Carl Rogers
Submitted by Haieqa Zahid
BSc. Clinical Psychology,
KEMU
Submitted to Dr. Mirat Gul
Carl Rogers
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am,
then I can change.”
Carl Rogers is widely regarded as one of the most eminent
thinkers in psychology. He was an American psychologist,
researcher, and author. He is widely considered to be one of the
founding fathers of humanistic psychology. Rogers also developed
person-centered therapy—a form of talk therapy that emphasizes
a personal, supportive relationship between therapist and client.
Family Background
• Carl Ransom Rogers was born on January 8, 1902 in Oak Park,
Illinois. His parents were Walter Rogers and Julia Cushing. Rogers
was the fourth of six children. His father worked as a civil engineer
and his mother was a homemaker.
• Rogers was raised in an educated, conservative, middle-class,
Protestant family. His parents had strict views on proper behavior.
According to Rogers, his parents did not “dance, play cards, attend
movies, smoke, drink, or show any sexual interest.” Walter and Julia
Rogers expected their children to maintain high moral standards,
work hard, and limit expressions of emotion.
• Even though Rogers’ parents had a subtle approach and were not
overbearing, they still had a powerful influence on him. He reported
that he felt choked by his parents’ beliefs for much of his childhood
and adolescence. To Rogers, it seemed as if he was living by
someone else’s view of the world. These emotions would result in
him rebelling against his parents’ restrictions when he got older.
Early life
• Despite having five siblings, Rogers often felt lonely. One
reason for his loneliness was his belief that his parents had
greater love for one of his older brothers. This led to
considerable competition between Rogers and his brother.
When he was an adult, Rogers recalled several bad childhood
memories in which he was the butt of his brother’s jokes.
• A second reason for Rogers’ childhood loneliness was that he
had little social life outside his family. He described himself as
“shy, solitary, dreamy, and often lost in fantasy.” Rogers was
able to read well before he was five years old and his
loneliness led him to read all the books he could, including a
dictionary and an encyclopedia. Over time, his solitude helped
him to develop discipline, independence, resilience and his
own way of thinking.
Educational Background
• When he was 12, his family moved from the suburbs to a rural farm
area. He enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in 1919 as an
agriculture major. However, after attending a 1922 Christian
conference in China, Rogers began to question his career choice. He
later changed his major to History with plans to become a minister.
• He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1924 with a
bachelor's degree in History and enrolled at the Union Theological
Seminary before transferring to Teachers College of Columbia
University in 1926 to complete his master's degree.
• One reason he chose to abandon his pursuit of theology was a
student-led seminar on religion which caused him to question his
faith. Another inspiration for his switch to the study of psychology
was a course he took at Columbia University taught by the
psychologist Leta Stetter Hollingworth.
• Rogers considered psychology to be a way to continue studying life's
many questions without having to subscribe to a specific doctrine.
He decided to enroll in the clinical psychology program at Columbia
and completed his doctorate in 1931.
Career
• After receiving his Ph.D., Rogers spent a number of years working in
academia, holding positions at Ohio State University, the University
of Chicago, and the University of Wisconsin.
• It was during this time that Rogers developed his approach to
therapy, which he initially termed "nondirective therapy." This
approach, which involves the therapist acting as a facilitator rather
than a director of the therapy session, eventually came to be known
as client-centered therapy.
• In 1946, Rogers was elected President of the American Psychological
Association. Rogers wrote 19 books and numerous articles outlining
his humanistic theory. Among his best-known works are ClientCentered Therapy (1951), On Becoming a Person (1961), and A Way
of Being (1980).
• After some conflicts within the psychology department at the
University of Wisconsin, Rogers accepted a position at the Western
Behavioral Studies Institute (WBSI) in La Jolla, California. Eventually,
he and several colleagues left WBSI to form the Center for Studies of
the Person (CSP).
Humanistic Psychology
• At the time when Rogers began his work, psychology was
dominated by psychoanalytic theory and behaviorism. Both
perspectives promoted a deterministic view of the individual,
suggesting that all behaviors are determined, or caused, by
either unconscious forces within the individual (psychoanalytic
theory) or external factors in the environment (behaviorism).
