On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

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In my relationships with persons, I have found that it does not help, in the long run, to act as though I were something that I am not.” Why are Rogers’ ideas about the six necessary and sufficient conditions so important to facilitate change within the client? Self Concept ... the organized consistent conceptual gestalt composed of perceptions of the characteristics of 'I' or 'me' and the perceptions of the relationships of the 'I' or 'me' to others and to various aspects of life, together with the values attached to these perceptions. It is a gestalt which is available to awareness though not necessarily in awareness. It is a fluid and changing gestalt, a process, but at any given moment it is a specific entity. (Rogers, 1959) [25] California Death Index, 1940–1997". Ancestry.com . Retrieved 19 April 2010. Rogers' mother's maiden name is Cushing. Rogers, Carl. and Stevens, B. (1967). Person to Person: The Problem of Being Human. Lafayette, CA: Real People Press.

What does it mean to become a person? What constitutes an environment in which people can express themselves as ever-changing, free creatures? What is the role of psychotherapy in fostering the process of becoming a person and leading such a constant transformation which occurs in each of us? Though revolutionary in his time, many of his ideas are nowadays widely accepted by psychologists worldwide. We guess that you can already understand what kind of a shift Rogers introduced in the world of psychology; but one can understand this better if we compare his approach to the approach practiced by his predecessors. Rogers, Carl. (nd, @1978). A personal message from Carl Rogers. In: N. J. Raskin. (2004). Contributions to Client-Centered Therapy and the Person-Centered Approach. (pp. v-vi). Herefordshire, United Kingdom: PCCS Books, Ross-on-the-Wye. ISBN 1-898059-57-8The application to education has a large robust research tradition similar to that of therapy, with studies having begun in the late 1930s and continuing today (Cornelius-White, 2007). Rogers described the approach to education in Client-Centered Therapy and wrote Freedom to Learn devoted exclusively to the subject in 1969. Freedom to Learn was revised twice. The new Learner-Centered Model is similar in many regards to this classical person-centered approach to education. Optimal development, as referred to in proposition 14, results in a certain process rather than static state. Rogers calls this the good life, where the organism continually aims to fulfill its potential. He listed the characteristics of a fully functioning person (Rogers 1961): [26] deCarvalho, Roy J. (1999). "Otto Rank, the Rankian Circle in Philadelphia, and the Origins of Carl Rogers' Person-Centered Psychotherapy". History of Psychology. 2 (2): 132–148. doi: 10.1037/1093-4510.2.2.132. PMID 11623737.

To understand that, we should probably introduce you to the idea of “confirming the other” developed by Martin Buber, an existentialist philosopher and mystic from the University of Jerusalem. Rogers, Carl. (1959). "A theory of therapy, personality relationships as developed in the client-centered framework.". In S. Koch (ed.). Psychology: A study of a science. Vol. 3: Formulations of the person and the social context. New York: McGraw Hill. There’s another quote from this book we thought we shouldn’t omit, especially having in mind the fact that one of the most influential Western intellectuals at the moment is Jordan Peterson. I’m an avid and passionate reader, but I hate this book with all that I am and could ever hope to be. So as to help a patient (or a lover or a child or a friend), it is the job of a psychotherapist (or a partner or a parent or a colleague) to create a safe environment.

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On the whole,” writes Rogers, “the viewpoint of the professional worker as well as the layman is that man as he is, in his basic nature, had best be kept under control or under cover or both.” Abraham Maslow termed Rogers’ approach humanism, the ‘third force’ in psychology (psychoanalysis being the first, and behaviourism the second). This complete acceptance and valuing of the client facilitates a positive and trusting relationship between the client and therapist, enabling the client to share openly and honestly. Limitations

Proctor, Gillian, and Napier, Mary Beth, eds. (2004). Encountering Feminism: Intersections Between Feminism and the Person-Cerntered Approach. PCCS Books. ISBN 978-1-898059-65-3. Self-worth may be seen as a continuum from very high to very low. To Carl Rogers (1959), a person with high self-worth, that is, has confidence and positive feelings about him or herself, faces challenges in life, accepts failure and unhappiness at times, and is open with people.

Rogers, C.R., Raskin, N.J., et al. (1949). A coordinated research in psychotherapy. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 13, 149–200. Cited in: N.J. Raskin, The first 50 years and the next 10. Person-Centered Review, 5(4), November 1990, 364–372. This doesn’t mean that he didn’t consider psychotherapists to be people; on the contrary, in fact. And that is one of the main ideas of this book. Certain ideas that Rogers championed,” writes Kramer, “have become so widely accepted that it is difficult to recall how fresh, even revolutionary, they were in their time.” Rogers’ Influences: Humanist Psychology Is Existentialist Psychology

Behavior is basically the goal-directed attempt of the organism to satisfy its needs as experienced, in the field as perceived. Rogers, Carl. (1942). Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in Practice. Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Where a person’s ideal self and actual experience are consistent or very similar, a state of congruence exists. Rarely, if ever, does a total state of congruence exist; all people experience a certain amount of incongruence.

How the Core Conditions Facilitate Change

How we think about ourselves and our feelings of self-worth are of fundamental importance to psychological health and the likelihood that we can achieve goals and ambitions in life and self-actualization. A helping relationship might be defined as one in which one of the participants intends that there should come about, in one or both parties, more appreciation of, more expression of, more functional use of the latent inner resources of the individual.”