
circuitry that, once engaged by internal or environmental conditions,
seek both survival and well-being. (pp. 35-36)
The direction of development that results from striving for survival

and well-being is highly similar to the direction of the tendency
toward actualization postulated by Rogers. Damasio (2003) writes,
We can agree with Spinoza when he said that joy (laetitia in his
Latin text) was associated with a transition of the organism to a
state of greater perfection. That is greater perfection in the sense
of functional harmony, no doubt, and greater perfection in the
sense that power and freedom to act are increased. (p. 138)
This greater perfection is also characterized by a constructive

regard or caring for the social environment, as Damasio derives
from experimental results. These have proved the emission of
dopamine that is known to activate pleasure/reward systems in
the brain. And exactly as Rogers (1951/1995) sees the fully functioning person as living with others in the maximum possible
harmony, because of the rewarding character of reciprocal positive regard (p. 235), Damasio (2003) assumes that the highest
functional level is characterized by the desire to act toward others with kindness and generosity (p. 284).
In his thoughts about spiritual experiences that Damasio considers kinds of joy, he considers the latter as indications for the
highest functional level of the organism. He writes (Damasio, 2003),
Conceived in this manner, the spiritual is an index of the organizing scheme behind a life that is well-balanced, well-tempered, and
well-intended. One might venture that perhaps the spiritual is a
partial revelation of the ongoing impulse behind life in some state
of perfection. If feelings, as I suggested earlier in this book, testify
to the state of the life process, spiritual feelings dig beneath that
testimony, deeper into the substance of living. They form the basis
for an intuition of the life process. (p. 284)
Let us expand a bit more on this foundational, actualizing tendency.

Whereas Damasio bases his theory primarily on the evolutionary,
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biological, and social development of human beings, Rogers has

found from his experience in counseling clients that humans are
basically trustworthy, social, and forward moving, if supplied
with a facilitative atmosphere. The latter can be provided, for
example, by a congruent, respectful, understanding social other.
Both researchers claim the existence of a constructive, forward
moving tendency inherent in all living organisms and thus also
in humans. Rogers (1980) notes,
We can say that there is in every organism, at whatever level, an
underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfilment of inherent possibilities. In human beings, too, there is a natural tendency
toward a more complex and complete development. The term that has
most often been used for that is the actualizing tendency and it is
present in all living organisms. . . . I am most impressed with the
fact that each human being has a directional tendency toward wholeness, toward actualization of his or her potentialities. (p. 119)
Rogers goes even further in exploring and specifying the necessary

and sufficient conditions under which the actualizing tendency can
most fully unfold itself. In an atmosphere where persons experience, at least to some degree, the congruence, acceptance, and
empathic understanding of another person, they tend to expand
personally or, in other words, move toward actualization.
It is interesting that, as cited above, Damasio (2003) postulates
the aggregate of dispositions laid down in brain circuitry that,
once engaged by internal or environmental conditions, seek both
survival and well-being (p. 36). Thus, with regard to dispositions
and conditions, we see precisely in which way Rogerss psychological theory complements Damasios framework: Damasio postulates dispositions needed to be engaged by conditions; Rogers
defines dispositions/attitudes and the conditions from an experiential, psychological perspective. Reciprocally, investigating the
brain circuitry and neural patterns resulting from the presence
or absence of these conditions could help to physiologically validate Rogerss psychological theory.
In his later work, Rogers (1980) expands the idea of actualization
by hypothesizing a formative tendency: There appears to be a formative tendency at work in the universe, which can be observed at
any level (p. 124). Thus, without ignoring the tendency toward deterioration, we need to recognize fully . . . the ever operating trend
toward increased order and interrelated complexity evident at both
the inorganic and the organic level (p. 126). Recently, Sheldon and
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his colleagues (Sheldon, Arndt, & Houser-Marko, 2003) hypothesized a positive bias over time toward goal choices that enhance
subjective well-being. In a recent book, Sheldon (2004) develops an
intriguing multidisciplinary perspective on optimal human being.
Proposition V: Behavior is basically the goal-oriented attempt of the
organism to satisfy his or her needs as experienced, in the field as
perceived.
Damasio (2003) writes,

The package of reactions that constitutes crying and sobbing is
ready and active at birth: what we cry for, across a lifetime,
changes with our experience. All of these reactions are automatic
and largely stereotyped, and are engaged under specific circumstances. . . . All of these reactions are aimed, in one way or another,
directly or indirectly, at regulating the life process and promoting
survival. . . . The organism detects the change and acts accordingly,
in a manner designed to create the most beneficial situation for its
own self-preservation and efficient functioning. (pp. 34, 36)
A similar statement by Rogers (1961), although with different

emphasis and orientation toward the processes that support or
hinder goal directedness, is the following:
I have little sympathy with the rather prevalent concept that man
is basically irrational, and that his impulses, if not controlled, will
lead to destruction of others and self. Mans behavior is exquisitely
rational, moving with subtle and ordered complexity toward the
goals his organism is endeavoring to achieve. The tragedy for most
of us is that our defenses keep us from being aware of this rationality, so that consciously we are moving in one direction, while
organismically we are moving in another. (pp. 194-195)
This proposition and its neuroscience grounding point us to

the basic, fundamental, essential importance of an inner world or
self that is congruent or, in other words, that accurately symbolizes
our experience. Only in the case of congruence can we trust our perceptions and consequently our organisms to move in the direction of
actualization and enhancement. If incongruence resides in parts of
the self, perception may become distorted. The tricky and dangerous
effect is that although we believe we move toward actualization, in
effect, the organism is governed by valuing conditions and driven
to behave to suit others rather than his or her own needs. This
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may drastically compromise or distract the organism from following

the direction and effect of the actualizing tendency while being
unaware or hardly aware of doing so.
Proposition VI: Emotion accompanies and, in general, facilitates
such goal-directed behavior, the kind of emotion being related to
the socking versus the consummatory aspects of the behavior,
and the intensity of the emotion being related to the perceived significance of the behavior for the maintenance and enhancement of
the organism.
Rogers (1951/1995) explains the socking versus consummatory aspects by saying,

