Carl Rogers

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The self and tendency towards actualization:

  • Significance of self-insight in the formation of personality.

  • Actualization tendency:

    • Basic human motivation to actualize, maintain and enhance self.

    • Process involves struggle and pain

  • Organismic valuing:

    • Process of judging experiences in terms of hindering in fostering actualization and growth.

    • Perception of experiences influences behavior.


Experiential world:

  • Reliable reality depends on one’s perception of experience.

  • Perception changes with time and circumstance.

  • Experiences become the basis for judgments and behaviors.


Development of the self in childhood:

Infants develop a need for positive regard that guides behavior.


Positive regard: Acceptance, love, and approval from others.

  • Unconditional positive regard: Approval granted regardless of behavior.

  • Positive self-regard: Condition under which an individual grants himself/herself acceptance and approval.

  • Condition of worth: Belief that a person is worthy of approval when.

    • They express desirable behaviors.

    • Refrains from disapproving behavior.

  • Conditional positive regard: Approval, love and acceptance for desirable behaviour and attitudes.

  • Incongruence: Discrepancy between one’s self-concept and aspects of experience. Experiences incongruent to one’s self concept becomes threatening.

  • Level of psychological adjustment is a degree of compatibility between one’s self-concept and experiences

 

Fully functioning person:

  • Self-actualization

  • Developing all facets of the self

  • Desired result of psychological development.


Questions on Human Nature:

  1. Emphasis on free will

  2. More focus on nurture influence

  3. More inclined to the present

  4. Recognized uniqueness and universality

  5. Growth process

  6. Optimistic

 

Assessment:

  1. Person-centred therapy:

    • Client is assumed to be responsible for changing their personality.

    • Focus is on subjective conscious experiences.

    • Client is given unconditional positive regard.

  1. Encounter groups:

    • Group therapy techniques.

    • People learn about their feelings and how they relate to one another.

    • Facilitators help members to gain insight.

  1. Psychological tests:

    • The experience inventory.

    • The experience scale

 

Research:

  • Focus: Client self-report.

    • Introduced recording and filming of therapy sessions

  • Person-centered therapy:

    • Q-sort technique: Self-report technique used to assess self-concept

  • Openness to experience

  • Acceptance of self

  • Emotional adjustment

Reflection:

Criticism:

  1. Disregard of unconscious factors that could influence behavior.

  2. Subjective reports may be distorted


Contributions:

  1. Widely used to help veteran adjust to civilian life, post WW 2

  2. PCT became popular and highly accessible.