ROGERS: PERSON CENTERED THEORY

PSYCH 303 – THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

CARL ROGERS: PERSON-CENTERED THEORY  Rogers always insisted that the theory should remain
tentative, and it is with this thought that one should
TOPIC OUTLINE approach a discussion of Rogerian personality theory
1 Overview of Client-Centered Theory  Wanted to be a farmer, a scientific farmer
2 Biography of Carl Rogers  However, he never did become a farmer. After two years
3 Person-Centered Theory of college, he changed his life goal from agriculture to the
4 Psychotherapy ministry and later to psychology.
5 The Person of Tomorrow  He was quite shy and lacking in social skills.
6 Critique of Rogers  A sensitive boy, he was easily hurt by the teasing he
7 Concept of Humanity received from classmates and siblings.
 Rogers developed humanistic theory of personality that
grew out of his experiences. Unlike Freud who’s primarily
OVERVIEW OF CLIENT-CENTERED THEORY a theorist, and secondarily a therapist.
 He is best known as the founder of client-centered  Rogers was a consummate therapist but only a reluctant
theory theorist
 Developed a humanistic theory of personality that
grew out of his experiences as a practicing
psychotherapist. PERSON-CENTERED THEORY
 Rogers was a consummate therapist but only a  His approach was first known as “nondirective,” Later, his
reluctant theorist. approach was variously termed “client-centered,”
 He was more concerned with helping people than “person-centered,” “student-centered,” “group-
with discovering why they behaved as they did. centered,” and “person to person.” We use the label
 To him, theories seemed to make things too cold and client-centered in reference to Rogers’s therapy and the
external, and he worried that his theory might imply a more inclusive term person-centered to refer to Rogerian
measure of finality. personality theory.

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
BIOGRAPHY OF CARL ROGERS
 What are the basic assumptions of person-centered
 Carl Ransom Rogers was born on January 8, 1902, in Oak
theory? Rogers postulated two broad
Park, Illinois, the fourth of six children born to Walter and
assumptions—the formative tendency and the
Julia Cushing Rogers.
actualizing tendency.
 From farming to religion (minister) to psychology
 Rogers was influenced by the progressive education
Formative  A tendency for all matter, both
movement of John Dewey
Tendency organic and inorganic, to evolve from
 His life would now take a new direction—toward
simpler to more complex forms.
psychology and education.
 He also attended a lecture by Alfred Adler, who shocked
Actualizing  A tendency within all humans (and
Rogers and the other staff members with his contention
Tendency other animals and plants) to move
that an elaborate case history was unnecessary for
toward completion or fulfillment of
psychotherapy.
potentials
 During the early phase of his professional career, Rogers
 This tendency is the only motive
was strongly influenced by the ideas of Otto Rank, who
people possess
had been one of Freud’s closest associates before his
 The need to satisfy one’s hunger
dismissal from Freud’s inner circle.
drive, to express deep emotions
 Despite his early problems with interpersonal
when they are felt, and to accept
relationships, Rogers grew to become a leading proponent
one’s self are all examples of the
of the notion that the interpersonal relationship between
single motive of actualization.
two individuals is a powerful ingredient that cultivates
 Because each person operates as one
psychological growth within both persons.
complete organism, actualization
involves the whole person—
physiological and intellectual,
 rational and emotional, conscious
and unconscious.
Subsumed within the actualizing
tendency:
 The need for (1) maintenance is
similar to the lower steps on
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; but it
also includes the tendency to resist
change and to seek the status quo.
 Desire to protect their current,
comfortable self-concept
 Fight against new ideas
 They distort experiences that do
not quite fit
 They find change painful and
growth frightening
 But also willing to learn and to
change…
 This need to become more, to
develop, and to achieve growth is
called (2) enhancement
 Willingness to learn things that are
not immediately rewarding
 Rogers’s position is that people are
willing to face threat and pain
because of a biologically based
tendency for the organism to fulfill
its basic nature (ex: a baby tries to
walk even if he falls)
 People have within themselves the
creative power to solve problems,
to alter their self-concepts, and to
become increasingly self-directed
 Individuals perceive their
experiences as reality
 Organism can reach their full
genetic-potential provided certain
conditions are present (both
necessary and sufficient conditions
for becoming a fully functioning or
self-actualizing person.).
