CARL ROGERS

Reported by:
Archiane Lenz I. Fernandez
CARL ROGERS
• Born in Oak Park, Illinois
• Fourth of six children
• Roger’s parents were educated
and conservative middle-class
Protestants
• Married Helen Elliot in 1924 and
then moved to New York City
• Received his PhD on 1931 and
then joined the staff of the
Rochester Guidance Center
• In 1939, he was made the director
of the said center
• In 1940, accepted the an
appointment as professor of
psychology at Ohio State 1902-1987
University
Theory of Personality
• Phenomenology, he maintained that each
individual exist in the center of the phenomenal
field.
• Phenomenology is the study of human
awareness and perception.
• Phenomenologists stress that what is
important is not the object of the event in
itself but how it is perceived and
understood by the individual.
Theory of Personality
• Phenomenal field is the total sum of the
experiences.
• It consist of everything that is potentially
available to the consciousness at any given
moment.
• Reality is essentially a very personal matter
• The individual’s perception rather than the
reality itself is most important
Actualization
• The primary tendency of the organism is to
maintain, actualize, and enhance itself.
• This actualizing tendency is part of a universal
life force;
• It follows lines laid down by genetics and may
also be influenced by temperament.
• The process of actualization is neither automatic
nor effortless; it involves struggle and even pain.
Actualization
• Behavior is the “goal-directed attempt” of the
organism to meet its needs as it perceives them.
• This goal-directed behavior is accompanied by
emotions that, unless they are excessive or
inappropriate, facilitate the behavior.
• Fully experiencing one’s emotions facilitates
growth, whereas the denial or distortion of
emotions may permit them to raise havoc in our
lives.
Actualization
• He suggested that actualization occurs most freely
when the person is open and aware of all
experiences, be they sensory, visceral, or emotional.
• Our inner experiences are intrinsically growth-
producing.
• An organismic valuing process subconsciously
guides us toward productive growth experiences
provided that it has not been overlaid with external
rules and societal values that preclude healthy self-
actualization.
The Self
• Out of the interaction of the organism and the
environment, and in particular the interaction
with significant others, there gradually emerges
a structure of self, or a concept of “who I am”
• Those experiences that appear to enhance one’s
self are valued and incorporated into one’s self-
image
• Those experiences that appear to threaten the
self are denied and rendered foreign to the self
The Self
• Self-concept is an object of perception.
• It is the person as she or he perceives herself or
himself.
• The “self” that one forms may be at variance
with the real experience of one’s organism
because it includes values that are taken over
from other people rather than the actual
experiences of the organism.
The Self
• The experiences that occur in our lives are
symbolized, ignored, denied, or distorted.
• If an experience is symbolized, it is accepted into
consciousness, perceived, and organized into a
relationship with the self.
• Experiences are denied or distorted if they
appear to be inconsistent with self-structure.
• The individual’s awareness if highly dependent
on the self-concept.
Congruence and Incongruence
• There is a need for the “self as perceived” and
the “real self, the organism,” to be congruent.
• Congruence exists when a person’s symbolized
experiences reflect all of the actual experiences
of the organism.
• Incongruence exists when a person’s
symbolized experiences do not represent all of
the actual experiences, or if they are denied or
distorted, there is a lack of correspondence
between the self as perceived and the real self
 Self-structure Experience

b. Depicts a state of
relative congruence,
Distorted Denied wherein most of the
experiences experiences elements of experience
are integrated into the
self

Self-structure Experience
a. Depicts a state
of psychic tension Congruent experiences

