Garcia, Amiel Ivan C.

Villanueva, Lyka Mae S.

CHAPTER 10: Rogers: Person-Centered Theory

 Overview of Client-Centered Theory

- Although he is the best known as the founder of client-centered therapy, Carl Rogers
developed a humanistic theory of personality that grew out his experience as a
practicing psychotherapist.
- He was more likely to ask “How can I help this person grow and develop?” Then to
ponder the question “What caused this person to develop in this manner?”
- Rogers (1986) advocated a balance between tender-minded and hardheaded studies
that would expand knowledge of how human feel and think.

 Biography of Carl Rogers

- Carl Ransom Rogers was born on January 8, 1902, in Oak Park, Illinois, the fourth to six
children born to Walter and Julia Cushing Rogers.
- Rogers had intended to become a farmer, and after he graduated from high school, he
entered the University of Wisconsin as an agriculture major. However, as he soon
became less interested in farming and more devoted to religion. By his third year at
Wisconsin, Rogers was deeply involved with religious activities on campus and spent 6
months travelling to China to attend a student religious conference.
- In 1924, Rogers entered the Union Theological Seminary in New York with the intention
of becoming a minister. While at the seminary, he enrolled in several psychology and
education courses at neighboring Columbia University, He was influenced by the
progressive education movement of John Dewey, which was then strong at Teachers
College, Columbia, Gradually, Rogers become disenchanted with the doctrinaire attitude
of religious work. Even though Union Theological Seminary was quite liberal, Rogers
decided that he did not wish to express a fixed set of beliefs but desired more freedom
to explore new ideas. Finally, in the fall of 1926, he left the seminary to attend Teachers
College on a full-time basis with a major in clinical and educational psychology.
- In 1927, Rogers served as a fellow at the new Institute for Child Guidance in New York
City and continued to work there while completing his doctoral degree.
- Rogers was strongly influenced by the ideas of Otto Rank, who had been one of Freud’s
closest associates before his dismissal from Freud’s inner circle.
- From 1935 to 1940 he lectured at the University of Rochester and wrote The Clinical
Treatment of the Problem Child (1939), based on his experience in working with
troubled children. In 1940 he became a professor of clinical psychology at the Ohio State
University, where he wrote Counseling and Psychotherapy (1942). In this book, which
was a reaction to the older approaches to therapy, Rogers minimized the causes of
 disturbances and the identification and labelling of disorders. Instead, he emphasized
the importance of growth within the patient (called by Rogers the “client”).
- His therapy evolved from one that emphasized methodology, or what in the early 1940s
was called the “nondirective” technique, to one in which the sole emphasis was in the
client-therapist relationship.
- Wanting to expand his research and his ideas to psychiatry, Rogers accepted a position
at the University of Wisconsin in 1957.
- In summary, the personal life of Carl Rogers was marked by the change and openness
and experience.
- Helen Elliott and Carl Rogers were married in 1924 and had two children – Dace and
Natalie.
- Rogers received many honors during his long professional life.
- Rogers originally saw little need for a theory of personality but under pressure from
others and also to satisfy an inner need to be able to explain the phenomena he was
observing, he evolved his own theory.
 Person-Centered Theory
Although Rogers’s concept of humanity remained basically unchanged from the early 1940s
until his death in 1987, his therapy and theory underwent several changes in name. During the
early years, his approach was known as “nondirective,” an unfortunate term that remained
associated with his name for far too long. Later, his approach was variously termed “client-
centered,” “person-centered,” “student-centered,” “group-centered,” and “person to person.”
We use the label client-centered in reference to Rogers’s therapy and the more inclusive term
person-centered to refer to Rogerian personality theory.
Rogers’s person-centered theory comes closest to meeting the standard of a theory stated in an
if-then framework. An example of an if-then construction is: If certain conditions exist, then a
process will occur; if this process occurs, then certain outcomes can be expected. A more
specific example is found in therapy: If the therapist is congruent and communicates
unconditional positive regard and accurate empathy to the client, then therapeutic change will
occur; if therapeutic change occurs, then the client will experience more self-acceptance,
greater trust of self, and so on.
Basic Assumptions
What are the basic assumption of person-centered theory? Rogers postulated two broad
assumptions – the formative tendency and the actualizing tendency.
Formative Tendency
Rogers (1978, 1980) believed that there is a tendency for all matter, both organic and inorganic,
to evolve from simpler to more complex forms. For the entire universe, a creative process,
rather than a disintegrative one, is in operation.
Actualizing Tendency
An interrelated and more pertinent assumption is the actualizing tendency, or the tendency
within all humans (and other animals and plants) to move toward completion or fulfillment of
potentials (Rogers, 1959, 1980). This tendency is the only motive people possess. The need to
satisfy one’s hunger drive, to express deep emotions when they are felt, and to one’s self are all
examples of the single motive of actualization. Because each person operates as one complete
organism, actualization involves the whole person – physiological and intellectual, rational and
emotional, conscious and unconscious.
The Self and Self-Actualization
- According to Rogers (1959), infants begin to develop a vague concept of self when a
portion of their experience becomes personalized and differentiated in awareness as “I”
or “me” experiences.
- Self-actualization is a subset of the actualization tendency and is therefore no
synonymous with it. It is the tendency to actualize the self as perceived in awareness.
- The actualization tendency refers to organismic experiences of the individual; that is, it
refers to the whole person – conscious and unconscious, physiological and cognitive.
- Rogers (1959) postulated two self subsystems, the self-concept and the ideal self.
The Self-Concept
- The self-concept includes all the aspects of one’s being and one’s experiences that
are perceived in awareness (though not always accurately) by the individual.
- Once people form their self-concept, they find change and significant learnings quite
difficult.
- An established self-concept does not make change impossible, merely difficult.
The Ideal Self
- The ideal self is defined as one’s view of self as one wishes to be. The ideal self contains
all those attributes, usually positive, that people aspire to possess.
Awareness
- Without awareness, the self-concept and the ideal self would not exist.
- According to Rogers (1959), awareness is “the symbolic representation” (not necessarily
in verbal symbols) of some portion of our experiences.
Levels of Awareness
- Rogers (1959) recognized three levels of awareness.
1. Some events are experienced below the threshold of awareness and either ignored or
denied.
 2. Some experiences are accurately symbolized and freely admitted to the self-structured.
3. Some experiences that are not consistent with the view of self are reshaped or distorted
so that it can be assimilated to the existing self-concept.
Becoming a Person
• Rogers (1959) discussed the processes necessary to becoming a person.
 An individual must make contact – positive or negative – with another person.
- The person develops a need to be loved, liked, or accepted by another person, a need
that Rogers (1959) referred to as positive regard.
- Positive regard is a prerequisite for positive self-regard defined as the experience of
prizing or valuing one’s self.
- The source of positive self-regard, then, lies in the positive regard we receive from
others, but once established, it is autonomous and self-perpetuating.
Barriers to Psychological Health
Conditions of Worth
- Instead of receiving unconditional positive regard, most people receive conditions of
worth; that is, they perceive that their parents, peers or partners love and accept them
only if they meet those people’s expectations and approval.
- Our perceptions of other people’s view of us are called external evaluations.
Incongruence
- The incongruence between our self-concept and our organismic experience is the
source of psychological disorders.
 Vulnerability. The greater the incongruence between our perceived self and our
organismic experience, the more vulnerable we are.
 Anxiety and Threat. Anxiety and threat are experienced as we gain awareness of such an
incongruence. Anxiety, as defined by Rogers (1959), is “a state of uneasiness or tension
whose cause is unknown.” As we become more aware of the incongruence between our
organismic experience and our perception of self, our anxiety begins to evolve into
threat.
Defensiveness
- Defensive is the protection of the self-concept against anxiety and threat by the denial
or distortion of experiences inconsistent with it (Rogers, 1959).
  Distortion. We misinterpret an experience in order to fit it into some aspect of our self-
concept.
 Denial. We refuse to perceive an experience in awareness, or at least we keep some
aspect of it from reaching symbolization.
Disorganization
- In a state of disorganization, people sometimes behave consistently with their
organismic experience and sometimes in accordance with their shattered self-concept.
- Rogers always remained uncomfortable with the terms “neurotic” and “psychotic,”
preferring instead to speak of “defensive” and “disorganized” behaviors, terms that
more accurately convey the idea that psychological maladjustment is on a continuum
from the slightest discrepancy between the self and experience to the most
incongruent.

