Carl Rogers

by Katy Rose (2017)

Abstract

This paper explores Carl Rogers’ development of client-centered therapy inspired by his loss of interpersonal connection as a young child growing up in a fundamentalist Protestant family. Rogers life work made significant contributions into psychotherapy, education, pastoral counseling, paraprofessional counseling, expressive arts, conflict resolution, organizational development, community programs, cross-cultural work, politics and peace making.

Introduction

Carl Rogers believed the essence of his life work in client-centered therapy, and later person-centered therapy was captured in an excerpt from Lao-Tzu, a Chinese philosopher of the sixth century BC:

               If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves,                      If I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves,                                        If I keep from preaching at people, they improve themselves,                   If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves. 

These words clearly demonstrate the personal power of a person-centered approach as Rogers believed individuals possess vast resources within oneself to heal and if left alone and not controlled by others the locus of decision making power would enable self-adjustment in attitudes and behaviors.

Body

Carl Rogers grew up in a strict fundamentalist Protestant home restricted from participating in many social events. Although he excelled in academics developing a strong interest in science, he remained as a child, lonely, without the freedom to explore the interconnectedness of relationship with another human being. He found the intimacy he desired while attending the University of Wisconsin as he also began to study for the ministry. While attending a World Student Christian Federation in China and a subsequent speaking tour in Asia, Rogers perceived his fundamentalist attitudes softening while abroad, thus offering him the first opportunity of psychological independence without mom and dad’s oversight.

When Rogers began his graduate studies at Union Theological Seminary, he began to experience rising doubts in his religious commitment, so he transferred to Columbia University to study psychology. He soon learned that he could earn a living outside the church in counseling. His first job in a child guidance center caused him to shift from a formal psychotherapy perspective to a client-centered therapy. Rogers believed the formal psychotherapy standard promoted the therapist’s cleverness and learning, rather than listening to and observing the client for the direction of the healing process (Frager, 2013). His emphasis on trusting the client unleashed strong criticism in the field, most especially after he first published his theory in 1951: Client-Centered Therapy.

Rogers found himself conflicted with the psychology department of his university when serving in a joint appointment of psychiatry and psychology. Rogers outlined his dissatisfaction with how the students were being unreasonably restricted and devalued in their learning in his paper: Current Assumptions in Graduate Education: A Passionate Statement (1969). Rogers later left his tenure at the university and helped to establish the Center for Studies as a Person where he moved away from his client-centered theme into a person-centered theme in which he remained until his death in 1987. On the day of his death, Rogers received a letter stating he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, as he had successfully applied his theories in torrid political climates in South Africa, Austria and the former Soviet Union.

Rogers believed the self-actualizing tendency in all people allowed for genuine self-evaluation in their particular field of personal experience as an unequivocal wholeness would result with competency in personal power. It is important to note here that in this process conflicts may arise in the myriad of our interpretations as our own individual awareness may be either congruent or incongruent with the experience itself.  Healing begins with recognizing these conflicts which simply are maladjustments. Rogers believed in a natural tendency to shift from conflict into resolution as one adjusts a maladjusted concept into alignment with actual reality. Often this healing is facilitated through interpersonal relationships with people who are not fractured in congruence and are endowed with empathic understanding which is the ability to feel with you. Rogers described a fully-functioning person will have “an openness to experience…living in the present….and trusting in one’s inner urgings and intuitive judgments” (Frager, 2013). He also suggests an effective therapist lives with unconditional positive regard and is congruent in awareness, perception and experience, and will demonstrate empathic sensitivity with the client. Rogers fundamentalist Protestant upbringing propelled him into the exploration of humanistic wholeness and living presence.

Reference

Frager, R. & Fadiman, J. (2013). Personality and personal growth.  (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.