Chapter 11.

Rogers: Person-Centered Theory

BIOGRAPHY OF CARL 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, he soon became less interested in farming and more devoted to religion.
- 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.
- 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. From that point on, he never returned to formal religion. His life would now take a new direction
—toward psychology and education.
- 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. At the institute, he gained an elementary knowledge of Freudian psychoanalysis,
but he was not much influenced by it, even though he tried it out in his practice.
- He had harbored a desire to teach in a university after a rewarding teaching experience during the summer of 1935 at
Teachers College and after having taught courses in sociology at the University of Rochester. During this period, he
wrote his first book, The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child (1939), the publication of which led to a teaching offer
from Ohio State University.
- Rogers gradually conceptualized his own ideas on psychotherapy, not intending them to be unique and certainly not
controversial. These ideas were put forth in Counseling and Psychotherapy, published in 1942. In this book, which was
a reaction to the older approaches to therapy, Rogers minimized the causes of disturbances and the identification and
labeling of disorders. Instead, he emphasized the importance of growth within the patient (called by Rogers the “client”).
- In 1944, as part of the war effort, Rogers moved back to New York as director of counseling services for the United
Services Organization. After 1 year, he took a position at the University of Chicago, where he established a counseling
center and was allowed more freedom to do research on the process and outcome of psychotherapy.
- Rogers accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin in 1957. However, he was frustrated with his stay at
Wisconsin because he was unable to unite the professions of psychiatry and psychology and because he felt that some
members of his own research staff had engaged in dishonest and unethical behavior (Milton, 2002).

Overview of Client-Centered Theory

- Carl Rogers developed a humanistic theory of personality that grew out of his experiences as a practicing psycho
therapist. Unlike Freud, who was primarily a theorist and secondarily a therapist, Rogers was a consummate therapist
but only a reluctant theorist. He was more concerned with helping people that with discovering why they behave as they
did. He was more likely to ask “how can I help this person grow and develop?” than to ponder the question “what
caused this person to develop in this manner?”

PERSON-CiENTERED THEORY
Basic Assumptions
a) 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. Rogers called this process
the formative tendency and pointed to many examples from nature.
b) 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 accept one’s self are all examples of the single motive of actualization.

The Self and Self-Actualization

Self-actualization - is a subset of the actualization tendency and is therefore not synonymous with it.
The actualization tendency refers to organismic experiences of the individual; that is, it refers to the whole person—conscious
and unconscious, physiological and cognitive. On the other hand, self-actualization is the tendency to actualize the self as
perceived in awareness.

a) The Self-Concept
- The self-concept includes all those aspects of one’s being and one’s experiences that are perceived in awareness
(though not always accurately) by the individual. The self-concept is not identical with the organismic self.
b) The Ideal Self
- The second subsystem of the self is the ideal self, 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.
- 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. Rogers (1959) defined awareness as “the symbolic
representation (not necessarily in verbal symbols) of some portion of our experience” (p. 198). He used the term synonymously
with both consciousness and symbolization.
 Levels of Awareness
- Some events are experienced below the threshold of awareness and are either ignored or denied.
- An ignored experience can be illustrated by a woman walking down a busy street, an activity that presents many
potential stimuli, particularly of sight and sound.
- Hypothesized that some experiences are accurately symbolized and freely admitted to the self-structure.
- Such experiences are both nonthreatening and consistent with the existing self-concept.
- 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 Positive Experiences

- it is not only the negative or derogatory experiences that are distorted or denied to awareness; many people have
difficulty accepting genuine compliments and positive feedback, even when deserved.

Becoming a Person
- Rogers (1959) discussed the processes necessary to becoming a person. First, an individual must make contact—
positive or negative—with another person.
 Positive Regard
- the person develops a need to be loved, liked, or accepted by another person, a need that Rogers (1959).
- 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, defined as 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.

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.
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. These two tendencies are sometimes at variance with one
another
Vulnerability – The greater the incongruence between our perceived self (selfconcept) and our organismic experience, the
more vulnerable we are. Rogers (1959) believed that people are vulnerable when they are unaware of the discrepancy between
their organismic self and their significant experience

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.

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 the denial or
distortion of experiences inconsistent with it (Rogers, 1959).
- With distortion, 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.
- With denial, we refuse to perceive an experience in awareness, or at least we keep some aspect of it from reaching
symbolization. Denial is not as common as distortion because most experiences can be twisted or reshaped to fit the
current self-concept.
 Disorganization – Most people engage in defensive behavior, but sometimes defenses fail and behavior becomes
disorganized or psychotic.

Psychotherapy
- Originally known as client-centered therapy or nondirective therapy and more recently as person-centered
psychotherapy.
- A non-directive form of talk therapy. In this approach, you act as an equal partner in the therapy process, while your
therapist remains non-directive—they don’t pass judgments on your feelings or offer suggestions or solutions.
Conditions:
1) Congruence – the counsellor is genuine and real.
2) Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) – allows the client to open up and speak about their difficulties without fear of
being criticized or judged.
3) Empathic Listening - counselor tries to understand the thoughts and the feelings as the client experiences them.
Process
If the conditions of therapist congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathy are present, then the process of
therapeutic change will be set in motion.
Stages of Therapeutic Change
- The process of constructive personality change can be placed on a continuum from most defensive to most integrated.
Seven Stages:
Stage 1- characterized by an unwillingness to communicate anything about oneself.
Stage 2- clients become slightly less rigid.
Stage 3- they freely talk about self, although still as an object.
Stage 4- begin to talk of deep feelings but not ones presently felt.
Stage 5- they have begun to undergo significant change and growth.
Stage 6- experience dramatic growth and an irreversible movement toward becoming fully functioning or self-
actualizing.
Stage 7- can occur outside the therapeutic encounter, because growth at Stage 6 seems to be irreversible. Clients who
reached Stage 7 become fully functioning “persons of tomorrow “.