• Rogers rejected these perspectives and promoted a more
optimistic view of humans’ ability to shape their own behavior
and enhance themselves in positive ways. His approach was
central to the humanistic movement in psychology. Some of
the main concepts from Roger’s theory are explained in the
next slides.
Self Actualization
• Rogers believed all organisms are born with one basic motive – a tendency toward
development, maintenance, enhancement, and fulfillment. This actualizing tendency, as he
termed it, moves organisms to satisfy their biological needs and promotes physical
maturation.
• In humans, the actualizing tendency also motivates individuals to develop psychologically,
for example, to increase autonomy, self-regulation and personal growth. Rogers referred to
this unique, psychological aspect of the actualizing tendency as self-actualization since it
involves development of the self. Self-actualization is a striving to achieve one’s highest
potential. It is the primary drive behind personality development. (You may recognize this
term from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.)
• In the face of unfavorable life events, the actualizing tendency may become impaired or
inhibited. However, Roger’s belief was that it cannot be destroyed, except by death. Even
when adverse circumstances severely limits an organism’s ability to grow, Rogers believed it
will keep striving as best as it can, while adjusting to the constraints of the situation.
• The actualizing tendency is regulated by what Rogers called the organismic valuing
process. This is an inborn mechanism that allows us to evaluate experiences regarding how
well they support or oppose our tendency to develop and enhance the self. Experiences
that support this tendency are valued positively and we actively seek them; those that
oppose it are valued negatively and we actively avoid them.
“As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves."
• Like a flower that will grow to its full potential if the conditions are
right, but which is constrained by its environment, so people will
flourish and reach their potential if their environment is good
enough.
• However, unlike a flower, the potential of the individual human is
unique, and we are meant to develop in different ways according to
our personality. Rogers believed that people are inherently good
and creative.
• They become destructive only when a poor self-concept or external
constraints override the valuing process. Carl Rogers believed that
for a person to achieve self-actualization they must be in a state of
congruence.
• This means that self-actualization occurs when a person’s “ideal
self” (i.e., who they would like to be) is congruent with their actual
behavior (self-image).
Self
• Central to Rogers' personality theory is the notion of self or selfconcept. This is defined as "the organized, consistent set of
perceptions and beliefs about oneself."
• The self is the humanistic term for who we really are as a
person. The self is our inner personality, and can be likened to the
soul, or Freud's psyche. The self is influenced by the experiences a
person has in their life, and out interpretations of those
experiences. Two primary sources that influence our self-concept
are childhood experiences and evaluation by others.
• According to Rogers (1959), we want to feel, experience and behave
in ways which are consistent with our self-image and which reflect
what we would like to be like, our ideal-self. The closer our selfimage and ideal-self are to each other, the more consistent or
congruent we are and the higher our sense of self-worth.
• A person is said to be in a state of incongruence if some of the
totality of their experience is unacceptable to them and is denied or
distorted in the self-image.
• The humanistic approach states that the self is composed of concepts
unique to ourselves. The self-concept includes three components:
Self-worth (or self-esteem)
• It comprises what we think about ourselves. Rogers believed feelings of
self-worth developed in early childhood and were formed from the
interaction of the child with the mother and father.
Self-image
• How we see ourselves, which is important to good psychological
health. Self-image includes the influence of our body image on inner
personality.
• At a simple level, we might perceive ourselves as a good or bad person,
beautiful or ugly. Self-image affects how a person thinks, feels and
behaves in the world.
Ideal-self
• This is the person who we would like to be. It consists of our goals and
ambitions in life, and is dynamic – i.e., forever changing.
• The ideal self in childhood is not the ideal self in our teens or late
twenties etc.
Incongruence
• Take, for example, a young man who has been taught by his parents that it is
wrong to show any sign of anger. He internalizes these values and comes to think
of himself as a very calm person who never gets angry. Yet, when teased by his
coworkers, his face gets red, he breaks out in sweat, and his heart rate quickens,
all while he is seething inside.
• Such an individual is experiencing what Rogers called incongruence – a clear
discrepancy between one’s perception of the self and one’s actual experiences.
Incongruence invariably results in tension, which is often experienced as anxiety.