We may think of emotions as falling primarily into two groups
the unpleasant and/or excited feelings and the calm and/or satisfied emotions. The first group tends to accompany the seeking
effort of the organism, and the second to accompany satisfaction of
the need, the consummatory experience. (p. 493)
Later, Rogers remarks that the preceding two propositions have

been worded as though behavior always had to do with the maintenance and enhancement of the organism. He indicates that the
development of the self may involve some modification of this,
since the behavior is then often best described as meeting the
needs of the self, sometimes as against the needs of the organism
(p. 493). The propositions stated below take this into account.
Similarly, Damasio (2003) writes,
Even the emotions properdisgust, fear, happiness, sadness, sympathy and shameaim directly at life regulation by staving off
dangers or helping the organism take advantage of an opportunity.
. . . I am not suggesting every time we engage an emotion we are
promoting survival and well-being. Not all emotions are alike in
their potential to promote survival and well-being and both the
context in which an emotion is engaged and the intensity of the
emotion are important factors. . . . But the fact that the deployment
of some emotions in current human circumstances may be maladaptive does not deny their evolutionary role in advantageous life
regulation. (p. 39)
It appears that both researchers acknowledge situations in

which behavior is not directed toward maintenance and enhancement of the organism. A slight difference between the researchers
views can be found in that Rogers refers to situations in which the
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needs of the self take precedence over the needs of the organism.
Damasio, however, claims that not all emotions are alike in promoting survival and well-being. In any case, for both researchers,
the situations in which the behavior of the organism is not governed purely by the actualization tendency or, in other words, by
survival and well-being seem essential and worthy of further
consideration. In fact, deeper knowledge of these situations and
wisdom/competence to handle them might help to minimize
much of the evil in current and future societies.
With regard to the brain machinery of emotion, Damasio
(2003) states,
Emotions provide a natural means for the brain and mind to evaluate the environment within and around the organism, and
respond accordingly and adaptively. Indeed, in many circumstances, we actually evaluate consciously the objects that cause
emotions, in the proper sense of the word evaluate. We process
not only the presence of an object but its relation to others and its
connection to the past. In those circumstances, the apparatus of
emotions naturally evaluates, and the apparatus of the conscious
mind thinkingly coevaluates. (p. 54)
Proposition VII: The best vantage point for understanding behavior is
from the inner frame of reference of the individual.
The inner frame of reference certainly encompasses feelings that can

be the mental sensors of the organisms interior, witnesses of life on the
fly (Damasio, 2003, p. 139). In this respect, Damasio writes,
Feelings are the mental manifestations of balance and harmony, of
disharmony and discord. They do not refer to the harmony and discord of objects or events out in the world, necessarily, but rather to
the harmony or discord deep in the flesh. (pp. 139-140)
Note that in this proposition, Damasio expresses that if you want

to understand another person, there is no substitute for understanding his or her inner frame of reference (i.e., the feelings and
meanings). In this respect, neuroscience gives us a more detailed
picture of the mechanisms and functions of the inner frame of reference. Furthermore, Damasio (2003) acknowledges the role of
feelings for the organization of behavior: Ever since feelings
began, their natural role would have been to keep the condition
of life count in the organization of behavior (p. 165). In the
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authors view, Damasios words gracefully touch and embrace the

meaning of Rogerss Proposition VII.
To allow us to enter the inner world of another and to understand him or her, nature has equipped us with specific neurons
that allow us to represent in our brains the movements that our
brains note in another individual and produce signals toward
sensorimotor structures so that the corresponding movements
are either previewed in simulation mode or actually executed
(Damasio, 2003, p. 115). These neurons, located in the frontal cortex, for example, play an essential role in empathy. Because, during interpersonal contact, they allow us to form mental images of
the other person, they are called mirror neurons. Note that,
according to Damasios theory, body states precede feelings. We
conjecture that mirror neurons support us in perceiving and feeling the inner world of persons with whom we are in contact on a
conscious as well as subconscious level, to some degree even without conscious effort to do so. From this physiological trait, we conclude that evolution has rewarded accurate understanding of
others. Hence, we conjecture that it favors transparent interaction with others, interaction in which you know where you are
both consciously and emotionally.
Proposition VIII: A portion of the total perceptual field gradually
becomes differentiated in the self.
Again, neuroscience is more explicit yet totally consistent with

Rogers concerning the development of self. Damasio (2003) asserts,
The relation between feeling and consciousness is tricky. In plain
terms, we are not able to feel if we are not conscious. But it so happens that the machinery of feeling is itself a contributor to the
processes of consciousness, namely the creation of the self, without
which nothing can be known. The way out of the difficulty comes
from realizing that the process of feeling is multitiered and
branched. Some of the steps necessary to produce a feeling are the
very same necessary to produce the protoself, on which self and
eventually consciousness depend. But some of the steps are specific
to the set of homeostatic changes being felt, i.e., specific to a certain object. (p. 110)
Proposition IX: As a result of the interaction with the environment,
and particularly as a result of evaluational interaction with others,
the structure of self is formedan organized, fluid, but consistent
conceptual pattern of perceptions of characteristics and relationships
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of the I or the me, together with the values attached to these
concepts.
Damasio, too, assumes that the structure of the self is built as a

result of the organisms interaction with perceived or imagined
objects. Damasio (2000) refers to this self as the autobiographical
self and distinguishes it from the ever-changing core self.
The sense of self which emerges in core consciousness is the core
self, a transient entity that is ceaselessly re-crested for each and
every object with which the brain interacts. Our traditional notion
of self, however, is linked to the idea of identity and corresponds to
a nontransient collection of unique facts and ways of being which
characterize a person. My term for that entity is the autobiographical self. The autobiographical self depends on systemized
memories of situations in which core consciousness was involved in
the knowing of the most invariant characteristics of an organisms
lifewho you were born to, where, when, your likes and dislikes,
the way you usually react to a problem or a conflict, your name,
and so on. (p. 17)
Furthermore, Damasio (2003) states,

The autobiographical self is based on autobiographical memory
which is constituted by implicit memories of multiple instances of
individual experience of the past and of the anticipated future. The
invariant aspects of an individuals biography form the basis for
autobiographical memory. Autobiographical memory grows continuously with life experience but can be partly remodeled to reflect
new experiences. Sets of memories which describe identity and
person can be reactivated as a neural pattern and made explicit as
images whenever needed. Each reactivated memory operates as a
something-to-be-known and generates its own pulse of core consciousness. The result is the autobiographical self of which we are
conscious. (p. 174)
This matches Rogerss Proposition IV and means that the autobiographical self bears stability, but it also exhibits flexibility. This is
because its structure depends on a choice of some of the numerous
implicit memories of the autobiographical memory to be made
explicit and included in the construction of the autobiographical
self. Therefore, we possess the potential of different candidates for
our self on the level of the autobiographical self. Damasio (2000)
refers to this as the inner battles of the self (p. 225). In this
process, the autobiographical self, as any other object, evokes a
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pulse beat of core consciousness. Through this characteristic, it is

