CHAPTER 13
ROGERS'S PERSONCENTERED THEORY
The Master Motive
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Self-actualizing Tendency - innate drive toward fulfillment of our
potentials; person's behavior determined by his or her subjective
experiencing of events; person is the ultimate authority.
Personality Development
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Valuing Processing in Infants - infants judge the worth of a given
experience by use of an organismic valuing process - an innate
bodily mechanism for evaluating which experiences are right or wrong
for them.
Fully-Functioning People - if organismic valuing process is used
without distortion, people will inevitably experience optimal
psychological health. Fully functioning people are self-actualizing
people. Characteristics of fully functioning people include:
– openness to experience.
– existential living.
– trust of their organisms.
– creativity.
– leading an enriched life.
Personality Development (cont.)
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Emerging Persons - people of the future whose interpersonal
relationships are characterized by honesty, cooperation, and concern
for others; who avoid sham, facades, and hypocrisy; they welcome
change and opt for growth even when it is painful to do so. Emerging
people are characterized by:
– honesty and openness.
– an indifference to material possessions.
– caring for others.
– a deep mistrust of cognitively-based science.
– a trust of their own experience and a profound mistrust of all
external authority.
– courage to change.
Personality Development (cont.)
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Components of the Actualizing Process
– true self - self-concept based on our actual feelings about our
experiences.
– social self - self-concept based largely on the expectations of
others. It has a powerful influence on us because we have a strong
need for positive regard and want to please others.
• The social self creates conditions of worth - standards set by
others in which we are given approval for obeying the
standards and punishment for failing to do so. Thus, when the
social self is incongruent with the person’s true self, we are
likely to distort our true feelings and progress toward selfrealization is hindered. However, when the social self is
congruent with the true self, we have no need to repress, deny,
or distort our actual feelings. Under such conditions, we can
assimilate our actual experiences into the true self and move
toward self-realization.
Personality Development (cont.)
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Components of the Actualizing Process (social self cont.)
• Alternatively, the ideal condition for developing a healthy selfconcept and moving toward self-actualization occurs when we
are given unconditional positive regard - total caring or
prizing of the person for what he or she is, without any
reservations or conditions of worth.
Therapeutic Assessment Techniques
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Q-Sort - self-report procedure designed to measure the discrepancy
between a persons actual and ideal self.
Theory's Implications for Therapy
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Therapeutic Conditions that Facilitate Growth
– client and therapist are in psychological contact.
– client is in a state of incongruence
– therapist is congruent.
– therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.
– therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client's
internal frame of reference.
– client perceives the therapist's unconditional positive regard and
empathic understanding.
Theory's Implications for Education
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According to Rogers, educational establishment is authoritarian.
– assumes students can not be trusted.
– assumes creativity develops from passive learners.
– assumes must do constant evaluations of performance.
Rogers's recommendations to counter this nonproductive orientation.
– criticisms of Rogers's views.
Theory's Implications for Marriage
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According to Rogers, marriage is a failing institution.
– traditional marriage is authoritarian with husband as ultimate
authority.
Rogers recommendations to counter this authoritarian approach. In a
healthy marriage:
– difficulties between the partners are discussed openly.
– communication is honest and authentic, with mutual listening.
– partners appreciate the value of separateness.
– women's growing independence is valued.
– roles and role expectations fade away, replaced by people making
their own choices about their behavior.
– either partner may form satellite relationships; relationships formed
outside the marriage that may or may not involve sexual intimacy.
Evaluative Comments
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Comprehensiveness - increasingly broad in scope.
Precision and Testability - hard-earned precision and adequate
testability.
Parsimony - fails to meet the parsimony criterion; too simplistic.
Empirical Validity - empirical support is generally supportive.
Heuristic Value - theory has been very stimulating and provocative to
clinicians, counselors, and researchers in a number of disciplines;
strong heuristic value.
Applied Value - strong applied value in education, race relations, family
relationships, leadership, and counseling.