 Psychotherapy
Client-centered therapy is deceptively simple in statement but decidedly difficult in practice.
Briefly, the client-centered approach holds that in order for vulnerable or anxious people to
grow psychologically they must come into contact with a therapist who is congruent and whom
they perceive as providing an atmosphere of unconditional acceptance and accurate empathy.
But therein lies the difficulty. The qualities of congruence, unconditional positive regard and
empathic understanding are not easy for a counselor to attain.
Like person-centered theory, the client-centered counselling approach can be stated in an if-
then fashion. If the conditions of therapist congruence, unconditional positive regard, and
empathic listening are present in a client-counselor relationship, then the process of therapy
will transpire. If the process of therapy takes place, then certain outcomes can be predicted.
Rogerian therapy, therefore, can be viewed in terms of conditions, process, and outcomes.
- Conditions
Counselor Congruence
- The first necessary and sufficient condition for therapeutic change is a congruent
therapist. Congruence exists when a person’s organismic experiences are matched by an
awareness of them and by an ability and willingness to openly express these feelings
(Rogers, 1980).
- Because congruence involves feelings, awareness and expression, incongruence can
arise from either of the two points dividing these three experiences.
1. There can be a breakdown between feelings and awareness.
2. There is a discrepancy between awareness of an experience and the ability or
willingness to express it to another.
 - - As with unconditional positive regard and empathic listening, different degrees of
congruence exist.
Unconditional Positive Regard
- Positive regard is the need to be liked, prized, or accepted by another person. When this
need exists without any conditions or qualifications, unconditional positive regard
occurs.
- Therapists have unconditional positive regard when they are “experiencing a warm,
positive, and accepting attitude toward what is the client.” The attitude is:
1. without possessiveness
2. without evaluations
3. without reservations
Regard – there is a close relationship and the therapist sees the client as an important person.
Positive – indicates that the direction of the relationship is toward warm and caring feelings
Unconditional – suggests that the positive regard is no longer dependent on specific client
behaviors and does not have to be continually earned.
- Process
STAGES OF THERAPEUTIC CHANGE
Stage 1: Characterized by the unwillingness of the client to communicate anything about
oneself.
Stage 2: Clients become slightly less rigid.
Stage 3: Clients are more freely to talk about self, although still as an object.
Stage 4: Clients begin to talk of deep feelings but not ones presently felt.
Stage 5: Clients have begun to undergo significant change and growth.
Stage 6: Clients experience dramatic growth and an irreversible movement toward becoming
fully functioning or self-actualizing. In many ways, Stage 6 signals an end to therapy. Indeed, if
therapy were to be terminated at this point, clients would still progress to the next level.
Stage 7: It can occur outside the therapeutic encounter. Clients become fully functioning
“persons of tomorrow.”
 - Outcomes
Roger’s Theory of Therapeutic Change