directly connected to the organisms inherent or learned values that
are expressed through the emotional reactions evoked by the object.
The revival of the emotional signal accomplishes a number of
important tasks. Covertly or overtly, it focuses attention on certain
aspects of the problem and thus enhances the quality of reasoning
over them. . . . A gut feeling can suggest that you refrain from a
choice that, in the past, has led to negative consequences, and it
can do so ahead of your own regular reasoning telling you precisely
the same Do not. . . . In brief, the signal marks options and outcomes with a positive or negative signal that narrows the decisionmaking space and increases the probability that the action will
conform to past experience. Because the signals are, in one way or
another, body-related, I began referring to this set of ideas as the
somatic-marker hypothesis. (pp. 147-148)
Because Rogerss Propositions XI and XIX refer to the organismic valuing process, we just refer to them in this place and postpone further discussion.
Proposition X: The values attached to experiences, and the values that
are a part of the self-structure, in some instances are values experienced directly by the organism, and in some instances are values
introjected or taken over from others, but perceived in distorted
fashion, as if they had been experienced directly.
The first part of this proposition, namely, the one pertaining to values due to the organisms direct experiencing, can be explained as
described above in the context of Proposition IX. The second part,
referring to introjected values, however, is, in the authors understanding, not discussed by Damasio. Nevertheless, as will become
clear below, various mechanisms of simulated body states and of
taking over or manipulating values, consciously and unconsciously,
are elaborated in Damasios framework. This opens up the neuroscience basis of such mechanisms and, at the same time, shows how
psychological phenomena can be grounded in these mechanisms for
which nature has paved the way.
According to Damasio, the importance of objects for the organism is evaluated by the body-related process of core consciousness. This process includes a kind of internal preference system.
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Perceiving a given object, out in our environment or recalled in

our thoughts, engenders a number of responses in our body, not
the least of which concerns the emotional state that inevitably
accompanies the process and is based on the objects value to the
organismas set innately or as acquired in prior emotionally
laden experiences. In this perspective, consciousness becomes
inextricable from the mechanisms of life regulation. (p. 188)
Emotions, somatic markers, and feelings serve to make the results

of these evaluations usable for the control of our behavior. The
internal preference system is, to a large degree, coined by emotional learning experiences. These learning experiences happen
throughout the whole life span, although childhood and adolescence are of particular importance. Social interactions significantly
influence the construction of the internal preference system. In the
context of introducing his somatic marker hypothesis, Damasio
(1994) observes that in early stages of the developmental process,
punishment and reward are received not only from events but from
parents, other adults, and peerspersons who tend to have, immanent in themselves, the social conventions and moral values of the
respective culture.
As can be seen, Damasios thinking reflects the observation that
values are taken on from other persons and that these persons play
a major role in engaging dispositions to be laid down in brain circuitry. He sees this as a feature that is necessary for the socialization of the developing person. However, the authors have not found
any statement where the values taken over by others potentially
stand in a persons way of striving toward his or her well-being and,
as a consequence, the well-being of his or her peers. According to
Damasio (1994), problems for the internal preference system result,
if it stems from an ill culture. Again, Damasio does not explore in
more detail further consequences of a nonadaptable preference system for psychopathological phenomena as, in our view, this would
require interdisciplinary research.
The meaning of the autobiographical self and, accordingly, the
level of conscious processing for the valuing process stems from
the fact that it contains and can make explicit the knowledge
about preferences, wishes, hopes, and goals. This knowledge can
be included if the apparatus of the conscious mind thinkingly coevaluates (Damasio, 2003, p. 54). On the basis of a persons conscious decision, modulations of emotions also can be undertaken
to make it compatible with the demands of the particular situation. Damasio (2003) writes,
303
Some of the adjuster devices, however, do reflect a judgement on

the part of the organisms self and may result in an attempt to
modify or even suppress emotion. For a number of reasons that
range from honorable to the despicable, you may elect to conceal
your disgust or mirth regarding some statement that a colleague
or the person you are negotiating with just made. Conscious knowledge of the context and awareness of the future consequences of
every aspect of your own behavior help you decide to suppress the
natural expression of emotion. (pp. 56-57)
At the same place, referring to the suppression of emotions,

Damasio equips us with the following advice: But try to avoid it
as you get older. It is very energy consuming.
Proposition XI: As experiences occur in the life of the individual, they
are either (a) symbolized, perceived, and organized into some relationship to the self, (b) ignored, because there is no perceived relationship to the self-structure, or (c) denied symbolization or given
a distorted symbolization because the experience is inconsistent
with the structure of the self.
With regard to point (a) in Rogerss Proposition XI, namely, the

symbolization, we learn further aspects from Damasio (2003):
Any object and event can be symbolized by some kind of invented,
imageable sign, such as a number or a word, and such signs can be
combined in equations and sentences. The invented, imageable
signs can represent abstract entities and events just as well as concrete ones. . . . In brief, the brain brings along innate knowledge
and automated know-how, predetermining many ideas of the body.
The consequence of this knowledge and know-how is that many of
the body signals destined to become ideas, in the manner we have
discussed so far, happen to be engendered by the brain. The brain
commands the body to assume a certain state and behave in a
certain way, and the ideas are based on those body states and
body behaviors. The prime example of this arrangement concerns
drives and emotions. . . . The arrangement underscores the bodymindedness of the mind. The mind exists because there is a body
that furnishes it with contents. On the other hand, the mind ends
up performing practical and useful tasks for the bodycontrolling
the execution of automated responses in relation to the current
target; anticipating and planning of novel responses; creating all
sorts of circumstances and objects that are beneficial to the bodys
survival. The images that flow in the mind are reflections of the
interaction between the organism and the environment, reflections
of how the brains reaction to the environment affects the body,
reflections of how the bodys adjustments are faring in the unfolding life state. (pp. 204-206)
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Readers not interested in the neural mechanisms of interferences can move on to Proposition XII without the loss of understanding the rest of the article.
Damasio (2003) describes interferences that, under certain
conditions, lead to false body mappings, which we have referred
to as distortions above:
The brain effectively eliminates from the central body maps the patterns of activity that would permit the experience of pain. There are
good reasons why the mechanism of false representation would have
prevailed in evolution. During an attempt to run away from danger, it
is helpful not to feel the pain that may come from wounds inflicted by
the cause of danger. . . . Now we have detailed evidence about how this
sort of interference occurs. Nuclei in the part of the brain stem
tegmentum known as periaqueductal gray (PAG) dispatch messages
toward the nerve pathways that normally would convey signals of tissue damage and lead to the experience of pain. Those messages prevent the signals from passing on. Naturally, as a result of the filtering,
we get a false body map. The body-relatedness of the process is not
in question, of course. . . . We can find evidence for these mechanisms
all around us. Those of us, public speakers or actors, who have had to
perform while sick, have experienced the strange disappearance of the
worst physical symptoms of any ailment when we walk on the stage.
. . . I suspect some notorious psychopathological conditions hijack this
nice mechanism for good measure. (pp. 113-115)
In neuroscience terminology, respective processes are described

