?Chapter Outline
I. Overview of Rogers's Person-Centered Theory Although Carl Rogers is top known as being the founder of client-centered therapy, he also developed an important theory of personality that underscores his solution to therapy.
II. Biography of Carl Rogers Carl Rogers was born into a devoutly religious family in a very Chicago suburb in 1902. After the family moved into a farm near Chicago, Carl became interested in scientific farming and learned to appreciate the scientific method. When he graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Rogers intended to become a minister, but he gave up that notion and completed a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University in 1931. In 1940, after nearly a dozen years absent from an academic life working as a clinician, he took a position at Ohio State University. Later, he held positions within the University of Chicago along with the University of Wisconsin. In 1964, he moved to California where he helped found the Center for Studies for the Person. He died in 1987 at age 85.
III. Person-Centered Theory Rogers carefully crafted his person-centered theory of personality to meet his individual demands for a structural product that could explain and predict outcomes of client-centered therapy. However, the theory has implications far beyond the therapeutic setting. A. Straightforward Assumptions Person-centered theory rests on two simple assumptions: (1) the formative tendency, which states that all matter, both equally organic and inorganic, tends to evolve from simpler to far more complex kinds, and (two) an actualizing tendency, which suggests that all living things, this includes humans, tend to move toward completion, or fulfillment of potentials. However, in order for people (or plants and animals) to become actualized, certain identifiable conditions must be existing. For a person, these conditions include a relationship with another person who is genuine, or congruent, and who demonstrates comprehensive acceptance and empathy for that person. B. The Self and Self-Actualization A perception of self or personal identity begins to emerge during infancy, and, once established, it allows for a person to strive toward self-actualization, which is usually a subsystem for the actualization tendency and refers to the tendency to actualize the self as perceived in awareness. The self has two subsystems: (1) the self-concept, which comprises all those aspects of one's identity that are perceived in awareness, and (two) the ideal self, or our watch of our self as we would like to be or aspire to be. Once formed, the self concept tends to resist change, and gaps somewhere between it and also ideal self result in incongruence and varieties of degrees of psychopathology.
C. Awareness People are aware of both of those their self-concept and their ideal self, although awareness really want not be accurate or in a very high stage. Rogers saw people as having experiences on three amounts of awareness: (1) those that are symbolized below the threshold of awareness and are either ignored or denied, that could be, subceived, or not allowed into the self-concept; (two) those that are distorted or reshaped to fit it into an present self-concept; and (3) those that are consistent with the self-concept and thus are accurately symbolized and freely admitted to the self-structure. Any have not consistent with the self-concept-even positive experiences-will be distorted or denied. D. Needs The two important human needs are maintenance and enhancement, but people also ought positive regard and self-regard. Maintenance needs include those for food, air, and safety, however they also include our tendency to resist change and to preserve our self-concept as it is. Enhancement needs include needs to grow and to realize one's extensive human potential. As awareness of self emerges, an infant begins to get positive regard from another person-that is, to be loved or accepted. People naturally value those experiences that satisfy their needs for positive regard, but, unfortunately, this value in certain cases becomes a good deal more powerful than the reward they get for meeting their organismic needs. This sets up the condition of incongruence, which is dealt with when common organismic needs are denied or distorted in favor of needs to be loved or accepted. As a result of experiences with positive regard, people create the will want for self-regard, which they acquire only after they perceive that someone else cares for them and values them. Once established, however, self-regard becomes autonomous and no longer dependent on another's continuous positive evaluation. E. Conditions of Worth Most people are not unconditionally accepted. Instead, they acquire conditions of worth; that is definitely, they actually feel that they are loved and accepted only when and if they meet the conditions established by others. F. Psychological Stagnation If the organismic self and therefore the self-concept are at variance with just one another, a person may adventure incongruence, which comes with vulnerability, threat, defensiveness, and even disorganization. The greater the incongruence involving self-concept and also organismic expertise, the far more vulnerable that person becomes. Anxiety exists whenever the person becomes dimly aware on the discrepancy somewhere between organismic knowledge and self-concept, whereas threat is veteran whenever the person becomes increased clearly aware of this incongruence. To prevent incongruence, people react with defensiveness, typically inside of the varieties of distortion and denial. With distortion, people misinterpret an expertise so that it fits into their self-concept; with denial, people refuse to let the working experience into awareness. When people's defenses fail to operate properly, their behavior becomes disorganized or psychotic. With disorganization, people frequently behave consistently with their organismic practical knowledge and now and then in accordance with their shattered self-concept.