 These conditions don’t cause it but
permit actualization
THE SELF AND SELF-ACTUALIZATION
 According to Rogers, 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. Infants
gradually become aware of their own identity as
they learn what feels pleasant and what does not.
They then begin to evaluate experiences as positive
or negative, using as a criterion the actualizing
tendency. Because nourishment is a requirement for
actualization, infants value food and devalue hunger.
They also value sleep, fresh air, physical contact, and
health because each of these is needed for
actualization.
 Self-actualization is a subset of the actualization
tendency and is therefore not synonymous with it.
 Actualization tendency refers to organismic
experiences of the individual; that is, it refers to the
whole person—conscious and unconscious,
physiological and cognitive.
 Self-actualization is the tendency to actualize the
self as perceived in awareness.
 Discrepancy may exists between the actualization
tendency and the self-actualization tendency if the
organismic experience and the perceived self are not
in harmony
The Self-  Includes all those aspects of one’s
Concept being and one’s experiences that are
perceived in awareness (though not
always accurately) by the individual
 Not identical with organismic-self
(because part of the individual or his
experiences maybe denied or
distorted if it doesn’t fit with the self-
concept)
 An established self-concept does not
make change impossible, merely
difficult. Change most readily occurs
in an atmosphere of acceptance by
others, which allows a person to
reduce anxiety and threat and to
take ownership of ed experiences.
The Ideal  Defined as one’s view of self as one
Self wishes to be a wide gap between the
ideal self and the self-concept
indicates incongruence and an
unhealthy personality
AWARENESS
 Without awareness the self-concept and the ideal
self would not exist.
 Defined awareness as “the symbolic
representation (not necessarily in verbal symbols)
of some portion of our experience”
  He used the term synonymously with both
consciousness and symbolization
Levels of  First, some events are experienced
Awareness below the threshold of awareness and
are either ignored or denied
 Ignored-too many stimuli; some
others are ignored
 Denied-a mother who never wanted
children, but out of guilt she becomes
overly caring to them. Her anger
toward her children may never reach
consciousness but yet remain a part of
her experience and coloring her
conscious behavior toward them.
 Second, some experiences are
accurately symbolized and freely
admitted to the self-structure (such
experiences are both nonthreatening
and consistent with the existing self-
concept)
 Third, involves experiences that are
perceived in a distorted form. (When
our experience is not consistent with
our view of self, we reshape or distort
the experience so that it can be
assimilated into our existing self-
concept.)
Denial of  Many people have difficulty accepting
Positive genuine compliments and positive
Experiences feedback, even when deserved.
 (Ex: I got a high grade because it’s just
an easy subject)
 Genuine positive feedback or positive
experience may not be able to
penetrate their self-concept.
BECOMING A PERSON
 Processes necessary to becoming a person:
 First, an individual must make contact—positive or
negative—with another person
 This is the minimum experience necessary for
becoming a person (a child must experience some
contact from a caregiver to survive)
 As children (or adults) become aware that another
person has some measure of regard for them, they
begin to value positive regard and devalue negative
regard
 That is, the person develops a need to be loved, liked,
or accepted by another person, a need that Rogers
referred to as positive regard. If we perceive that
others, especially significant others, care for, prize, or
value us, then our need to receive positive regard is at
least partially satisfied
 Positive regard is a prerequisite for positive self-regard
(experience of prizing or valuing one’s self)
 Receiving positive regard from others is necessary for
positive self-regard, but once positive self-regard is
established, it becomes independent of the continual
need to be loved.
 This conception is quite similar to Maslow’s notion
that we must satisfy our love and belongingness needs
before self-esteem needs can become active, but once
we begin to feel confident and worthy, we no longer
require a replenishing supply of love and approval
from others.