as follows (Damasio, 2003):
At every moment of our lives the brains body-sensing regions receive
signals with which they can construct maps of the ongoing body state.
We can picture these maps as a set of correspondences from everywhere and anywhere in the body toward the body-sensing regions.
This limpid picture of engineering clarity, however, is blurred by the
fact that other brain regions can either interfere directly with the signalling toward the body-sensing regions, or interfere directly with the
activity in the body-sensing regions themselves. The result of these
interferences is most curious. As far as our conscious mind is concerned there is only one source of knowledge for what is going on in
the body: the pattern of activity present at any given moment in the
body-sensing regions. Consequently, any interference with this mechanism can create a false map of what is transpiring in the body at
a particular moment. (pp. 112-113)
In the authors view, the interferences with the signaling and/or

the activity in the body-sensing regions will cause some kind of
distortion or, in extreme cases, partial or complete denial.
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In this place, an important question is whether the knowledge

of the neurobiological mechanism of distortion can be used to help
persons to consciously avoid or at least detect distortions and/or
turn distortion into accurate symbolization or, in other words, distorted experiences into accurate self experiences. This would be
extremely important in terms of both Rogers and Damasio,
because both underline the importance of feelings as driving forces
in our social as well as professional lives. To be able to rely on our
feelings as coevaluative mechanisms along with our thinking, we
need to have an accurate, undistorted feeling base to guide our way
and not some way that has been introjected onto us by others.
A complementary question is whether the psychological
knowledge on ways to dissolve introjected values could be of any
use to revealing further relationships in the process of feeling
and cognition.
Proposition XII: Most of the ways of behaving that are adopted by the
organism are those that are consistent with the concept of self.
Damasio (2003) cites Spinoza (1955b, Propositions 6, 7, and 8). An

excerpt reads,
The striving by which each thing strives to persevere in its being is
nothing but the actual essence of the thing. . . . Interpreted with the
advantages of current hindsight, Spinozas notion implies that the living organism is constructed so as to maintain the coherence of its structures and functions against numerous life-threatening odds. (p. 36)
More details are given in the following relationship (Damasio, 2003):

The signal is given by the closeness to, or departure from, those
states that are most representative of optimal life regulation.
Incidentally, the intensity of feelings also is likely to be related to
the degree of corrections necessary in negative states, and to the
degree in which positive states exceed the homeostatic set point in
the optimal direction. (p. 131)
Proposition XIII: Behavior may, in some instances, be brought about by
organic experiences and needs that have not been symbolized. Such
behavior may be inconsistent with the structure of the self, but in
such instances, the behavior is not owned by the individual.
For example, in moments of great danger, the individual may

behave with efficiency to meet the needs of safety, without ever
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bringing the situation to conscious symbolization. Also, in many

cases of psychological maladjustment, certain types of behavior
go on without an individuals control or the possibility of control.
A common statement in such cases is, I dont know why I do it,
or I didnt know what I was doing. According to Rogers
(1951/1995), in each case, the reference is to behavior that is
organically determined on the basis of experiences denied accurate symbolization and hence without having been brought into
any consistent relationship with the concept of self.
There is another class of reactions with a nonconscious origin
shaped by learning during ones individual development. I am
referring to the affinities and destinations we acquire discreetly in
the course of a lifetime of perceiving and emoting in relation to
people, groups, objects, activities, and places to which Freud called
our attention. Curiously, these two sets of nondeliberate, nonconscious reactionsthose innate and those learnedmay well be
interrelated in the bottomless pit of our unconscious. (p. 48)
Proposition XIV: Psychological maladjustment exists when the organism denies to awareness significant sensory and visceral experiences, which consequently are not symbolized and not organized in
the gestalt of the self-structure. When this situation exists, there
is a basic or potential psychological tension.
Proposition XV: Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of
the self is such that all the sensory and visceral experiences of the
organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic level into a consistent relationship with the concept of the self.

When feelings become known to the self within the organism that
possesses them, feelings improve and amplify the process of managing life. . . . Feelings label the related neural maps with a stamp that
reads: Mark that! . . . Only at the mental level of biological processing and in the full light of consciousness is there sufficient integration of the now, the past, and the anticipated future. Only at that
level is it possible for emotions to create, via feelings, the concern for
the individual self. The effective solution of non-standard problems
requires the flexibility and high power information gathering that
mental processes can offer, as well as the mental concern that feelings can provide. (p. 178)
Propositions XIV and XV appear to be related to the following

quote from Damasio (2003):
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I suspect that the ultimate quality of feelings, a part of why feelings feel the way they do pertains to the fact that the life governance processes are either fluid or strained. That is simply their
way of operating given the strange state we call life and the
strange nature of organismsSpinozas conatusthat drives
them to endeavor to preserve themselves, come what may, until life
is suspended by aging, disease, or externally inflicted injury. The
fact that we, sentient and sophisticated creatures, call certain feelings positive and other feelings negative is directly related to the
fluidity or strain of the life process. (p. 131)
With regard to the fluidity or strain of life processes, Rogers

(1961) gives a clear account of the effect of fluid states on creativity. In a different context, he describes the later phases of successful therapy by physiological loosening and states of flow
(Rogers, 1961). Thus, note that Damasio as well as Rogers unanimously observe that it is fluidity rather than rigidity and process
rather than fixity that characterize a higher level of perfection
and well-being. Having heard Damasio above, let us now listen to
what Rogers has to say in two contexts, respectively. While
describing the inner conditions of constructive creativity, Rogers
(1961) characterizes openness to experience in the following way:
This is the opposite of psychological defensiveness, when to protect
the organization of the self, certain experiences are prevented from
coming into awareness except in distorted fashion. In a person who is
open to experience, each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system, without being distorted by any process of defensiveness.
Whether the stimulus originates in the environment, in the impact of
forms, color, or sound on the sensory nerves, or whether it originates
in the viscera, or as a memory trace in the central nervous system, it
is available to awareness. . . . It means lack of rigidity and permeability of boundaries in concepts, beliefs, perceptions, and hypotheses.
It means a tolerance of ambiguity where ambiguity exists. It means
the ability to receive much conflicting information without forcing
closure upon the situation. (p. 353)
In describing advanced stages of therapy, Rogers (1961)