In order to reduce this anxiety and protect the self-concept, the individual may
employ defenses such as denial or distortion of their experiences. For example,
the young man in the example may choose to block out those occasions when
he became genuinely angry, or he might attribute his physiological reactions to
dealing with a stressful project at work.
• According to Rogers, healthy individuals do not need to rely on defenses to
protect their self-concept. They are able to assimilate and incorporate most, if
not all, of their experiences, including those that are inconsistent with their
existing self-structure. Rather than clinging to a rigid view of the self, they allow
room for their self-concept to adapt and grow. They learn to accept themselves
and embrace all their experiences.
Congruence
• Healthy individuals exist in a state of congruence, where their
experiences closely match their internal representation of the
self. It is important to note though, that people rarely
experience a state of total congruence, where all their
experiences are consistent with their self-image. All of us
experience some degree of incongruence. The greater our
level of incongruence, the greater our level of psychological
distress.
• The development of congruence is dependent on
unconditional positive regard. Carl Rogers believed that for a
person to achieve self-actualization they must be in a state of
congruence.
Conditional vs Unconditional
Positive Regard
• As children grow and develop an awareness of self, they
experience a need for positive regard, that is, a need for love
and acceptance. Children who are raised in an atmosphere
of conditional positive regard receive love and acceptance
only under certain conditions or when they engage in certain
behaviors. In an environment of unconditional positive
regard, love and acceptance are provided independent of the
child’s behavior, with no strings attached.
• Children who are raised with conditional positive regard may begin to
view themselves in much the same way they are viewed by significant
others. Instead of being guided by their organismic valuing process, they
begin to act according to introjected conditions of worth. These are
external values that others place on a person’s behavior. They result in a
person feeling valued in some respects, but not in others.
• Conditional positive regard and conditions of worth set the stage for
incongruence. Consider a young girl who enjoys playing soccer and has
dreams of playing professionally. Her mother disapproves of her soccer
playing but constantly tells her how proud she would be of her if she
became a teacher like her sisters. These conditions of worth soon
become incorporated into her self-concept. She starts to believe she
should excel at teaching because this would result in greater approval
from her mother.
• The result is conflict or incongruence between what the young girl
naturally experiences as satisfying (playing soccer) and what her selfconcept now demands from her (abandoning soccer in favor of
teaching). Of course, the result in this situation would be psychological
tension and discomfort, along with the associated defenses.
What Are The 6 Core Conditions?
• In order for the tension to dissipate and change to occur, Carl
Rogers believed six core conditions must exist:
1. Psychological contact between counselor and client
2. The client is incongruent
3. The counselor is congruent
4. The client receives empathy from the counselor
5. The counselor shows unconditional positive regard towards
the client
6. The client perceives acceptance and unconditional positive
regard
person-centered therapy
• Rogers applied his humanistic theory to the practice of
psychotherapy, developing what came to be known as personcentered therapy. This form of therapy is based on the
Rogerian belief that all clients possess within themselves the
potential for change and better health. The role of the
therapist is simply to free or stimulate the individual’s
actualizing tendency through a relationship marked by
empathy, genuineness and unconditional positive regard.
• The three pillars of person-centered therapy include the six
conditions, seven stages of process, and 19 propositions.
The Fully Functioning Person
• Rogers believed that every person could achieve their goal.
This means that the person is in touch with the here and now,
his or her subjective experiences and feelings, continually
growing and changing. For Rogers, fully functioning people are
well adjusted, well balanced and interesting to know. Often
such people are high achievers in society.
Characteristics of a fully
functioning person:
• 1. Open to experience: both positive and negative emotions accepted. Negative feelings
are not denied, but worked through (rather than resorting to ego defense mechanisms).
• 2. Existential living: in touch with different experiences as they occur in life, avoiding
prejudging and preconceptions. Being able to live and fully appreciate the present, not
always looking back to the past or forward to the future (i.e., living for the moment).
• 3. Trust feelings: feeling, instincts, and gut-reactions are paid attention to and trusted.
People’s own decisions are the right ones, and we should trust ourselves to make the right
choices.
• 4. Creativity: creative thinking and risk-taking are features of a person’s life. A person does
not play safe all the time. This involves the ability to adjust and change and seek new
experiences.
