Rogers: Person-Centered Theory

- He wanted to be a farmer, a scientific farmer who cared about plants and

animals and how they grew and developed.
- Although he was from a large family, he was quite shy and lacking in social
skills.
- A sensitive boy, he was easily hurt by the teasing he received from classmates
and siblings.
- His family moved to a farm about 45 miles west of Chicago.
- Although he believed that his parents cared very much for their children, he
also believed that they were quite controlling in their child-rearing practices.
- He developed a scientific attitude toward farming, taking detailed notes on his
observations. These notes taught him about the “necessary and sufficient”
conditions for the optimal growth of plants and animals.
- He retained a passionate interest in scientific agriculture. However, he never did
become a farmer. After two years of college, he changed his life goal from
agriculture to the ministry and later to psychology.
- He won the first Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award granted by the
American Psychological Association.

Overview of Client-Centered Theory

- Best known as the founder of client-centered therapy.
- He developed a humanistic theory of personality that grew out of his
experiences as a practicing psychotherapist.
- Rogers was a consummate therapist but only a reluctant theorist.
- He was more concerned with helping people than with discovering why they
behaved 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?”
- Built his theory on the scaffold provided by experiences as a therapist.
- He continually called for empirical research to support both his personality
theory and his therapeutic approach.
- Perhaps more than any other therapist-theorist, Rogers advocated a balance
between tender-minded and hardheaded studies that would expand knowledge
of how humans feel and think.
- Even though he formulated a rigorous, internally consistent theory of
personality, Rogers did not feel comfortable with the notion of theory.
- His personal preference was to be a helper of people and not a constructor
of theories. To him, theories seemed to make things too cold and external, and
he worried that his theory might imply a measure of finality.
- During the 1950s, at a midpoint in his career, Rogers was invited to write what
was then called the “client-centered” theory of personality, and his original
statement is found in Volume 3 of Sigmund Koch’s Psychology: A Study of a
Science (see Rogers, 1959).
- Rogers realized that 10 or 20 years hence, his theories would be different; but
unfortunately, throughout the intervening years, he never systematically
reformulated his theory of personality.

Biography of Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers

- Born on January 8, 1902, in Oak Park, Illinois, the fourth of six children born
to Walter and Julia Cushing Rogers.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Rogers received a PhD from Columbia in 1931 after having already moved to
New York to work with the Rochester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children.
- Rogers was strongly influenced by the ideas of Otto Rank, who had been one of
Freud’s closest associates before his dismissal from Freud’s inner circle.
- Rank’s lectures provided Rogers with the notion that therapy is an emotional
growth-producing relationship, nurtured by the therapist’s empathic listening
and unconditional acceptance of the client.
- He taught courses in sociology at the University of Rochester, and 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
a book.
 Counseling and Psychotherapy, published in 1942
- 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, 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.
- His therapy evolved from one that emphasized methodology, or what in the
early 1940s was called the “nondirective” technique, to one in which the sole
emphasis was on the client-therapist relationship.
- Always the scientist, Rogers, along with his students and colleagues, produced
groundbreaking research on the process and effectiveness of psychotherapy.
- Rogers accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin in 1957 to expand his
research and his ideas to psychiatry. However, he was frustrated 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.
- Rogers moved to California where he joined the Western Behavioral Sciences
Institute (WBSI) and became increasingly interested in encounter groups.
- The personal life of Carl Rogers was marked by change and openness to
experience.
- Despite his early problems with interpersonal relationships, Rogers grew to
become a leading proponent of the notion that the interpersonal relationship
between two individuals is a powerful ingredient that cultivates psychological
growth within both persons.
- He abandoned the formalized religion of his parents, gradually shaping a
humanistic/existential philosophy that he hoped would bridge the gap between
Eastern and Western thought.
- One of the tenets of Rogers’ theory of counseling is the need to be true to
oneself, authentic and honest.
- He was the first president of the American Association for Applied
Psychology and helped bring that organization and the American Psychological
Association (APA) back together.
- He served as president of APA for the year 1946–1947 and served as first
president of the American Academy of Psychotherapists. In 1956, he was
cowinner of the first Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award presented
by APA.
- His theory was more fully espoused in Client-Centered Therapy (1951) and was
expressed in even greater detail in the Koch series (Rogers, 1959).
- However, Rogers always insisted that the theory should remain tentative, and it
is with this thought that one should approach a discussion of Rogerian
personality theory.

Person-Centered Theory

- Although Rogers’ concept of humanity remained basically unchanged, his

therapy and theory underwent several changes in name.
- During the early years, his approach was known as “nondirective,” an
unfortunate term that remained associated with his name for far too long.
- Later, his approach was variously termed “client-centered,” “person-
centered,” “student-centered,” “group-centered,” and “person to person.”
 We use the label client-centered in reference to Rogers’ therapy and the more
inclusive term person-centered to refer to Rogerian personality theory.

Person-Centered Theory
- Known as:
 Nondirective- an unfortunate term that remained associated with his name
 client-centered
 person-centered
 student-centered
 person to person
- client-centered in reference to Rogers’ therapy
- person-centered to refer to Rogerian personality theory

Basic Assumptions

- formative tendency and the actualizing tendency

1. Formative tendency
- There is a tendency for all matter, both organic and inorganic, to evolve from
simpler to more complex forms.
- The entire universe is a creative process, rather than a disintegrative one, is in
operation.
2. Actualizing tendency
- Tendency within all humans (and other animals and plants) to move toward
completion or fulfillment of potentials. This tendency is the only motive people
possess.
- Involves the whole person—physiological and intellectual, rational and
emotional, conscious and unconscious.
- Tendencies to maintain and to enhance the organism are subsumed within the
actualizing tendency.
 Need for maintenance
 - Similar to the lower steps on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (food, air and safety).
- It also includes the tendency to resist change and to seek the status quo.
 Conservative nature of maintenance
- expressed in people’s desire to protect their current, comfortable self-concept.
People fight against new ideas; they distort experiences that do not quite fit;
they find change painful and growth frightening.
 Enhancement
- Need to become more, to develop, and to achieve growth.
- Need for enhancing the self is seen in people’s willingness to learn things that
are not immediately rewarding.
- Enhancement needs are expressed in a variety of forms, including curiosity,
playfulness, self-exploration, friendship, and confidence that one can achieve
psychological growth.

Actualization tendency

- Not limited to humans. Other animals and even plants have an inherent
tendency to grow toward reaching their genetic potential— provided certain
conditions are present
- Human’s actualization tendency is realized only under certain conditions.

ROGERS

- People must be involved in a relationship with a partner who is: congruent, or

authentic, and who demonstrates empathy and unconditional positive
regard.
- These three conditions as both necessary and sufficient conditions for becoming
a fully functioning or self-actualizing person.

The Self and Self-Actualization