Carl Rogers: An Overview
Emphasizing on human potential, Carl Rogers had an enormous influence on both psychology and education. He is considered one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. Today, Rogers is best known for his non-directive approach to treatment named client-centered therapy, his concept of the actualizing tendency, and developing the concept of the fully-functioning person.
Self-Actualization: Empathy, Genuineness, Acceptance
Carl Rogers agreed with much said by Maslow. He believed that people are basically good and are endowed with self-actualizing tendencies. Unless thwarted by an environment that inhibits growth. Rogers believed growth-promoting climate required three conditions – genuineness, acceptance, and empathy. According to Rogers the people that we come in contact with nurture our growth by being genuine. Being genuine is being open with one's own feelings, dropping one's facades, and being transparent and self-disclosing. People also nurture our growth by being accepting – by offering us what Rogers called unconditional positive regard. Unconditional positive regard is an attitude of total acceptance towards another person. This attitude allows us to know we are going to be accepted even after they know our worst failures and mistakes. This allows for good marriages, close families, and intimate relationships to be free of restraints and not have the fear of loose esteem. Our growth is influenced by empathy by others sharing and mirroring our feelings and reflecting our meanings. “Genuine, acceptance, and empathy are the water, sun, and nutrients that enable people to grow like vigorous oak trees.”
Humanistic Evaluation Techniques
To assess personality, humanistic psychologists asked people to fill out questionnaires evaluating their self-concept. Carl Rogers inspired a questionnaire that asked people to describe themselves both as they would ideally like to be and as they actually are. When the ideal and actual self are nearly alike, Rogers concluded the self-concept is positive. In assessing his client's personal growth during therapy, Rogers looked for successively closer ratings of actual and ideal selves. However, some humanistic psychologists do not agree that questionnaires are adequate indicators of personality, arguing that the questionnaires themselves are depersonalizing. These humanistic psychologists presumed that intimate conversation would provide a better understand of each person's unique experiences rather than forcing people to respond to narrow categories that the questionnaires limited them to.