• 5. Fulfilled life: a person is happy and satisfied with life, and always looking for new
challenges and experiences.
• 6. Reliability and constructiveness – they can be trusted to act constructively. An individual
who is open to all their needs will be able to maintain a balance between them. Even
aggressive needs will be matched and balanced by intrinsic goodness in congruent
individuals.
• 7. Freedom of choice – not being shackled by the restrictions that influence an incongruent
individual, they are able to make a wider range of choices more fluently. They believe that
they play a role in determining their own behavior and so feel responsible for their own
behavior.
This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the
stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the
courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. (Rogers 1961)
The nineteen propositions
• The nineteen propositions’ repay careful reading because
together they provide us with an eloquent theory of
personality which is entirely consistent with Rogers’ theory of
how people can change for the better, and why certain
qualities of relationship are necessary in order to promote
that change.
1) Every individual exists in a continually changing world of experiencing of which he is the
centre.
2) The organism reacts to the field as it is experienced and perceived. This perceptual field
is, for the individual, ‘reality’. We see ourselves as the centre of our ‘reality’; that is, our everchanging world around us. We experience ourselves as the centre of our world, and we can
only ‘know’ our own perceptions.
3) The organism reacts as an organised whole to this phenomenal field. The whole person
works together rather than as separate parts.
4) The organism has one basic tendency and striving – to actualize, maintain, and enhance
the experiencing organism. Human beings have a basic tendency to fulfil their potential, to be
positive, forward looking, to grow, improve, and protect their existence.
5) Behaviour is basically the goal-directed attempt of the organism to satisfy its needs as
experienced in the field as perceived. The things we do (our behaviour in everyday life) in
order to satisfy our fundamental needs. If we accept proposition 4, that all needs are related,
then all complex needs are related to basic needs. Needs are ‘as experienced’ and the world is
‘as perceived’.
6) Emotion accompanies and in general facilitates such goal-directed behaviour, the kind of
emotion being related to the seeking versus the consummatory aspects of the behaviour,
and the intensity of the emotion being related to the perceived significance of the behaviour
for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism. Feelings are associated with, and
help us to get, satisfaction and fulfilment. Generally speaking, pleasant feelings arise when we
are satisfied, unpleasant feelings when we are not satisfied. The more important the situation,
the stronger the feelings.
7) The best vantage point from which to understand behaviour is from the internal frame of
reference of the individual himself. To understand the behaviour of a person, we must look at the
world from their point of view.
8) A portion of the total perceptual field gradually becomes differentiated as the self. Some of what
we recognise as ‘reality’, we come to call ‘me’ or ‘self’.
9) As a result of interaction with the environment, and particularly as a result of evaluational
interaction with others, the structure of the self is formed – an organised, fluid, but consistent
conceptual pattern of perceptions of characteristics and relationships of the ’I’ or the ‘me’ together
with values attached to these concepts.
10) The values attached to experiences, and the values which are part of the self structure, in some
instances are values experienced directly by the organism, and in some instances are values
introjected or taken over from others, but perceived in a distorted fashion, as if they had been
experienced directly. As we go about our everyday life, we build up a picture of ourselves, called the
self-concept, from relating to and being with others and by interacting with the world around
us. Sometimes we believe other people’s version of reality and we absorb them into our self-concept
as though they were our own.
11) As experiences occur in the life of an individual, they are either a) symbolized, perceived and
organized into some relationship to the self, b) ignored because there is no relationship to the selfstructure, c) denied symbolization or given a distorted symbolization because the experience is
inconsistent with the structure of the self. There are several things we can do with our everyday
experience: we can see that it is relevant to ourselves or we can ignore it because it is irrelevant; or if
we experience something that doesn’t fit with our picture of ourselves we can either pretend it didn’t
happen or change our picture of it, so that it does fit.
12) Most of the ways of behaving which are adopted by the organism are those which are
consistent with the concept of the self. Most of the time we do things and live our lives in ways
which are in keeping with our picture of ourselves.