IV. Psychotherapy For client-centered psychotherapy to be effective, certain conditions are necessary: A vulnerable client must have contact of some duration having a counselor who is congruent, and who demonstrates unconditional positive regard and listens with empathy to the client. The client must in turn perceive the congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathy on the therapist. If these conditions are current, then the system of therapy will take position and certain predictable outcomes will result. A. Conditions Three conditions are crucial to client-centered therapy, and Rogers called them the necessary and sufficient conditions for therapeutic growth. The initially is counselor congruence, or a therapist whose organismic experiences are matched by an awareness and by the ability and willingness to openly express these feelings. Congruence is way more straightforward than the opposite two conditions as it is mostly a relatively stable characteristic from the therapist, whereas the opposite two conditions are confined to some exact therapeutic relationship. Unconditional positive regard exists in the event the therapist accepts the client without conditions or qualifications. Empathic listening is the therapist's ability to perception the feelings of the client and also to communicate these perceptions so that the client knows that another person has entered into his or her world of feelings without prejudice, projection, or evaluation. B. Method Rogers saw the course of action of therapeutic change as taking spot in seven stages: (1) clients are unwilling to communicate anything about themselves; (two) they discuss only external events and other people; (3) they begin to talk about themselves, but even now as an object; (four) they discuss robust emotions that they have felt on the past; (5) they begin to express existing feelings; (6) they freely allow for into awareness those experiences that have been previously denied or distorted; and (7) they practical knowledge irreversible change and growth. C. Outcomes When client-centered therapy is successful, clients become a lot more congruent, less defensive, a good deal more open to knowledge, plus much more realistic. The gap in between their ideal self and their true self narrows and, as a consequence, clients practical knowledge less physiological and psychological tension. Finally, clients' interpersonal relationships improve due to the fact they are considerably more accepting of self and others.
V. The Person of Tomorrow Rogers was vitally interested around the psychologically healthy person, called the "fully functioning person" or the "person of tomorrow." Rogers listed seven characteristics with the person of tomorrow. The person of tomorrow (1) is able to adjust to change, (two) is open to adventure, (3) is able to live fully inside moment, (four) is able to have harmonious relations with others, (5) is a lot more integrated with no artificial boundaries amongst conscious and unconscious processes, (6) has a elementary trust of human nature, and (7) enjoys a greater richness in life. The factors have implications both equally for that individual and for society.
VI. Philosophy of Science Rogers agreed with Maslow that scientists must care about and be involved from the phenomena they study which psychologists should limit their objectivity and precision to their methodology, not to the development of hypotheses or to the communication of research findings.
VII. The Chicago Study When he taught on the University of Chicago, Rogers, along with colleagues and graduate students, conducted a sophisticated and complex study within the effectiveness of psychotherapy. A. Hypotheses This study tested four broad hypotheses. As a consequence of therapy (1) clients will become way more aware of their feelings and experiences, (two) the gap involving the real self also, the ideal self will lessen; (3) clients' behavior will become significantly more socialized and mature; and (four) clients will become equally far more self-accepting plus more accepting of others. B. Method Participants were being adults who sought therapy with the University of Chicago counseling center. Experimenters asked fifty percent of these to wait sixty days before receiving therapy at the same time beginning therapy with the opposite 50 %. Also, they tested a control group of "normals" who ended up matched with the therapy group. This control group was also divided into a wait group plus a non-wait group. C. Findings Rogers and his associates found that the therapy group-but not the wait group-showed a lessening belonging to the gap involving real self and ideal self. They also found that clients who improved during therapy-but not those rated as least improved-showed changes in social behavior, as noted by friends. D. Summary of Outcome Although client-centered therapy was successful in changing clients, it was not successful in bringing them to the amount on the fully functioning persons or even to the amount of "normal" psychological health.
VIII. Related Research Greater fairly recently, other researchers have investigated Rogers's facilitative conditions the two outdoors therapy and in therapy. A. Facilitative Conditions Exterior Therapy During the United Kingdom, Duncan Cramer has conducted a series of studies investigating the therapeutic qualities of Rogers's facilitative conditions in interpersonal relationships exterior of therapy. Cramer found positive relationships amongst self-esteem, as measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and then the four facilitative conditions that make up the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory-level of regard, unconditionality of regard, congruence, and empathy. Moreover, the direction belonging to the relationship strongly suggested that Rogers's facilitative conditions precede the acquisition of higher ranges of self-esteem. B. Facilitative Conditions and Couples Therapy In Belgium, Alfons Vansteenwegen (1996) utilized a revised sort from the Barrett-Lennard to determine if Rogers's facilitative conditions related to success during couples therapy. He found that client-centered couples therapy can bring about positive changes in couples, which a few of these changes lasted for at least seven years after therapy.
IX. Critique of Rogers Rogers's person-centered theory is one particular of your most carefully constructed of all personality theories, and it meets really perfectly every of your six criteria of the useful theory. It rates very superior on internal consistency and parsimony, huge on its ability to be falsified and to generate research, and high-average on its ability to organize knowledge and to serve as a guide to the practitioner.
X. Concept of Humanity Rogers believed that humans have the capacity to change and grow-provided that certain necessary and sufficient conditions are current. Therefore, his theory rates very large on optimism. Moreover, it rates huge on cost-free choice, teleology, conscious motivation, social influences, together with the uniqueness from the individual.
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