ROGERS: PERSON-CENTERED THEORY
plants and animals to move toward
Person-Centered Theory
 This concept remained unchanged from
1940s to 1987 but the name for this
theory and therapy underwent different
names:
o nondirective = therapist do not
judge or suggest
o patient-centered = implies that
there is something wrong
o client-centered = more inclusive
(than patient; inmplying that the
person is sick and seeking for
assistance from the therapist)
o student-centered
o group-centered
o person to person
o person-centered = most inclusive
 Roger's person-centered theory comes
closest to the if-then framework of
formulating theories.
 If the therapist is congruent and
communicates unconditional positive
regard and accurate empathy to the
client, then the client will experience
more self-acceptance, greater trust to
self, and so on.
Person-Centered Theory Basic Assumptions
 Roger's person-centered theory has 2
broad assumptions:
o Formative Tendency
o Actualizing Tendency
Formative Tendency
Roger (1978, 1980) believed that there is a
tendency for all matter (organic or
inorganic) to evolve from a simpler to a
complex form. Examples are galaxies of
stars that seem to be complex; snowflakes;
human development; consciousness that
becomes highly organized awareness
Actualizing Tendency
This is the tendency of humans and other
completion or fulfillment on one's potential.
Tendencies to maintain and enhance
organisms are subsumed within
actualization tendency.
This tendency is the only motive people
possess (hunger drive, acceptance to self).
Actualization involves the whole person
(desire every living organism has).
 Maintenance
 The need for maintenance is the
same as the lower step in Maslow's
hierarchy of needs that includes
food, air, and safety. This also
includes the conservative nature of
people and seeking for the status
quo. (resistance to change rooted
from the desire of the people to
protect their current comfortable
self-concept)
 Enhancement
 Although people seek the status
quo, they are still open to learning
and changing for the better. This is
described as the need to develop,
improve, and achieve growth. This is
seen in people's willingness to lean
without immediate rewards. (seen
in people who are willing to take
risks and to face threats to improve
themselves; curiosity, confidence)
Remember: Actualization tendency is not
limited to humans, but animals and plants
also have innate motivations to grow
towards their genetic potential given that
certain conditions are provided.
This is like how people need to be involved
in a relationship wherein congruence,
empathy, and unconditional positive regard
is needed to make psychological growth
possible.
The Self and Self-Actualization
 According to Rogers (1959), infants
gradually become aware of their
identity as they learn what tastes good
and bad, what feels pleasant and not.
They begin to criticize or evaluate their
experiences as positive or negative
using actualizing tendency as their
criterion because nourishment is a
requirement for actualization.
 Self-actualization is a subset of
actualizing tendency so these terms are
different. (process of becoming
everything you are capable of becoming)
 actualization tendency = refers to
organismic experiences of an individual
(conscious and unconscious,
physiological and cognitive)
 self-actualization = tendency to
actualize the self as perceived in
awareness. (how we view ourselves)
 Rogers (1959) formulated two self-
subsystems:
o Self-concept
 This includes all aspects of
one's being and one's
experiences that are perceived
in awareness by the individual.
This is not always identical with
the organismic self. (not
accurate)
 Organismic self = real self
 Ex. stomach is part of our
organismic self but we don’t
think of it as part of our self-
concept unless it cause concern
 It is our personal knowledge of
who we are encompassing all
our thoughts and feelings of
ourselves physically,
emotionally, and socially. Once
formed, they find change in
significant learnings difficult.
They deny or distort their
experiences that do not align in
their formed self-concept
before they accept it.
 Active, dynamic, and malleable
 Some portions of the
organismic self may be beyond
or not owned by the person.
o Ideal self
 This is defined as one's view of
self as one wishes to be. This
contains attributes that are
usually positive that people
aspire to possess.
 A wide gap between the ideal
self and self-concept may cause
incongruence and an unhealthy
personality. It may also cause
frustration since we do not
achieve what is ideal.
 Psychologically healthy people
perceive only little discrepancy
between self-concept and ideal
self.