BARRIERS TO PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH
 Not everyone becomes a psychologically healthy
person. Rather, most people experience conditions of
worth, incongruence, defensiveness, and
disorganization
Conditions of  Perceive that their parents, peers,
Worth or partners love and accept them
only if they meet those people’s
expectations and approval. “A
condition of worth arises when the
positive regard of a significant other
is conditional
 Conditions of worth become the
criterion by which we accept or
reject our experiences.
 We gradually assimilate into our
self-structure the attitudes we
perceive others expressing toward
us, and in time we begin to evaluate
experiences on this basis.
 From early childhood forward, most
of us learn to disregard our own
organismic valuations and to look
beyond ourselves for direction and
guidance. To the degree that we
introject the values of others, that
is, accept conditions of worth, we
tend to be incongruent or out of
balance. Other people’s values can
be assimilated only in distorted
fashion or at the risk of creating
disequilibrium and conflict within
the self.
  Our perceptions of other people’s
view of us are called external
evaluations.
 These evaluations, whether positive
or negative, do not foster
psychological health but, rather,
prevent us from being completely
open to our own experiences
 When our own experiences are
distrusted, we distort our
awareness of them, thus solidifying
the discrepancy between our
organismic evaluation and the
values we have introjected from
others. As a result, we experience
incongruence
Incongruence  We have seen that the organism
and the self are two separate
entities that may or may not be
congruent with one another. Also
recall that actualization refers to
the organism’s tendency to move
toward fulfillment, whereas self-
actualization is the desire of the
perceived self to reach fulfillment.
 Psychological disequilibrium begins
when we fail to recognize our
organismic experiences as self-
experiences: that is, when we do
not accurately symbolize
organismic experiences into
awareness because they appear to
be inconsistent with our emerging
self-concept.
 Conditions of worth that we
received during early childhood
lead to a somewhat false self-
concept, one based on distortions
and denials. The self-concept that
emerges includes vague
perceptions that are not in
harmony with our organismic
experiences, and this incongruence
between self and experience leads
to discrepant and seemingly
inconsistent behaviors. Sometimes
we behave in ways that maintain or
enhance our actualizing tendency,
and at other times, we may behave
in a manner designed to maintain
or enhance a self-concept founded
on other people’s expectations and
evaluations of us.
 Vulnerability The greater the
incongruence between our
perceived self and our organismic
experience, the more vulnerable we
are. People are vulnerable when
they are unaware of the
discrepancy between their
organismic self and their significant
experience. Lacking awareness of
their incongruence, vulnerable
people often behave in ways that
are incomprehensible not only to
others but also to themselves
 Anxiety and Threat whereas
vulnerability exists when we have
no awareness of the incongruence
within our self, anxiety and threat
are experienced as we gain
awareness of such an incongruence
 Anxiety is defined as “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: that is,
an awareness that our self is no
longer whole or congruent
 Anxiety and threat can represent
steps toward psychological health
because they signal to us that our
organismic experience is
inconsistent with our self-concept.
Defensiveness  In order to prevent this
inconsistency between our
organismic experience and our
perceived self, we react in a
defensive manner
 Defensiveness is the protection of
the self-concept against anxiety and
threat by denying or distorting
experiences inconsistent with it
 2 chief defenses are distortion and
denial:
 1Distortion, we misinterpret an
experience in order to fit it into
some aspect of our self-concept.
We perceive the experience in
 awareness, but we fail to
understand its true meaning
 2Denial, we refuse to perceive an
experience in awareness, or at least
we keep some aspect of it from
reaching symbolization
Disorganization  Sometimes defenses fail and
behavior becomes disorganized or
psychotic
 But why would defenses fail to
function?
 When the incongruence between
people’s perceived self and their
organismic experience is either too
obvious or occurs too suddenly to
be denied or distorted, their
behavior becomes disorganized.
 Ironically, people are particularly
vulnerable to disorganization during
therapy, especially if a therapist
accurately interprets their actions
and also insists that they face the
experience prematurely
 In a state of disorganization, people
sometimes behave consistently
with their organismic experience
and sometimes in accordance with
their shattered self-concept.
PSYCHOTHERAPY
 Rogerian therapy, therefore, can be viewed in terms of
conditions, process, and outcomes.