13) Behaviour may, in some instances, be brought about by organic experiences and needs
which have not been symbolised. Such behaviour may be inconsistent with the structure of
the self, but in such instances the behaviour is not ‘owned’ by the individual. Sometimes we
do things as a result of experiences from inside us we have denied, or needs we have not
acknowledged. This may conflict with the picture we have of ourselves, so we refuse to accept
it is really us doing it.
14) Psychological maladjustment exists when the organism denies to awareness significant
sensory and visceral experiences, which consequently are not symbolized and organised into
the gestalt of the self-structure. When this situation exists, there is a basic or potential
psychological tension. When we experience something that doesn’t fit with our picture of
ourselves and we cannot fit it in with that picture, we feel tense, anxious, frightened or
confused.
15) Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of the self is such that all the sensory
and visceral experiences of the organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic level into
a consistent relationship with the concept of the self. We feel relaxed and in control when the
things we do and the experiences we have all fit in with the picture we have of ourselves.
16) Any experience which is inconsistent with the organization or structure of self may be
perceived as a threat, and the more of these perceptions there are, the more rigidly the selfstructure is organized to maintain itself. When things happen that don’t fit with the picture
we have of ourselves, we feel anxious. The more anxious we feel, the more stubbornly we
hang on to the picture we have of ourselves as ‘real’.
17) Under certain conditions, involving primarily complete absence of any threat to the selfstructure, experiences which are inconsistent with it may be perceived, and examined, and the
structure of self revised to assimilate and include such experiences. When we are in a relationship
where we feel safe, understood and accepted for who we are, we can look at some of the things that
don’t fit in with our picture of ourselves and, if necessary change our picture to fit our experience
more accurately. Or we can accept the occasional differences between our pictures of ourselves and
our experience without becoming anxious.
18) When the individual perceives and accepts into one consistent and integrated system all his
sensory and visceral experiences, then he is necessarily more understanding of others and is more
accepting of others as separate individuals. When we see ourselves more clearly and accept
ourselves more for what we are than as how others would like us to be, we can understand that
others are equal to us, sharing basic human qualities, yet distinct as individuals.
19) As the individual perceives and accepts into his self-structure more of his organic experiences,
he finds that he is replacing his value system – based so largely upon introjections which have been
distortedly symbolized – with a continuing organismic valuing process. We stop applying rigid rules
to govern our values and use a more flexible way of valuing based upon our own experience, not on
the values we have taken in from others.
• A reading of the ‘nineteen propositions’ gives a clear sense of how person-centred personality
theory reflects a view of the person continually in process. The person is able, or potentially able
to become free from conditions and move away from its debilitating effects towards becoming
more integrated and fully functioning. In other words, Rogers viewed the negative effects of early
relationships imposing conditions of worth as being largely responsible for the development of
emotional or psychological disturbance; the other side of this coin is the person-centred idea that
whilst some relationships can be damaging, others can be positively growth promoting.”
The Seven Stage Process
• Stage 1: Clients are defensive and resistant to change.
According to Rogers (1958), clients in this stage refer to
feelings and emotions as things of the past rather than the
present, as they react to past experiences rather than to
present ones. Only when a person feels fully accepted, can he
or she progress to the next stage.
• Stage 2: Clients become slightly less rigid and begin to discuss
external events or other people. In this stage, feelings tend to
be described as “unowned” or even as past objects.
• Stage 3: Clients begin to discuss themselves, but as an object
rather than a person. This is because they are avoiding a
discussion of the present.
• Stage 4: Clients progress to discussing deeper feelings as they
develop a relationship with the counsellor.
• Stage 5: Clients can express present emotions and begin to rely on
their own decision-making abilities. Subsequently, they begin to
accept more responsibility for their actions. They have a growing
acceptance of contradictions and understanding of incongruence.
• Stage 6: Clients show rapid growth towards congruence and often
begin to develop unconditional positive regard (UPR) for others. This
stage indicates the client no longer needs formal counselling
(Wilkins, 2000).