Awareness
 Defined by Rogers as “the symbolic
representation (not necessarily verbal
symbols) of some portion of our
experience"
 Without this, self-actualization and ideal
self will not exist
 Synonymous to both consciousness and
symbolization
Three Levels of Awareness
 Some events are experienced below the
threshold of awareness and are either
ignored or denied (ex. many stimuli are
present, so some are ignored)
 Some experiences are accurately
symbolized and freely admitted to the
self-structure (nonthreatening and
consistent with the self-concept)
 Experiences that are perceived in a
disoriented form (inconsistent with our
view of ourselves)
Denial of Positive Experiences
 Many people have difficulty accepting
genuine compliments and positive
feedback, even when they deserved it
 Compliments, even those genuinely
dispensed, seldom have a positive
influence on the self-concept of the
recipient.
o may be distorted or denied
Becoming a Person
 Rogers discussed the processes
necessary to becoming a person
 an individual must interact/make
contact with another person
(positive/negative)
 Infants need to make contact with their
parents to survive
 Positive regard - a need to be loved,
liked, or accepted by another person
o a prerequisite for positive self-
regard (the experience of prizing or
valuing one’s self)
 Rogers (1959) believed that 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. (similar to Maslow’s
belief)
Barriers to Psychological Health
- Most people experience conditions of
worth, incongruence, defensiveness,
disorganization
Conditions of Worth
 People perceive that their parents,
peers, or partners love and accept them
only if they meet those people’s
expectations and approval
 Become the criterion by which we
accept or reject our experiences
o others accept us regardless of our
actions: we are prized
unconditionally
o some of our behaviors are
approved and some are
disapproved: our worth is
conditional
 External evaluations - perceptions of
other people’s view of us (these
evaluations, whether positive or
negative, prevents us from being
completely open to our own
experiences)
 Own experiences are distorted -->
awareness of them also becomes
distorted --> solidifying the discrepancy
between our organismic evaluation and
the values we have introjected from
others --> incongruence
Incongruence
 Psychological disequilibrium begins
when we fail to recognize our
organismic experiences as self-
experiences: when we do not accurately
symbolize organismic experiences into
awareness because they appear to be
inconsistent with our emerging self-
concept (source of psychological
disorders)
 Vulnerability
o The greater the incongruence
between our perceived self (self-
concept) and our organismic
experience, the more vulnerable we
are (no awareness in incongruence
within ourselves)
 Anxiety and Threat
o experienced as we gain awareness
of incongruence within our self
o Anxiety - “a state of uneasiness or
tension whose cause is unknown”
o Threat - an awareness that our self
is no longer whole or congruent
Defensiveness
 the protection of the self-concept
against anxiety and threat by the denial
or distortion of experiences inconsistent
with it (to protect the current structure
of our self-concept)
 Two chief defenses (same purpose)
o Distortion - we misinterpret an
experience in order to fit it into
some aspect of our self-concept
(we fail to understand its true
meaning)
o Denial - we refuse to perceive an
experience in awareness, or at least
we keep some aspect of it from
reaching symbolization
Disorganization
 Behavior is disorganized/psychotic 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 (can occur suddenly or
gradually over a long period of time;
people are more vulnerable to this
particularly during therapy)
 People sometimes behave consistently
with their organismic experience and
sometimes in accordance with their
shattered self-concept
 Unconditional Positive Regard
PSYCHOTHERAPY
 Client-centered approach: 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 (though not easy for the
counselor to attain; if then fashion)
 Can be viewed in terms of conditions,
process, and outcomes
Conditions
 Counselor Congruence
o 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 (to be
real and genuine, what one truly is)
o Congruent counselor - a complete
human being with feelings of joy,
anger, frustration, confusion, and so
on (not passive)
o Involves feelings, awareness, and
expression
o Incongruence may arise from either
of the two points:
 A breakdown between feelings
and awareness (ex. a person
may be angry, and the anger
may be obvious to others but
the angry person is unaware of
the feeling)
 A discrepancy between
awareness of an experience
and the ability or willingness to
express it to another
o A therapist will be more effective if
they communicate genuine feelings
even though these feelings are
negative or threatening
o The need to be like, prized, or
accepted by another person
o Warm, positive, and accepting
attitude the therapist gives without
hesitation (not possessive)
o Therapist does not have the right to