 First, an anxious or vulnerable client must come into
contact with a congruent therapist who also possesses
empathy and unconditional positive regard for that client.
 Next, the client must perceive these characteristics in the
therapist.
 Finally, the contact between client and therapist must be
of some duration.
 Even though all three conditions are necessary for
psychological growth, Rogers believed that congruence is
more basic than either unconditional positive regard or
empathic listening. Congruence is a general quality
possessed by the therapist, whereas the other two
conditions are specific feelings or attitudes that the
therapist has for an individual client.
Counselor  The first necessary and sufficient
Congruence 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
 Like most other people, congruent
therapists are constantly exposed to
new organismic experiences, but
unlike most people, they accept
these experiences into awareness,
which contributes to their
psychological growth.
 Because congruence involves (1)
feelings, (2) awareness, and (3)
expression, incongruence can arise
from either of the two points
dividing these three experiences.
Unconditional  Positive regard is the need to be
Positive liked, prized, or accepted by another
Regard person. When this need exists
without any conditions or
qualifications, unconditional
positive regard occurs
 Although therapists may value some
client behaviors more than others,
their positive regard remains
constant and unwavering.
 External evaluation, whether
positive or negative, leads to clients’
defensiveness and prevents
psychological growth
 “Regard” means that there is a close
relationship and that 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
Empathic  Empathy exists when therapists
Listening accurately sense the feelings of their
clients and are able to communicate
these perceptions so that clients
know that another person has
 entered their world of feelings
without prejudice, projection, or
evaluation.
 Empathy “means temporarily living
in the other’s life, moving about in it
delicately without making
judgments”
 Client-centered therapists do not
take empathy for granted; they
check the accuracy of their sensings
by trying them out on the client (Ex:
“It seems to me that...” “Would I be
right if I say…?”)
 Empathic listening is a powerful tool,
which along with genuineness and
caring, facilitates personal growth
within the client
 What precisely is the role of
empathy in psychological change?
 Empathy is effective because it
enables clients to listen to
themselves and, in effect, become
their own therapists
 Empathy does not mean that a
therapist has the same feelings as
the client. A therapist does not feel
anger, frustration, confusion,
resentment, or sexual attraction at
the same time a client experiences
them. Rather, a therapist is
experiencing the depth of the
client’s feeling while permitting the
client to be a separate person
 Empathy does not mean that a
therapist has the same feelings as
the client. A therapist does not feel
anger, frustration, confusion,
resentment, or sexual attraction at
the same time a client experiences
them. Rather, a therapist is
experiencing the depth of the
client’s feeling while permitting the
client to be a separate person
PROCESS
7 Stages of Therapeutic Change
 The process of constructive personality change can be
placed on a continuum from most defensive to most
integrated. Rogers arbitrarily divided this continuum
into seven stages.
Stage 1  Unwillingness to communicate
 Extremely rigid and resistant to change
 Don’t recognize problem
 Refuse to own personal feelings
Stage 2  Slightly less rigid
 Discuss external events and other people
 But still disown or fail to recognize own
feelings
 Maytalkaboutfeelingsasiftheywere objective
phenomena
Stage 3  More freely talk about self, although still
as an object. “I’m doing the best I can at
work, but my boss still doesn’t like me.”
 Clients talk about feelings and emotions
in the past or future tense and avoid
present feelings.
 Refuse to accept their emotions, keep
personal feelings at a distance from the
here-and-now situation,
 Only vaguely perceive that they can make
personal choices
 Deny individual responsibility for most of
their decisions.
Stage 4  Begin to talk of deep feelings but not ones
presently felt (was instead of is)
 They deny or distort experiences,
although they may have some dim
recognition that they are capable of
feeling emotions in the present.
 Begin to question some values that have
been introjected from others; start to see
the incongruence between perceived self
and organismic experience.
 Accept more freedom and responsibility
than they did in Stage 3 and begin to
tentatively allow themselves to become
involved in a relationship with the
therapist
Stage 5  Begun to undergo significant change and
growth
 Express feelings in the present, although
they have not yet accurately symbolized
those feelings
 Beginning to rely on an internal locus of
evaluation for their feelings and to
 Make new discoveries about themselves.