observes the physiological concomitants, in particular loosening:
I would hypothesize that in these moments, had we the measure
for it, we would discover improved circulation, improved conductivity of nervous impulses (pp. 147-148). In Rogerss view, Trust
is not primarily in the conscious processes which go on, but
rather in the total organismic process (p. 151). In more detail,
Rogers writes,
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The client has now incorporated the quality of motion, of flow, of

changingness, into every aspect of his psychological life, and this
becomes its outstanding characteristic. He lives in his feelings
knowingly and with basic trust in them and acceptance of them.
The ways in which he construes experience are continually changing in his personal constructs and modified by each new living
event. His experiencing is process in nature, feeling the new in
each situation and interpreting it anew, interpreting in terms of
the past only to the extent that the now is identical with the past.
He experiences with a quality of immediacy, knowing at the same
time that he experiences. He values exactness in differentiation of
his feelings and of the personal meanings of his experience. His
internal communication between various aspects of himself is free
and unblocked. He communicates with himself freely in relationships with others, and these relationships are not stereotyped, but
person to person. He is aware of himself, but not as an object.
Rather it is a reflexive awareness, a subjective living in himself in
motion. He perceives himself as responsibly related to his problems. Indeed, he feels a fully responsible relationship to his life in
all its fluid aspects. He lives fully in himself as a constantly changing flow of process. (pp. 154-155)
Proposition XVI: Any experience that is inconsistent with the organization
or structure of the self may be perceived as a threat, and the more of
these perceptions there are, the more rigidly the self-structure is organized to maintain itself.
Proposition XVII: Under certain conditions, involving primarily complete
absence of any threat to the self-structure, experiences that are inconsistent with it may be perceived, and examined, and the structure of
self revised to assimilate and to include such experiences.
Proposition XVIII: When the individual perceives and accepts into one
consistent and integrated system all his or her sensory and visceral experiences, then he or she is necessarily more understanding of others and is more accepting of others as separate
individuals.
Characterizing the concept of a fully functioning person, Rogers

(1961) postulates,
He makes increasing use of all his organic equipment to sense, as
accurately as possible, the existential situation within and without. He makes use of all of the information his nervous system can
thus supply, using it in awareness, but recognizing that his total
organism may be, and often is, wiser than his awareness. He is
more able to permit his total organism to function freely in all its
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complexity in selecting, from the multitude of possibilities that

behavior which in this moment of time will be most generally and
genuinely satisfying. (p. 191)
Damasio (2000) notes,

In those personalities that appear to us as most harmonious and
mature from the point of view of their standard responses, I imagine that the multiple control sites are interconnected so that
responses can be organized at varied degrees of complexity, some
involving the recruitment of just a few brain sites, others requiring
a concerted large-scale operation, but often involving cortical and
subcortical sites. (p. 223)
Damasio (2003) notes, in a more general context, Social conventions

and ethical rules may be seen in part as extensions of the homeostatic arrangements at the level of society and culture (p. 168).
However, only some fragments of knowledge appear to exist in that
respect: The study of social emotion is in its infancy. If the cognitive
and neurobiological investigations of emotions and feelings can join
forces with, for example, anthropology and evolutionary psychology,
it is likely that some of the suggestions contained in this chapter can
be tested (p. 169).
Due to their importance and potential effect, person-centered
and neuroscience perspectives on cooperation and social behavior
will be discussed in their own subsection below.
Proposition XIX: As individuals perceive and accept into their selfstructure more of their organic experiences, they find that they are
replacing their present value systembased so largely on introjections that have been distortedly symbolizedwith a continuing
organismic valuing process.
Damasio (2003) appears to observe a similar effect:

Occurring in an autobiographical setting, feelings generate a concern for the individual experiencing them. The past, the now, and
the anticipated future are given the appropriate saliencies and a
better chance to influence the reasoning and decision-making
process. . . . Feelings are not superfluous. All the gossip from
deep within turns out to be quite useful. It is not a simple issue of
trusting feelings as the necessary arbiter of good and evil. It is a
matter of discovering the circumstances in which feelings can
indeed be an arbiter, and using the reasoned coupling of circumstances and feelings as a guide to human behavior. (pp. 178-179)
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Furthermore, Damasio (2003) notes that by controlling our interaction with objects that cause emotions, we are in effect exerting some
control over the life process and leading the organism into greater or
lesser harmony, as Spinoza would wish. From the authors point of
view, with regard to Rogerss life effort, we wish to note that by perceiving and facilitating an atmosphere governed by congruence,
acceptance, and empathic understanding in our relationships, we do
the best to approach a self-structure in which each experience is accurately symbolized and thus the actualizing tendency can fully unfold
itself in a constructive way. This holds true not only for us but also for
the other persons who participate in such relationships. Details and
competence, however, on how to acquire greater harmony and states
of flow for whole societies still need to be worked out, as we all happen to feel and to know too well. Barrett-Lennard (2005) thoughtfully
explores relationships at the center of healing in social systems.
FURTHER CONGENIAL IDEAS

Congenial thoughts between Damasio and Rogers concern the
fact that the organisms automated way to move forward may
contain intermediate states with less pleasure. In their own
words, they write (Damasio, 2003),
I am suggesting . . . that organisms can produce advantageous
reactions that lead to good results without deciding to produce
those reactions, and even without feeling the unfolding of these
reactions. And it is apparent from the makeup of those reactions
that, as they take place, the organism moves for a certain period
toward states of greater or lesser physiological balance. (p. 51)
Compare with Rogerss (1951/1995) excerpt from the description

that follows Proposition IV about the actualizing tendency:
It would be grossly inaccurate to suppose that the organism operates smoothly in the direction of self-enhancement and growth. It
would be perhaps more correct to say that the organism moves
through struggle and pain toward enhancement and growth. The
whole process may be symbolized and illustrated by the childs
learning to walk. The first steps involve struggle and usually pain.
Often it is true that the immediate reward involved in taking a few
steps is in no way commensurate with the pain of falls and bumps.
The child may, because of the pain, revert to crawling for a time.
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Yet, in the overwhelming majority of individuals, the forward

direction of growth is more powerful that the satisfaction of
remaining infantile. The child will actualize himself, in spite of the
painful experiences in so doing. In the same way, he will become
independent, responsible, self-governing, socialized, in spite of the
pain which is often involved in these steps. (p. 490)
Feelings. Rogers (1959) specifies this notion as follows:

Feeling, Experiencing a feeling. . . . It denotes an emotionally
tinged experience, together with its personal meaning. Thus it
includes the emotion but also the cognitive content of the meaning
of that emotion in its experiential context. It thus refers to the
unity of emotion and cognition as they are experienced inseparably
at the moment. It is perhaps best thought of as a brief theme of
experience, carrying with it the emotional coloring and the perceived meaning to the individual. (p. 198)
For reasons of differentiated scientific inquiry, Damasio (2003)

first distinguishes the notions of emotion and feeling but makes
clear that, actually, both are tightly interconnected. This distinction follows the evolutionary chronological order. According to
Damasio (2003),
Evolution appears to have assembled the brain machinery of emotion
in instalment. First came the machinery for producing reactions to an
object or event, directed at the object or the circumstancesthe
machinery of emotion. Second came the machinery for producing a
brain map and then a mental image, an idea, for the reactions and for
the resulting state of the organismthe machinery of feeling. (p. 80)
For Damasio (2003),

The contents of feeling are the configurations of body state represented in somatosensing maps. But now we can add that the transient patterns of body state do change rapidly under the mutual,
reverberative influences of brain and body during the unfolding of
an occasion of feeling. Moreover, both the positive/negative valance
of feelings and their intensity are aligned with the overall ease or
difficulty with which life events are proceeding. (p. 132)
Because feelings have such a high impact in Damasios theory as

well as the Person-Centered Approach, let us stay with them for
more detail (Damasio, 2003):
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Feelings are perceptions, and I propose that the most necessary support for their perception occurs in the brains body maps. These maps
refer to parts of the body and states of the body. Soma variation of pleasure or pain is a consistent content of the perception we call feeling.
Alongside the perception of the body there is the perception of thought
with themes consonant with the emotion, and the perception of a certain mode of thinking, a style of mental processing. How does this perception come about? It results from constructing metarepresentations
of our own mental process, a high-level operation in which a part of the
mind represents another part of the mind. This allows us to register
the fact that our thoughts slow down or speed up as more or less attention is devoted to them; or the fact that thoughts depict objects and
events at close range or at a distance. My hypothesis, then, presented
as a provisional definition, is that a feeling is the perception of a certain state of the body along with the perception of a certain mode of
thinking and of thoughts with certain themes. Feelings emerge when
the sheer accumulation of mapped details reaches a certain stage. . . .
Feeling is a consequence of the ongoing homeostatic process, the next
step in the chain. (pp. 85-86)
Damasio (2003) acknowledges the essential role of feelings for

any cultural group.
In most respects, then, the nonautomated devices are a work in
progress, still hampered by the enormous difficulty of negotiating
goals and finding ways and means that do not violate other aspects
of life regulation. From this perspective, I believe feelings remain
essential to maintaining those goals the cultural group considers
inviolable and worthy of perfecting. Feelings also are a necessary
guide to the invention and negotiation of ways and means that
somehow, will not clash with basic life regulation and distort the
intention behind the goal. (p. 168)
Rogers (1983) himself devotes significant effort to revolutionizing education by means of integrating feelings and cognitions.
He characterizes the learning that is achieved by including cognitions as well as feelings in the following way:
So if I were to attempt a crude definition of what it means to learn
as a whole person, I would say that it involves learning of a unified
sort, at the cognitive, feeling, and gut levels, with a clear awareness
of the different aspects of this unified learning. (p. 264)
There should be a place for learning by the whole person, with feelings and ideas merged. I have given much thought to this question
of bringing together cognitive learning, which has always been
needed, and affective-experiential learning, which is so underplayed in education today. (p. 266)
313
An interesting, purely psychological theory about the unfolding of

organismic experience and feelings is stated in Nykl (2005).
Cooperative behavior. In the context of cooperation, Damasio
(2003) notes,
Moreover, the use of cooperative strategies in normal individuals
engages the ventromedial frontal regions as shown in functional
imaging studies in which the participants were asked to solve the
Prisoners Dilemma, an experimental task that effectively separates cooperators from defectors. In a recent study, cooperation also
led to the activation of regions involved in the release of dopamine
and in pleasure behavior, suggesting, well, that virtue has its own
reward. . . . In one way or another, the factual knowledge about
social behavior requires the machinery of emotion and feeling to
express itself normally. (p. 151)
With regard to cooperative behavior, Carl Rogers (1959) formulated the principle of reciprocity of positive regard: If an individual
perceives himself or herself as someone who satisfies the need of
positive regard of another, then necessarily he or she experiences
himself or herself as someone whose need for positive regard has
been satisfied. Because experiencing positive regard clearly falls
into the category of pleasure, this principle explains/proves the suggestion that virtue is its own reward. Reciprocally, the dopamine
release may be seen as a confirmation/proof of the reciprocity of positive regard.
Rogers (1951/1995) writes, Finally, the self-actualization of
the organism appears to be in the direction of socialization,
broadly defined (p. 488). In a different place, Rogers (1961)
argues that the direction toward social behavior is due to our
strong need of positive regard. Because this need appears essential in arguing that actualization of ones own organism does not
exclude others, in Appendix B, we include a quote of Rogerss formulation of the need for positive regard.
Even more clearly, we read in Rogers (1961),
It will be evident that another implication of the view I have been
presenting is that the basic nature of the human being, when functioning freely, is constructive and trustworthy. For me this is an
inescapable conclusion from a quarter-century of experience in psychotherapy. When we are able to free the individual from defensiveness, so that he is open to the wide range of his own needs, as well
as the wide range of environmental and social demands, his reactions may be trusted to be positive, forward-moving, constructive.
314
We do not need to ask who will socialize him, for one of his own
deepest needs is for affiliation and communication with others. As
he becomes more fully himself, he will become more realistically
socialized. We do not need to ask who will control his aggressive
impulses; for as he becomes more open to all his impulses, his need
to be liked by others and his tendency to give affection will be as
strong as his impulses to strike out or to seize for himself. He will
be aggressive in situations in which aggression is realistically
appropriate, but there will be no runaway need for aggression. His
total behaviour, in these and other areas, as he moves toward being
open to all his experience, will be more balanced and realistic,
behaviour which is appropriate to the survival and enhancement
of a highly social animal. (p. 194)
The way of the future. In the authors view, much congenial