When an individual denies or distorts

significant sensory and visceral experiences, Congruent
certain basic tension arise. The “self as experiences
perceived,” which primarily governs
behavior, is not an adequate representative of
the true experience pf the organism. It
becomes increasingly difficult for the self to
satisfy the organism’s needs. Tension Distorted Denied
develops and is felt as anxiety or uncertainty. experiences experiences
Development of Personality
• The young child has two basic needs:
The need for positive regard by others
The need for positive self-regard.
• Positive regard refers to being loved and
accepted for who one is.
• In an ideal situation, positive regard is
unconditional.
• It is given freely to children for who they are
regardless of what they do.
Development of Personality
• Unconditional Positive regard is not
contingent on any specific behavior.
• A parent can limit or curb certain undesirable
behaviors by objecting only to the behaviors and
not disapproving of the child or the child’s
feelings.
• Conditional positive regard is given only
under certain circumstances.
Development of Personality
• Children are led to understand that their parents
will not love them unless they think, feel, and act
as their parents wants them to.
• In such cases, the child perceives the parent as
imposing conditions of worth.
• Specifying the provisions under which the child
will be accepted, such as being pretty or earning
top grades.
Development of Personality
• Positive self-regard follows automatically if
one has received unconditional positive regard.
• Children who are accepted for who they are
come to view themselves favorably and with
acceptance.
• Individuals who have experienced a positive
development are more likely to become fully
functioning people.
Criteria for Being a Fully Functioning
Person
1. Openness to experience:
o Aware of all experiences without a need to deny
or distort them.
2. Existential living:
o Able to live in the moment without preconceived
structures.
3. Organismic trust:
o Trust in one’s own experience; not bound by
other people’s opinions.
Criteria for Being a Fully Functioning
Person
4. Experiential freedom:
o Free-choice agent; assumes responsibility for
decisions and behaviors.
5. Creativity:
o Able to adjust creatively to changes and seeks
new experiences and challenges.
Psychotherapy
• He developed a method called client-centered
or nondirective therapy and more recently as
person-centered psychotherapy.
Attitudes Necessary for Therapeutic
Change
• Three attitudes on the part of therapists are
necessary and sufficient for change.
• By necessary, meaning that these attitudes are
essential and must be evident to the client.
• By sufficient, meaning that no other conditions
are required for change to occur.
Attitudes Necessary for Therapeutic
Change
• Empathy, the ability to experience another
person’s feelings as if they were one’s own but
never lose sight of the “as if.”
• The therapist is able to put him- or herself in the
client’s shoes without trying to wear those shoes.
• The therapist understands the client’s internal
frame of reference and communicates this
understanding, largely through statements that
reflect the client’s feelings.
Attitudes Necessary for Therapeutic
Change
• Acceptance is nonjudgmental recognition of
oneself and the other person.
• The therapist does not posit any conditions of
worth.
• The therapist lets the other person be.
• In a climate of acceptance, the client can set
aside conditions of worth, relax his or her
defenses, and become open to organismic
experiences of the organism.
Attitudes Necessary for Therapeutic
Change
• As a result, the client’s self-concept gradually
becomes more congruent with the actual
experiences of the organism.
• Genuineness . An effective therapist is
genuine, integrated, free, and deeply aware of
the dynamics of the therapeutic relationship.
• The therapist need not be a model of perfect
mental health and may have shortcomings and
difficulties in other situations.
Attitudes Necessary for Therapeutic
Change
• But within the relationship of therapy , the
therapist needs to be congruent.
• Roger’s believed that positive, constructive
personality changes would occur.
Responses to Emotional
Communications
• The direction of the therapy is determined by the
client.
• The client determines what will be discussed,
when, and to what extent.
• The client who does not want to talk about a
particular subject is not pressed to do so.
• The client does not even have to talk at all.
Responses to Emotional
Communications
• The therapist communicates the attitude of
acceptance through statements that reflect the
client’s feelings
Example:
“The doctor keeps telling me not to worry, but I’m
frightened of this operation”

Rogers discovered that most responses fall into

one of the five categories used in the following
order of frequency in everyday life:
1. Evaluative 4. Probing
2. Interpretative 5. Reflective
3. Reassuring
Roger’s research showed that most responses to emotional communications fall into
one of the five categories in the left column. In the middle column is an example of
each type of response to the following emotional communication: “I’m really
worried about Stephen. His grades have fallen, and I think he may be
into drugs.” This column indicates the likely consequence of each type of response.

TYPE OF RESPONSE EXAMPLE CONSEQUENCES

Evaluative: Places a value
judgement on the person’s
thoughts, feelings, wishes, or
behavior
Interpretative: Identifies the
real problem or underlying
feelings
Reassuring: Attempts to
soothe the person’s feelings
Probing: Seeks further
information
Reflective: Captures the
underlying feelings
“You mustn’t feel that way.
Worrying never helped any
situation”
“That’s because you feel guilty
because you smoked some pot
when you were young”
“Most kids go through periods
like that; it’s probably nothing
to worry about”
“What is he doing that makes
you think he’s into drugs?”
“You’re very concerned about
him”
Detracts from a basic
attitude of acceptance.
If wrong or ill-timed,
may lead to feeling
misunderstood
May be seen as an
attempt to minimize
the situation
May be taken as an
infringement of privacy
Encourages
elaboration and
exploration
• While evaluative are the most common, they are
judgmental and tend to detract from an attitude
of basic acceptance of the other individual.
• Reflective comments which capture the
underlying feelings are most likely to encourage
further elaboration and exploration. However
they are the least commonly used response.
Person-centered psychotherapy
• Tends to be supportive rather than
reconstructive.
• He stressed the need for the therapist to be
present as a person in the relationship and
showed more interest in group counseling and
social change.
• He encouraged the empirical test of his theories
and developed methods of assessing and
predicting therapeutic change.
Positive Psychology
• Focuses on experience, traits, and institutions.
• The study of positive subjective experience
involves research on contentment and
satisfaction with the past, happiness and flow in
the present, and optimism and hope for the
future.
• Understanding traits entails the identification
and study of positive virtues for individual
growth, such as wisdom and knowledge,
courage, humanity and love, justice, temperance,
and transcendence
Positive Psychology
• The study of institutions looks into positive
strengths that promote better communities, such
as responsibility, leadership, teamwork, work
ethic, parenting, justice and tolerance.
• Is the scientific inquiry into virtues and
strengths that make it possible for individuals
and communities to thrive.