If the following conditions exist:
1. A vulnerable or anxious client
2. contacts a counselor who possesses
3. congruence in the relationship,
4. unconditional positive regard for the
client, and
5. empathic understanding for the client’s
internal frame of reference, and
6. the client perceives Conditions 3, 4 and 5 –
the three necessary and sufficient conditions
for therapeutic growth;
Then therapeutic change occurs and the
client will
1. become more congruent;
2. be less defensive;
3. become more open to experiences;
4. have a more realistic view of the world;
5. develop positive self-regard;
6. narrow the gap between ideal self and real
self;
7. be less vulnerable to threat;
8. become less anxious;
9. take ownership of experiences;
10. become more accepting of others;
11. become more congruent in relationships
with others.

 The Person of Tomorrow

- The interest shown by Rogers in the psychologically healthy individual is rivaled only by
that of Maslow. Whereas Maslow was primarily a researcher, Rogers was first of all a
psychotherapist whose concern with psychologically health people grew out of his
general theory of therapy. In 1951, Rogers first briefly put forward his “characteristics of
the altered personality”; then he enlarged on the concept of the fully functioning person
in an unpublished paper (Rogers, 1953). In 1959, his theory of the healthy personality
was expounded in the Koch series, and he returned to this topic frequently during the
early 1960s (Rogers, 1961, 1962, 1963). Somewhat later, he described both the world of
tomorrow and the persons of tomorrow (Rogers, 1980).
- If the three necessary and sufficient therapeutic conditions of congruence,
unconditional positive regard, and empathy are optimal, then what kind of people
would merge?
1. Psychologically healthy people would be more adaptable.
2. Persons of tomorrow would be open to their experiences, accurately symbolizing them
in awareness rather than denying or distorting them.
3. There would be a tendency for the persons of tomorrow to live fully in a moment.
4. Persons of tomorrow would remain confident of their own ability to experience
harmonious relations with others.
 5. Persons of tomorrow would be more integrated, more whole, with no artificial
boundary between conscious processes and unconscious ones.
6. Persons of tomorrow would have a basic trust of human nature.
7. Because persons of tomorrow are open to all their experiences, they would enjoy a
greater richness in life than do other people.

 Philosophy of Science
- According to Rogers (1968), science begins and ends with the subjective experience,
although everything in between must be objective and empirical.
- Rogers (1968) believed that scientists should be completely involved in the phenomena
being studied.
SCIENTIFIC METHODS
1. Observation
2. Hypothesis
3. Methodology
4. Data analyzation
5. Conclusion

 The Chicago Studies

- The purpose of the Chicago studies was to investigate both the process and the
outcomes of client-centered therapy.
HYPOTHESES:
1. All persons have within themselves the capacity, either active or latent, for self-
understanding as well as the capacity and tendency to move in the direction of self-
actualization and maturity.
2. Clients would assimilate into their self-concepts those feelings and experiences
previously denied to awareness.