thought but also essential complementary ideas rest in Damasios
and Rogerss ideas concerning the way of the future and how we
could make a difference.
Rogers (1980) writes,
It appears to me that the way of the future must be to base our
lives and our education on the assumption that there are as many
realities as there are persons, and that our highest priority is to
accept that hypothesis and proceed from there. . . . What would
be the social result? I think that our society would be based not on
a blind commitment on each other as rightfully separate persons,
with separate realities. The natural human tendency to care for
another would no longer be I care for you are the same as I, but,
instead, I prize and treasure you because you are different from
me. (pp. 104-105)
Finally, there is agreement that one of the most essential elements of survival is the development of a greater sense of cooperation, of community, of ability to work together for the common
good, not simply for personal aggrandizement (Rogers, 1980,
p. 332). Significant congenial thought and advancement of the
cooperative and relationship aspect in (inter)personal and community development at various levels can be found in BarrettLennard (2005).
Let us end with two intriguing quotes by Damasio and complement them with Rogerss insight. Damasio (2003) writes,
On a practical note, understanding the biology of emotions and the
fact that the value of each emotion differs so much in our current
human environment, offers considerable opportunities for understanding human behavior. We can learn, for example, that some
315
emotions are terrible advisors and consider how we can either suppress them or reduce the consequences of their advice. I am thinking, for example, that reactions that lead to racial and cultural
prejudices are based in part on the automatic deployment of social
emotions evolutionarily meant to detect difference in others
because difference may signal risk or danger, and promote withdrawal or aggression. . . . We can be wise to the fact that our
brain still carries the machinery to react in the way it did in a very
different context ages ago. And we can learn to disregard such
reactions and persuade others to do the same. (p. 40)
Damasio (2003) emphasizes our capability to reflect in stating,

If feelings index the state of life within each living human organism, they also can index the state of life in any human group, large
or small. Intelligent reflection on the relation between social phenomena and the experience of feelings of joy and sorrow seems
indispensable for perennial human activity of devising systems of
justice and political organization. (p. 165)
Rogers (1980) summarizes his experience with working with

large groups (of 800 people) by saying that he and his staff
learned that large groups of people could
develop a sense of community in which respect for others and cooperation rather than competition were the keynotes. They could
develop a new confidence in themselves, discovering the source of
values within themselves, coming to an awareness that the good
life is within, not dependent on outside sources. (p. 335)
Rogers mentions that these changes could be initiated in a short

space of time if we ourselves were able to be, in a fashion suitable
to the changing world. In talking about workshop communities as
pilot models, Rogers (1980) writes that he does not deceive himself that similar efforts have any chance of directly affecting the
mainstream of world events. However, he makes the point that if
the time comes when our culture will tire of the endless feuds and
despairs of the use of war, people
will find that there are ways of building community without sacrificing the potential and creativity of the person. They will realize
that there are ways . . . of moving toward new values, of raising
consciousness to unexpected levels. . . . They will discover that harmonious community can be built on the basis of mutual respect
and enhanced personal growth. (p. 205)
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CONCLUSIONS
In this article, we attempted to align and investigate, as thoroughly, mindfully, and cautiously as we were able, the 19 theses of
Rogerss theory of personality and behavior with Damasios recent
work on consciousness, emotions, and feelings grounded in neuroscience. In doing so, we heavily worked with original citations from
the two scientists to allow readers, first of all, to conceive the congenial thought as objectively as possible. However, to point to the
meanings of the mutual complementation of the individual theories,
individual issues were complemented by personal thought.
Summarizing, we are amazed by the smooth fit of the theories
in all of the essential concepts, such as
the individual being the center of his or her perception,
the idea of actualization or moving to states of higher organization/
perfection,
the essence of feelings and their contribution to making wise
decisions in complex situations,
the necessity of feelings and rational thought in the interaction
of complex problem solving,
the importance and positive effect of a fluid organization of concepts where nervous signals can flow without being blocked,
the equipment of our organism to support social behavior if necessary conditions are met,
the equipment of our organism to support transparent, mutual
understanding at all levels.
Sound but complementary perspectives/findings are expressed, in

particular, concerning
distortion and interference,

values and patterns taken over from others,
situations in which we do not promote well-being,
dispositions and conditions directed toward optimal being.
As one of the reviewers was wondering whether there were no

contradictions between the theories, we spent considerable thought
on that consideration but did not discover any discrepancies. One
explanation may be the strongly felt respect toward nature and actualization that we sense from both scientists. Another explanation is
that the psychological and neuroscience theories engage constructs
lying at different levels such that they leave sufficient space for
alignment and interpretation. This is why we believe that the strong
mutual support of Rogerss and Damasios theories communicated in
317
this article is just one step toward a more coherent, multiperspective