Theoretical Explanation
When persons come to experience themselves as prized and unconditionally accepted, they realize perhaps for the first time,
that they are lovable.
When these persons come to prize themselves and to accurately understand themselves, their perceived self becomes more
congruent with their organismic experiences.
They now possess the same three therapeutic characteristics as any effective helper, and in effect, they become their own
therapist

Outcomes
If the process of therapeutic change is set in motion, then certain observable outcomes can be expected.
A congruent client who is less defensive and more open to experience.
As a result of being more congruent and less defensive, clients have a clearer picture of themselves and more realistic view of
the world.
More effective in problem solving.
Have higher level of positive self-regard.
More accurate view of their potentials.

The Person of Tomorrow

- More adaptable - They would not merely adjust to a static environment but would realize that conformity and adjustment
to a fixed condition have little long-term survival value.
- Open to their experiences - accurately symbolizing them in awareness rather than denying or distorting them.
- Trust in their organismic selves - fully functioning people would not depend on others for guidance because they would
realize that their own experiences are the best criteria for making choices. They would do what feels right for them
because they trust their own inner feelings more than the pontifications of parents or the rigid rules of society.
- Live fully in the moment – these people would be open to their experiences, they would experience a constant state of
fluidity and change.
- Harmonious relations with others – 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. Authentic in their relations with others.
- More integrated – more whole, with no artificial boundary between conscious processes and unconscious ones.
- Basic Trust of Human Nature – They would not harm others merely for personal gain, they would care about others and
be ready to help when needed.
- Greater richness in life – they would neither distort internal stimuli nor buffer their emotions. Consequently, they would
feel more deeply than others. Live in the present and thus participate more richly in the ongoing moment.

Philosophy of Science
- Roger was first a scientist; second, a therapist; and third, a personality theorist.
Science begins and ends with the subjective experience although everything in between must be objective and
empirical.
- Scientists must have many of the characteristics of the person of tomorrow.
- Rogers believed that scientists should be completely involved in the phenomena being studied.
- Science begins when an intuitive scientists starts to perceive patterns among phenomena.
- The creativity of a scientist may yield innovative methods of research, these procedures themselves must be rigorously
controlled, empirical, and objective.
- Precise methods prevent the scientist from self-deception and from intentionally or unintentionally manipulating the
observations.
- The scientist then communicates findings from that method to others, but the communication itself is subjective. People
receiving the communication bring their own degrees if open-minded or defensiveness into this process.
- The Chicago Studies
- Rogers did not permit methodology to dictate the nature of his research. In his investigations of the outcomes of client-
centered psychotherapy, first at the Counseling Center of the University of Chicago and then with schizophrenia
 patients at the University of Wisconsin, he and his colleagues allowed the problem to take precedence over
methodology and measurement.
- The purpose of the Chicago Studies was to investigate both the process and the outcomes of client-centered therapy.

Hypothesis
- 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.
- Rogers hypothesized that during therapy, clients would assimilate into their self-concepts those feelings and
experiences previously denied to awareness.
- He also predicted that during and after therapy the discrepancy between real self and ideal self would diminish and that
he observed behavior of clients would become more socialized, more self-accepting, and more accepting of others.

Method
- Thematic Apperception Test ( TAT ), the Self Other Attitude Scale ( S-O scale), and the Willoughby Emotional Maturity
Scale ( EM scale).
- To measure change from the client’s point of view, the researcher relied on the Q sort technique developed by William
Stephenson of the University of Chicago.
- Related Research
- Compared to Maslow’s theory, Roger’s idea on the power of unconditional positive regard generated quite a bit of
empirical research.
- Rogers’s own research on the three necessary and sufficient conditions for psychological growth were precursors to
positive psychology and have been further supported by modern research.
- Rogers’s notion of incongruence between real and ideal self and motivation to pursue goals have sparked continued
interest from researchers.
- Self- Discrepancy Theory
- Cornerstone of mental health was the congruency between how we really view ourselves and how we ideally would like
to be.
- If these two self-evaluations are congruent, then one is relatively adjusted and healthy. If not, then one experiences
various forms of mental discomfort, such as anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.
- Motivation and Pursuing One’s Goals
- Setting and pursuing goals is a way that leads to desirable outcomes and adds meaning to daily activities.
- 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.
- Organismic Valuing Process (OVP)—a natural instinct directing us toward the most fulfilling pursuits.

Critique of Rogers
 Generating Research – moderate
 Falsification – high due to the if-then framework .
 Organization of Knowledge – high
 Application – hell yeah
 Internal Consistency – very high
 Parsimony – okay

Concept of Humanity
 Free choice over determinism
 Optimistic
 Teleological
 Uniqueness over similarity
 Conscious
 Social Influences over biology