Gerald D.

Vargas Theories of Personality BS-Psychology 2

Written Report for Chapter 10

Chapter 10. Carl Rogers: Person Centered Theory

Carl Ransom Rogers
 Born on January 8, 1902 in Oak Park Illinois.
 Aspired to become a farmer so he majored in agriculture after finishing high
school. After various religious experiences, he enrolled in a seminary and aspired
to become a minister but eventually left the Theological Seminary and proceeded
to enroll with a major in clinical and educational psychology.
 For him, Therapy is an emotional growth-producing relationship, nurtured by the
therapist’s emphatic listening and unconditional acceptance of the client.
 Minimized the causes of disturbances and the identification and labeling of
disorders. Instead emphasized the importance of growth within the patient.
 Despite his early problems with interpersonal relationships, he grew to become a
leading proponent of the notion that the interpersonal relationship between two
individuals is a powerful ingredient that cultivates psychological growth within
both persons.
Person Centered Theory
 During the early years, his approach was known as “nondirective”.
 Later, his approach was variously termed “client-centered”, “person-centered”,
“student- centered”, “group-centered”, and “person to person”.
 Traditional classifications such as those found in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) have never been part in the
vocabulary of Person Centered Theory
 We use a more inclusive term “person-centered” to refer to Rogerian Personality
Theory.

Basic Assumptions
 Formative Tendency - For Rogers, it is a process in which there is a
tendency for all matter, both organic and inorganic, to evolve from simpler
to more complex forms. For the entire universe, a creative process, rather
than a disintegrative one, is in operation.
 Actualizing Tendency - The tendency within all humans to move toward
completion or fulfillment of potentials. Actualization involves the whole
person’s--physiological and intellectual, rational and emotional, conscious
and unconscious.
 Maintenance – Tendency to maintain and to enhance the organism
(includes the life’s basic needs, but it also includes the tendency to
 resist change whenever people tries to protect their current,
comfortable self-concept)
 Enhancement - The need to become more, to develop, and to
achieve growth (the needs for enhancement are expressed in
curiosity, playfulness, self-exploration, relationships, and
confidence that one can achieve psychological growth)
The Self and Self Actualization
 According to Rogers, Infants begin to develop a vague concept of self when a
portion of their experience becomes personalized and differentiated in
awareness as “I” or “me” experiences. Infants gradually become aware of their
own identity as they learn what tastes good and what tastes bad, what feels
pleasant and what does not.
 Self-actualization is a subset of the actualization tendency and therefore not
synonymous with it. Once infants establish a rudimentary self-structure, their
tendency to actualize the self begins to evolve.
 Self-actualization is the tendency to actualize the self as perceived in awareness.
Rogers postulated two self-subsystems, the (1) self-concept and the (2) ideal self.
 The Self Concept - it includes all those aspects as of one’s being and one’s
experiences that are perceived in awareness by the individual. (The self-
concept is not identical with the organismic self)
- Once people have set up their self-concept, they find change and significant
learning quite difficult.
- An established self -concept does not make change impossible, merely
difficult. Change most readily happens in an atmosphere of acceptance by
others.
 The Ideal Self - defines as one’s view of self as one wishes to be. It contains
all those attributes, usually positive, that people aspire to possess.
Psychologically healthy individuals perceive little discrepancy between their
self-concept and what they ideally would like to be.
Awareness
 Rogers defined awareness as “the symbolic representation of some portion of
our experience”
 Rogers recognized three levels of awareness.
 Ignored or Denied - events that are experienced below the threshold of
awareness.
 Accurately symbolized - experiences that are freely admitted to the self-
structure. Nonthreatening experiences that are consistent with the existing
self-concept.
  Distorted - experiences that are not consistent with our view of self are
reshaped and distorted so that it can be assimilated in our existing self-
concept.
Denial of a Positive Experience
It is not only the negative or derogatory experiences that are distorted or denied to
awareness; many people have difficulty accepting genuine compliments and positive
feedback, even when deserved. They may be distorted because the person distrusts
the giver, or they may be denied because the recipient does not feel deserving of them.
Becoming a Person
Rogers discussed the process necessary to become a person
 First, an individual must make contact- positive or negative- with another person.
 Positive regard - As children or adults become aware that another person has
some measure of regard for them, they begin to value positive regard and
devalue negative regard. The person then develops a need to be loved, liked, or
accepted by another person. Positive regard is a prerequisite for positive self-
regard.
 Positive self-regard - it is the experience of prizing of valuing one’s self. The
source of positive self-regard, then lies in the positive regard we receive from
others, but once established, it is autonomous and self-perpetuating.
Barriers to Psychological Health
 Conditions of worth - Instead of receiving unconditional positive regard, most
people receive Conditions of worth; that is, they perceive that their parents,
peers, or partners love and accept them only if they meet those people’s
expectations and approval. We gradually assimilate into our self-structure the
attitudes we perceive others expressing towards us, and in time we begin to
evaluate experiences on this basis.
- If we see others accept us regardless of our actions, then we come to believe
that we are prized unconditionally. But if we perceive that some of our behaviors
are disapproved, then we see that our worth is conditional.
 External Evaluations - Our perception of other people’s view of us. Whether
positive or negative, these evaluations do not foster our psychological health but
rather prevent us from being completely open to our own experiences.
Incongruence
The organism and the self are two separate entities and at times they become
incongruent with one another. Incongruence is a psychological disequilibrium and it
begins when we fail to recognize our organismic experiences as self-experiences; that
is when we do not accurately symbolize organismic experiences into awareness
because they appear to be inconsistent with our emerging self-concept.
  Vulnerability - We are more vulnerable when there is great incongruence
between our perceived self and our organismic experience.
- Occurs when people are unaware of the discrepancy between their organismic
self and their significant experience.
 Anxiety and Threat- Whereas vulnerability exists when we have no awareness of
the incongruence within our self, anxiety and threat are experienced as we gain
awareness of such incongruence.
 Anxiety - a state of uneasiness or tension whose cause is unknown.
 Threat - awareness that our self is no longer whole or congruent.
Defensiveness
People react in a defensive manner in order to prevent this inconsistency between our
organismic experience and our perceived self. It is the protection of the self-concept
against anxiety and threat by the denial or distortion of experiences inconsistent with it.
The two chief defenses are distortion and denial.
 Distortion - misinterpreting experience in order to fit it into some aspect of our
self-concept.
 Denial - refusing to perceive and experience in awareness, or at least we keep
some aspect of it from reaching symbolization.
Disorganization
 Most people engage in defensive behavior, but sometimes defenses fail and
behavior becomes disorganized or psychotic.
 People’s behaviors become disorganized when the incongruence between their
perceived self and their organismic experience is either too obvious or occurs too
suddenly to be denied or distorted.