HUMANISTIC THEORY

OF CARL ROGERS
BY;
DEEPTHI.C
DOS IN PSYCHOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF MYSORE
 CONTENTS
• Introduction
• Actualizing tendency
• Reference
 INTRODUCTION
• Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an
American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic
approach to psychology.
• Rogers is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of
psychotherapy research and was honored for his pioneering research with
the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions by the American
Psychological Association in 1956.
• The person-centered approach, his own unique approach to understanding
personality and human relationships, found wide application in various
domains such as psychotherapy and counseling (client-centered therapy),
education (student-centered learning), organizations, and other group
settings.
• Rogers was found to be the sixth most eminent psychologist of the 20th
century and second, among clinicians, only to Sigmund Freud.
• He believed if an individual attained self-actualization they would be a
fully functioning person living "the good life". By this, he means that the
individual would have a positive healthy psychological outlook, trust
their own feelings and have congruence in their lives between self and
experience.
• Carl Roger's theory is phenomenological and idiographic.
• He believed that human nature is "exquisitely rational".
• His theory came from his work as a psychotherapist. The aim of the
therapy is to facilitate a reintegration of the self-concept.
• Rogers believed that people know what is causing the psychological
imbalance in their lives and that deep down they know what they need to
do to regain their balance or self-actualization to become "Fully
Functioning" persons
• Psychotherapy is the change agent that assists individuals in making
personal changes to regain balance and achieve their potential or self-
actualization.
• Rogers rejected the deterministic nature of both psychoanalysis and
behaviorism and maintained that we behave as we do because of the way
we perceive our situation.
• "As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on
ourselves.“
• Rogers’s psychology starts and ends with the subjective experiences of
the individual. In his view, the subjective experiencing of reality serves as
the basis for all the individual’s judgments and behavior
 ACTUALIZING TENDENCY
• Self became the core of Rogers’s theory of personality.
• "The organism has one basic tendency and striving - to actualize,
maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism” (Rogers, 1951, p.
487).
• The tendency to self-actualize - i.e. to fulfill one's potential and
achieve the highest level of 'human-beingness' we can.
• The actualizing tendency has both a biological and a psychological
aspect. The biological aspect includes drives aimed at the
satisfaction of basic survival needs—the need for water, food, and
air. The psychological aspect involves the development of potentials
that make us more worthwhile human beings.
• The actualization tendency begins in the womb, facilitating human
growth by providing for the differentiation of the physical organs and
the development of physiological functioning. It is responsible for
maturation—the genetically determined development of the body’s
parts and processes—ranging from the growth of the foetus to the
appearance of the secondary sex characteristics at puberty.
• These changes, programmed into our genetic makeup, are all brought
to fruition by the actualization tendency. Even though such changes
are genetically determined, progress toward full human development
is neither automatic nor effortless.
• To Rogers,the process involved struggle and pain. For example, when
children take their first steps they may fall and hurt themselves.
Although it would be less painful to remain in the crawling stage, most
children persist. They may fall again and cry, but they persevere despite
the pain because the tendency to actualize is stronger than the urge to
regress simply because the growth process is difficult.
• The governing process throughout the life span, as Rogers envisioned it,
is the organismic valuing process.
• Through this process we evaluate all life experiences by how well they
serve the actualization tendency. Experiences that we perceive as
promoting actualization are evaluated as good and desirable; we assign
them a positive value. Experiences perceived as hindering actualization
are undesirable and thus earn a negative value.
• In Rogers’s judgment, we are all basically good. The actualizing tendency
is, thus, selective and directional; it is a constructive tendency.
• Organisms do not, according to Rogers, develop their capacity for self-
destruction except under the most perverse circumstances (Rogers, 1977,
p. 242).
• Instead, they develop their innate goodness, but only if society acts
toward them in a helpful, encouraging way.
• Although Rogers was clearly optimistic about human nature, he was
nevertheless keenly aware that human beings are sometimes immature
and antisocial and that they sometimes act out of fear, ignorance, and
defensiveness.
• Such behavior, however, is not in accordance with their basic natures,
according to Rogers, but is the result of faulty socialization practices.
Thus, society can facilitate or hinder movement toward self-actualization.
 REFERENCE

• https://
www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html
• https://cgjj.wikispaces.com/Theory
• M.Ryckman,Theories of Personality,9th edition
• P. Schultz , Ellen Schultz, Theories of Personality,8th
edition
THANK YOU!