On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

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I had learned to be more subtle and patient in interpreting a client’s behaviour to him, attempting to time it in a gentle fashion which would gain acceptance. I had been working with a highly intelligent mother whose boy was something of a hellion. The problem was clearly her early rejection of the boy, but over many interviews, I could not help her to this insight. I drew her out, I gently pulled together the evidence she had given, trying to help her see the pattern. But we got nowhere. Finally, I gave up. told her that it seemed we had both tried, but we had failed, and that we might as well give up our contracts. She agreed. So we concluded the interview, shook hands, and she walked to the door of the office. Then she turned and asked, ‘Do you ever take adults for counselling here?’ When I replied in the affirmative, she said. ‘Well then, I would like some help.” She came to the chair she had left, and began to pour out her despair about her marriage, her troubled relationship with her husband, her sense of failure and confusion, all very different from the sterile ‘case history’ she had given before. Real therapy began then, and ultimately it was very successful.” Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter R" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2006-06-18 . Retrieved 7 April 2011.

a b c Rogers, Carl (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist's view of psychotherapy. London: Constable. ISBN 978-1-84529-057-3. With regard to development, Rogers described principles rather than stages. The main issue is the development of a self-concept and the progress from an undifferentiated self to being fully differentiated. Concepts such as the six necessary and sufficient conditions and the organismic self, along with ideas about the most effective way to work with clients not only revolutionised therapy but also transcended it, impacting everything from social work to education. Rogers, Carl. (1951). Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications and Theory. London: Constable. ISBN 1-84119-840-4. It has been criticized as potentially inauthentic, as it might require therapists to suppress their own feelings and judgments.This isn’t exactly Rogers at his most succinct and poetic, but it’s certainly a useful way of looking at the definition of a helping relationship. I’m an avid and passionate reader, but I hate this book with all that I am and could ever hope to be. If that sounds like something every psychotherapist ever has said to you at least a couple of times, consider it Rogers’ fault. Namely, that “the innermost core of man’s nature, the deepest layers of his personality, the base of his ‘animal nature,’ is positive in nature – is basically socialized, forward-moving, rational and realistic.”

This complete acceptance and valuing of the client facilitates a positive and trusting relationship between the client and therapist, enabling the client to share openly and honestly. Limitations He believed that the experience of being understood and valued gives us the freedom to grow, while pathology generally arises from attempting to earn others’ positive regard rather than following an ‘inner compass’. This doesn’t mean that he didn’t consider psychotherapists to be people; on the contrary, in fact. And that is one of the main ideas of this book. Buber says in a paragraph quoted (and edited) by Carl Rogers: “Confirming means… accepting the whole potentiality of the other… I can recognize in him, know in him, the person he has been… created to become… I confirm him in myself, and then in him, in relation to this potentiality that … can now be developed, can evolve.”

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Rogers, Carl (1989). The Carl Rogers Reader. Google Books: Houghton Mifflin. p. 457. ISBN 978-0-395-48357-2. 1985 the rust peace workshop. a b Thorne, Brian, with Sanders, Pete (2012). Carl Rogers. SAGE Publications, 3rd ed., pp. 119–120. ISBN 978-1-4462-5223-9.