Chapter 11 - Carl Rogers – Person-Centered Theory

Vocabulary flashcards summarizing the key concepts of Carl Rogers’s Person-Centered Theory, including foundational assumptions, therapeutic conditions, processes, and related modern research terms.

Formative Tendency

The universal inclination of all matter, organic and inorganic, to evolve from simple toward more complex forms.

Actualizing Tendency

The single basic motive in all living beings to move toward completion, fulfillment, and enhancement of the organism.

Self-Actualization

The subset of the actualizing tendency that refers specifically to fulfilling and enhancing the self as it is perceived in awareness.

Self-Concept

All aspects of one’s being and experiences that are perceived in awareness and owned as ‘I’ or ‘me.’

Ideal Self

The self one would most like to be; a collection of aspirations and desired traits.

Organismic Experience

The total, ongoing experience of the organism—conscious and unconscious, physiological and psychological.

Congruence

The matching of organismic experience, awareness, and outward expression; genuineness or realness.

Incongruence

A mismatch between the organismic experience and the perceived self, leading to psychological tension.

Positive Regard

The basic human need to be loved, liked, or accepted by others.

Unconditional Positive Regard

Warm acceptance of another person without conditions, evaluations, or reservations.

Positive Self-Regard

The experience of valuing and prizing oneself; arises after receiving positive regard from others.

Conditions of Worth

Perceived stipulations that one must meet to receive positive regard from significant others.

External Evaluation

Valuing experiences according to others’ opinions rather than one’s own organismic valuing.

Awareness (Symbolization)

The conscious, symbolic representation of some portion of experience.

Vulnerability

State in which incongruence exists but the person is unaware of it, leaving them open to anxiety.

Anxiety

Uneasiness that occurs when a person becomes dimly aware of incongruence between self and experience.

Threat

Heightened awareness that the self is no longer whole or congruent.

Defensiveness

Protection of the self-concept through denial or distortion of experiences inconsistent with it.

Distortion

Misinterpretation of an experience so it fits the current self-concept.

Denial

Refusal to allow an experience into awareness to avoid incongruence.

Disorganization

Breakdown of defenses when incongruence is too obvious or sudden, leading to bizarre or psychotic behavior.

Becoming a Person

Process beginning with contact and leading to positive self-regard through receiving positive regard from others.

Client-Centered Therapy

Therapeutic approach emphasizing therapist congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding.

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

Therapist qualities of congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathy required to foster client growth.

Empathic Listening

Accurate sensing and communicating of a client’s feelings without judgment, allowing the client to feel understood.

Person of Tomorrow

Rogers’s term for the fully functioning person—open to experience, living existentially, trusting self, and richly adaptive.

Organismic Valuing Process (OVP)

Innate, intuitive guide that leads individuals toward intrinsically fulfilling goals and experiences.

Self-Discrepancy Theory

Higgins’s extension of Rogers proposing that gaps between real, ideal, and ought selves predict specific negative emotions.

Intrinsic Goals

Objectives that are inherently satisfying and congruent with one’s ideal self, pursued for their own sake.

Extrinsic Goals

Objectives pursued for external rewards such as money or status rather than inherent fulfillment.

Flow

State of deep immersion and engagement in an activity where time and self-consciousness fade.