They also
  Experience a greater differentiation of
feelings and develop more appreciation
for nuances among them
 Begin to make their own decisions and to
accept responsibility for their choices.
Stage 6  Experience dramatic growth and an
irreversible movement toward becoming
fully functioning or self-actualizing
 Freely allow into awareness those
experiences that they had previously
denied or distorted
 Become more congruent
 No longer evaluate their own behavior
from an external viewpoint but rely on
their organismic self as the criterion for
evaluating experiences.
 Begin to develop unconditional self-
regard
 An interesting concomitant to this stage is
a physiological loosening. These people
experience their whole organismic self, as
their muscles relax, tears flow, circulation
improves, and physical symptoms
disappear.
 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  Can occur outside the therapeutic
encounter, because growth at Stage 6
seems to be irreversible
 Clients who reach Stage 7 become fully
functioning “persons of tomorrow”
Theoretical  When persons come to experience
Explanation themselves as prized and
for unconditionally accepted, they realize
Therapeutic that they are lovable.
Change
 As clients perceive that they are
emphatically understood, they are
freed to listen to themselves more
accurately, to have empathy for their
own feelings. As a consequence, when
these persons come to prize themselves
and to accurately understand
themselves, their perceived self
becomes more congruent with their
organismic experiences.
Outcomes  The most basic outcome of successful
client-centered therapy is a congruent
client who is less defensive and more
open to experience.
 Each of the remaining outcomes is a
logical extension of this basic one:
 Have a clearer picture of themselves
and a more realistic view of the world
 Better able to assimilate experiences
into the self on the symbolic level
 More effective in solving problems
 Have a higher level of positive self-
regard
 Narrow the gap between self-ideal and
real self
THE PERSON OF TOMORROW
 Whereas Maslow was primarily a researcher,
 Rogers was first of all a psychotherapist whose concern
with psychologically healthy people grew out of his
general theory of therapy.
 If the three necessary and sufficient therapeutic
conditions of congruence, unconditional positive regard,
and empathy are optimal, then what kind of person
would emerge?
 More adaptable: would be more likely to survive—hence
the title “persons of tomorrow.”
 Open to their experiences: accurately symbolizing them in
awareness
 Trust in their organismic selves: They would not depend
on others for guidance
 Live fully in the moment: They would see each experience
with a new freshness and appreciate it fully in the present
moment (existential living)
 Ability to experience harmonious relations with other
 They would feel no need to be liked or loved by everyone,
because they would know that they are unconditionally
prized and accepted by someone.
 More integrated, more whole, with no artificial boundary
between conscious processes and unconscious ones
 Basic trust of human nature: would not harm others
merely for personal gain; they would care about others
and be ready to help when needed; they would
experience anger but could be trusted not to strike out
unreasonably against others
 Enjoy a greater richness in life: They would neither distort
internal stimuli nor buffer their emotions
 CRITIQUE OF ROGERS

1. Generate research – Average

2. Falsifiability – High
3. Organize Knowledge – High
4. Guide to Action – Uneqiovocal
5. Internally consistent – Very High
6. Parsimonious – the theory itself is unsually clear and
economical, but some of the language is awkward and
vague

CONCEPT OF HUMANITY

 Rogers, however, contended that people have some

degree of free choice and some capacity to be self-
directed. Admitting that some portion of human
behavior is controlled, predictable, and lawful,
Rogers argued that the important values and choices
are within the scope of personal control.
 However, Rogers was also aware that people can be
quite brutal, nasty, and neurotic
 Yet, one of the most refreshing and invigorating
parts of my experience is to work with such
individuals and to discover the strongly positive
directional tendencies which exist in them, as in all
of us, at the deepest levels
 Tendency toward growth and self-actualization has a
biological basis
 Rogers’s theory is also high on teleology, maintaining
that people strive with purpose toward goals that
they freely set for themselves
 Uniqueness than on similarities
 Did not deny the importance of unconscious
processes, his primary emphasis was on the ability of
people to consciously choos
 Biological versus social influences
 No evaluation in terms of morality applies to the
nature of humanity.