• Stage 7: Clients are fully functioning, self-actualised and empathic,
and can show UPR towards others. The last and ultimate stage of
person-centred therapy can be construed as achieving movement
from heteronomy (control by external forces) to autonomy (control
of inner forces) (Kensit, 2000)
• Rogers identified that the journey between stages is not linear (with
people moving both ways):
• "… it is rare to find someone who shows signs of being in only one
'stage' at a time. At some points, a client might even seem to the
counsellor to have 'gone backwards'.” (Tolan, 2003: 112)
Learner-centred education
• Carl Rogers applied his experiences with adult therapy to the education
process and developed the concept of learner-centered teaching. He
had the following five hypotheses regarding learner-centered education:
• -“A person cannot teach another person directly; a person can only
facilitate another's learning” (Rogers, 1951). This is a result of his
personality theory, which states that everyone exists in a constantly
changing world of experience in which he or she is the center. Each
person reacts and responds based on perception and experience. The
belief is that what the student does is more important than what the
teacher does. The focus is on the student (Rogers, 1951). Therefore, the
background and experiences of the learner are essential to how and
what is learned. Each student will process what he or she learns
differently depending on what he or she brings to the classroom.
• -“A person learns significantly only those things that are perceived as
being involved in the maintenance of or enhancement of the structure
of self” (Rogers, 1951). Therefore, relevancy to the student is essential
for learning. The students' experiences become the core of the course.
• -“Experience which, if assimilated, would involve a change in the organization of
self, tends to be resisted through denial or distortion of symbolism” (Rogers,
1951). If the content or presentation of a course is inconsistent with
preconceived information, the student will learn if he or she is open to varying
concepts. Being open to consider concepts that vary from one's own is vital to
learning. Therefore, gently encouraging open-mindedness is helpful in engaging
the student in learning. Also, it is important, for this reason, that new
information is relevant and related to existing experience.
• -“The structure and organization of self appears to become more rigid under
threats and to relax its boundaries when completely free from threat” (Rogers,
1951). If students believe that concepts are being forced upon them, they might
become uncomfortable and fearful. A barrier is created by a tone of threat in the
classroom. Therefore, an open, friendly environment in which trust is developed
is essential in the online classroom. Fear of retribution for not agreeing with a
concept should be eliminated. A classroom tone of support helps to alleviate
fears and encourages students to have the courage to explore concepts and
beliefs that vary from those they bring to the classroom. Also, new information
might threaten the student’s concept of him- or herself; therefore, the less
vulnerable the student feels, the more likely he or she will be able to open up to
the learning process.
• -“Experience which, if assimilated, would involve a change in the organization of
self, tends to be resisted through denial or distortion of symbolism” (Rogers,
1951). If the content or presentation of a course is inconsistent with
preconceived information, the student will learn if he or she is open to varying
concepts. Being open to consider concepts that vary from one's own is vital to
learning. Therefore, gently encouraging open-mindedness is helpful in engaging
the student in learning. Also, it is important, for this reason, that new
information is relevant and related to existing experience.
• -“The structure and organization of self appears to become more rigid under
threats and to relax its boundaries when completely free from threat” (Rogers,
1951). If students believe that concepts are being forced upon them, they might
become uncomfortable and fearful. A barrier is created by a tone of threat in the
classroom. Therefore, an open, friendly environment in which trust is developed
is essential in the online classroom. Fear of retribution for not agreeing with a
concept should be eliminated. A classroom tone of support helps to alleviate
fears and encourages students to have the courage to explore concepts and
beliefs that vary from those they bring to the classroom. Also, new information
might threaten the student’s concept of him- or herself; therefore, the less
vulnerable the student feels, the more likely he or she will be able to open up to
the learning process.
Criticism
• Although Rogers showed a willingness to test his theory empirically,
he has been criticized for his overemphasis on self-report
instruments due to their subjective nature and the potential for
deception. Some of Rogers concepts, such as congruence and
unconditional positive regard, have also proven difficult to measure
and study scientifically.
• Other critics argue that by relying primarily on clients’ self-reports,
Rogers completely ignores the unconscious factors that influence
behavior and personality. As a result, his approach has been viewed
as somewhat superficial.
• Roger’s considered the healthy personality to be one that is selfactualizing, differentiated from others, and focused on achievement.
This aspect of his theory may not be very applicable to non-Western
cultures, where family and community are emphasized over
individual strivings, and where the self is largely defined in relation
to others.