evaluate the client’s choices (client
might be defensive and this may be
a hindrance to their growth)
o Regard- relationship of the
therapist and client
o Positive- direction of the
relationship
 o Unconditional- does not need to be
earned (accepting attitude despite
positive or negative behavior)
 Empathic Listening
o Accurately sense the feelings of the
client (so the clients can verbalize
what they are feeling)
o Towards the client's psychological
growth (they may understand
themselves more)
o sympathy ≠ empathy
o Sympathy- feeling for a client
(external evaluation made by the
therapist -> self-pity within a client)
o Empathy- feeling with a client
(closer relationship; feeling the
depth of the client’s feelings)
Process
 Stage 1 (most defensive)
o Unwillingness; seeking help does
not come into mind because they
find it hard to recognize their
problems
o Difficulty in recognizing their
problems
o resistant to change
 Stage 2
o Less rigid; they can talk about their
feelings but they still don’t
recognize their emotions
o Expressing their feelings objectively
 Stage 3
o Able to talk about their experiences
but still use the past or future tense
in talking about their emotions
o They set aside their personal
feelings and they deny their
individual responsibility on their
decisions and actions
 Stage 4
o Able to talk about deep feelings
that they felt in the past (not
present)
o Denying or distorting their
experiences
o Little recognition of their feelings
o Realizing the incongruence of
perceived self and organismic
experience
o Accepting of individual
responsibility
o More involved with their
relationship with the therapist
 Stage 5
o Significant growth in client
o Recognizing of present feelings
(they can now express their
emotions though not yet
accurately)
o They can make their own decisions
o Relying on internal locus of
evaluation
 Stage 6
o Experience dramatic growth and an
irreversible movement toward
becoming fully functioning or self-
actualizing (they allow their
experience to enter in their
awareness; they avoid denial)
o They are more congruent with their
perceived self and organismic
experience compared to stage 4
o The organismic self is now the
criterion for evaluating experiences,
not external viewpoints
o They now have a feeling of genuine
caring and affection for the person
they are becoming (developing of
unconditional self-regard)
o Muscles relax, crying, improvement
of circulation
o Experience psychological loosening
o Said to be the end of the therapy,
though clients would still progress
to the next level outside the
therapeutic encounter
 Stage 7 (most integrative)
 o Considered as fully functioning
"persons of tomorrow"
o Developed self-confidence
o Unified organismic self and self-
concept; focused on the present
o Does not rely on external
evaluations
o Possessing the three necessary and
sufficient conditions of
psychological growth
Theoretical Explanation for Therapeutic
Change
 Will feel lovable
 Will listen to themselves
 Will have empathy for their own
feelings
 Will have congruency between
perceived self and organismic
experiences
 Will become their very own therapists
Outcomes
 a congruent client who is less defensive
and more open to experience
 will have a realistic view of the world
 gap between self-ideal and real self is
narrowed
 physiological and psychological tensions
are lessened
 no need for denial and distortion
 take ownership of their own
experiences
 direct their own behavior
 relationships with other people are also
changed (they become more mature,
likable, and socialized)
THE PERSON OF TOMORROW
 First:
o Psychologically healthy people
would be more adaptable.
 Second:
o Persons of tomorrow would be
open to their experiences,
accurately symbolizing them in
awareness rather than denying or
distorting them.
 Third:
o A third characteristic of persons of
tomorrow would be a tendency to
live fully in the moment.
 Fourth:
o Persons of tomorrow would remain
confident of their own ability to
experience harmonious relations
with others.
 Fifth:
o Persons of tomorrow would be
more integrated, more whole, with
no artificial boundary between
conscious processes and
unconscious ones.
 Sixth:
o Persons of tomorrow would have a
basic trust of human nature.
 Seventh:
o 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
SCIENTISTS MUST HAVE MANY
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PERSON OF
TOMORROW. THEY MUST:
 Be inclined to look within
 Be in tune with internal feelings and
values
 Be intuitive and creative
 Be open to experiences
 Be welcome to change
 Have fresh outlook
 Have solid trust in themselves
 Scientists should be completely involved
in the phenomena being studied.
 Once dimly seen relationships are
nourished by the scientists, these may
now be formulated into a testable
hypotheses.
 Methodology
 Procedures of research must be
rigorously controlled, empirical, and
objective.
 If methods are precise, self-deception
and manipulation of observations may
be avoided.
 Once there are already findings, these
may now be communicated by the
scientist to other people.