METHOD
- To assess change from an external viewpoint, the researchers used the Thematic
Apperception Test (TAT), the Self-Other Attitude Scale (S-O Scale), and the Willoughby
Emotional Maturity Scale (E-M Scale).
 - To measure change from the client’s point of view, the researchers relied on the Q sort
technique.
- The researchers used two different methods of control:
1. Own-control or wait group
2. “Normals” group
- To assess change from an external viewpoint, the researchers used the Thematic
Apperception Test (TAT), the Self-Other Attitude Scale (S-O Scale), and the Willoughby
Emotional Maturity Scale (E-M Scale).
- To measure change from the client’s point of view, the researchers relied on the Q sort
technique.
- The researchers used two different methods of control:
1. Own-control or wait group
2. “Normals” group
FINDINGS
- The researchers found that the therapy group showed less discrepancy between self
and ideal self after therapy than before, and they retained almost all those gains
throughout the follow-up period.
- On the other hand, as expected, the “normal” controls had a higher level of congruence
than the therapy group at the beginning of the study, but in contrast to the therapy
group, they showed almost no change in congruence between self and self-ideal from
the initial testing until the final follow-up.
- In addition, the therapy group changed their self-concept more than their perception of
the ordinary person.
- In general, the findings reported that there are no significant behavioral changes in the
clients from the pretherapy to posttherapy, However, this global rating of no change
was due to a counterbalancing effect.
SUMMARY OF RESULTS
- The Chicago studies demonstrated that people receiving client-centered therapy
generally showed some growth or improvement. However, improvement fell short of
the optimum.
 - Looking at these outcomes another way, the typical person receiving client-centered
therapy probably never approaches Stage 7 hypothesized by Rogers. A more realistic
expectation might be for clients to advance to Stage 3 or 4.
- Client-centered therapy is effective, but it does not result in the fully functioning person.

Related Researches
• In the 1980s, E. Tory Higgins developed a version of Roger’s theory that continues to be
influential in personality and social psychological research. Higgin’s version of the theory
is called self-discrepancy theory and argues not only for the real self-ideal self-
discrepancy but also for real self-ought self-discrepancy (Higgins, 1987).
• Some of the recent research has sought to clarify the conditions under which self-
discrepancies predict emotional experience (Philipps & Silvia, 2005).
• In yet more research on self-discrepancy, Rachel Calogero and Neill Watson (2009)
examined whether individuals’ perceived real-ideal and real-ought discrepancies to
predict a unique form of self-consciousness they termed “chronic social self-
consciousness.”
Motivation and Pursuing One’s Goals

 Setting and pursuing goals is a way for people to organize their lives in a way that leads
to desirable outcomes and adds meaning to daily activities.
 According to Rogers, a source of psychological distress is incongruence, or when one’s
ideal self does not sufficiently overlap with his or her self-concept and this incongruence
can be represented in the goals the person chooses to pursue.
 Rogers (1951) expanded on these ideas to propose that we all have an organismic
valuing process (OVP) – that is, a natural instinct directing toward the most fulfilling
pursuits.

Critique of Rogers
• Although Rogerian theory has produced much research in the realm of psychotherapy
and classroom learning, it has been only moderately productive outside these two areas
and thus receives only an average rating on its ability to spark research activity within
the general field of personality.
• Rogerian theory has a high rate on falsification.
• Although much of the research generated by the theory has been limited to
interpersonal relations, Rogerian theory nevertheless can be extended to a relatively
wide range of human personality.
• Rogers suggested that the three conditions are both necessary and sufficient to affect
growth in any interpersonal relationship, including those outside of therapy.
• The person-centered theory has a very high rating for its consistency and its carefully
worked-out operational definitions.
• The theory itself is unusually clear and economical, but some of the language is
awkward and vague.

 Concept of Humanity
- Rogers contended that people have some degree of free choice and some capacity to be
self-directed.
- His concept of humanity is optimistic.
- Roger’s theory is also high on teleology, maintaining that people strive with purpose
towards goals that they freely set for themselves.
- Rogers placed more emphasis on individual differences and uniqueness than on
similarities.
- Although Rogers did not deny the importance of unconscious processes, his primary
emphasis was on the ability of people to consciously choose their own course of action.
- On the dimension of biological versus social influences, Rogers favored the latter.
- Rogers did not claim that, if left alone, people would be righteous, virtuous, or
honorable. However, in an atmosphere without threat, people are free to become what
they potentially can be.