understanding of human behavior calling for further investigation.
We suggest that further research be directed toward a still more
explicit neuroscience foundation of those conditions that Rogers and
his colleagues have claimed as necessary and sufficient for most
effective actualization, as well as neuroscience studies of the effects
of personal development in a facilitative atmosphere. In particular,
the relative degree of flow versus strain in organisms when measured in specific situations, such as different teaching/learning
styles, could serve as a measure of their development toward actualization. Reciprocally, psychological phenomena such as denial, distortion, defense, acceptance, moments of meeting, or spiritual
moments could support neuroscience in uncovering yet unresolved
and interwoven neural patterns and pathways.
As in earlier investigations (Lux, 2004, 2007) and in proposing
an Abstract Model of Associative Cognition and Emotion
(AMACE; Motschnig-Pitrik & Nykl, 2003), we have gained much
insight from the correspondences and constructs of Carl Rogerss
and Antonio Damasios theories. If the readers perceive similar
effects, the article has fulfilled its purpose.
APPENDIX A
More neuroscience details on Proposition I:
Damasio (2000) suggests that (core) consciousness occurs when the
brains representation devices generate an imaged, nonverbal account of
how the organisms own state is affected by the organisms processing of
an objecta and when this process enhances the image of this causative
object. His hypothesis is grounded on the following premises. We include
them in their entirety because we believe that they best illustrate two
essential phenomena: the way objects are perceived and the salient
dependencies of mental images (e.g., chunks) on feelings.
1. Consciousness depends on the internal construction and exhibition of new knowledge concerning an interaction between that
organism and an object.
2. The organism, as a unit, is mapped in the organisms brain . . .
the object is also mapped within the brain, in the sensory and
motor structures activated by the interaction of the organism
with the object; both organism and object are mapped as neural
patterns, in first order maps; all of these neural patterns can
become images.
(continued)
318
APPENDIX A (continued)
3. The sensorimotor maps pertaining to the object cause changes
in the maps pertaining to the organism.
4. The changes described in number 3 can be rerepresented in yet
other maps (second-order maps) which thus represent the relationship of object and organism.
5. The neural patterns transiently formed in second-order maps
can become mental images, no less than the neural patterns in
first-order maps.
6. Because of the body-related nature of both organism maps and
second-order maps, the mental images that describe the relationship are feelings. (p. 169)
a. Note that the term object is used to subsume notions like persons, pictures,
situations, physical objects, and so on.
APPENDIX B
The Need for Positive Regard (Rogers, 1959, p. 224)
As the awareness of self emerges, the individual develops a need for positive regard. This need is universal in human beings and, in the individual, is pervasive and persistent. Whether it is an inherent or learned
need is irrelevant to the theory. Standal (1954), who formulated the concept, regards it as the latter.
a. The satisfaction of the need is necessarily based on inferences
concerning the experiential field of another.
1. Consequently, it is often ambiguous.
b. It is associated with a very wide range of the individuals
experiences.
c. It is reciprocal, in that when individuals discriminate themselves
as satisfying anothers need for positive regard, they necessarily
experience satisfaction of their own need for positive regard.
1. Hence, it is rewarding both to satisfy this need in another and to
experience the satisfaction of ones own need by another.
d. It is potent, in that the positive regard of any social other is
communicated to the total regard complex that the individual
associates with that social other.
1. Consequently, the expression of the positive regard by a significant social other can become more compelling than the
organismic valuing process, and the individual becomes
more adient to the positive regard of such others than toward
experiences that are of positive value in actualizing the
organism.
319
REFERENCES
Barrett-Lennard, G. T. (2005). Relationship at the centre: Healing in a
troubled world. Philadelphia: Whurr.
Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes error. Emotion, reason and the human
brain. New York: Grosset/Putnam.
Damasio, A. R. (1998). Investigating the biology of consciousness. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London, 353, 1879-1882.
Damasio, A. R. (2000). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in
the making of consciousness. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Damasio, A. R. (2003). Looking for Spinoza: Joy, sorrow and the feeling
brain. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.
Lux, M. (2004). Neurowissenschaftliche Perspektiven fr den Personzentrierten Ansatz [Neuroscientific perspectives for the PersonCentered Approach]. Gesprchspsychotherapie und Personzentrierte
Beratung, 35, 261-267.
Lux, M. (2007). Der Personzentrierte Ansatz und die Neurowissenschaften
[The Person-Centered Approach and neuroscience]. Mnchen: Ernst
Reinhard Verlag.
Motschnig-Pitrik, R., & Nykl, L. (2003). Towards a cognitive-emotional
model of Rogerss Person-Centered Approach. Journal of Humanistic
Psychology, 43(4), 8-45.
Nykl, L. (2005). Beziehung im Mittelpunkt der Persnlichkeitsentwicklung
C. Rogers im Vergleich mit Behaviorismus, Psychoanalyse und anderen
Theorien [Relationships in the center of personal development
C. Rogers in comparison with behaviorism, psychoanalysis and other theories]. London: LIT-Verlag.
Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch
(Ed.), Psychology: A study of a science (Vol. 3, pp. 183-256). New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a personA therapists view of psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, C. R. (1980). A way of being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, C. R. (1983). Freedom to learn for the 80s. Columbus, OH: C. E.
Merrill.
Rogers, C. R. (1995). Client-centered therapy. London: Constable.
(Original work published 1951)
Sheldon, K. M. (2004). Optimal human being: An integrated multi-level
perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Sheldon, K. M., Arndt, J., & Houser-Marko, L. (2003). In search of the
organismic valuing process: The human tendency to move towards
beneficial goal choices. Journal of Personality, 71(5), 835869.
Spinoza. (1955a). The ethics, part II. New York: Dover.
Spinoza. (1955b). The ethics, part III. New York: Dover.
Standal, S. (1954). The need for positive regard: A contribution to clientcentered theory. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.

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THE PERSON-CENTERED

APPROACH MEETS NEUROSCIENCE:

RENATE MOTSCHNIG-PITRIK is a professor of computer

MICHAEL LUX is working as a person-centered psychotherapist and clinical neuropsychologist in a neurological

The Person-Centered Approach Meets Neuroscience

question psychological phenomena. In this article, the authors aim

Person-Centered Approach; Carl Ransom Rogers;

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Renate Motschnig-Pitrik, Michael Lux

ROGERSS THEORY OF PERSONALITY AND BEHAVIOR

Rogers (1951/1995) makes this proposition more precise by writing,

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The Person-Centered Approach Meets Neuroscience

no matter how we attempt to measure the perceiving organism

In a highly resonant view, Damasio emphasizes the uniqueness

In neuroscience terminology, the first proposition is explained by

Renate Motschnig-Pitrik, Michael Lux

To explain the notion of perceptual field, Rogers (1951/1995)

Rogers (1951/1995) continues,

From neuroscience it is known that each individual constructs

Damasio (2003) considers Proposition 26 (Spinoza, 1955a) most

The Person-Centered Approach Meets Neuroscience

external body as actually existing except through the ideas of the

Rogers (1951/1995) postulates,

Damasio (2003) writes, Because the mind arises in a brain that

In Damasios (2003) words,

Renate Motschnig-Pitrik, Michael Lux

beneath them. Only at that mental level of biological processing

In numerous places, Rogers and Damasio emphasize the

Note how evolutionarily younger features, such as reasoning,

Damasio (2003) observes in the context of biological life-regulation:

The Person-Centered Approach Meets Neuroscience

The direction of development that results from striving for survival

This greater perfection is also characterized by a constructive

Let us expand a bit more on this foundational, actualizing tendency.

Renate Motschnig-Pitrik, Michael Lux

biological, and social development of human beings, Rogers has

Rogers goes even further in exploring and specifying the necessary

The Person-Centered Approach Meets Neuroscience

Damasio (2003) writes,

A similar statement by Rogers (1961), although with different

This proposition and its neuroscience grounding point us to

Renate Motschnig-Pitrik, Michael Lux

may drastically compromise or distract the organism from following

Rogers (1951/1995) explains the socking versus consummatory aspects by saying,

Later, Rogers remarks that the preceding two propositions have

It appears that both researchers acknowledge situations in

The Person-Centered Approach Meets Neuroscience

The inner frame of reference certainly encompasses feelings that can

Note that in this proposition, Damasio expresses that if you want

Renate Motschnig-Pitrik, Michael Lux

authors view, Damasios words gracefully touch and embrace the

Again, neuroscience is more explicit yet totally consistent with

The Person-Centered Approach Meets Neuroscience

Damasio, too, assumes that the structure of the self is built as a

Furthermore, Damasio (2003) states,

Renate Motschnig-Pitrik, Michael Lux

pulse beat of core consciousness. Through this characteristic, it is

Downloaded from jhp.sagepub.com at University of Derby on November 22, 2016

The Person-Centered Approach Meets Neuroscience

Perceiving a given object, out in our environment or recalled in

Emotions, somatic markers, and feelings serve to make the results

Renate Motschnig-Pitrik, Michael Lux

Some of the adjuster devices, however, do reflect a judgement on