Karl Ramson Rogers, better known as Carl Rogerswas a psychologist from the United States who pioneered humanistic therapeutic approach (along with Abraham Maslow). Rogers is considered one of the most influential psychologists in human history.
We can characterize the following author as a psychologist with great vital optimism and with ideas very focused on the freedom and well-being of human beings at all levels. In this Psychology-Online article, we will talk about the great contribution that he made Carl Rogers in the Personality Theories in Psychology. In addition, we will also summarize his biography, theory, and his person-centered therapy.
Carl Rogers Biography
Carl Rogers was born on January 8, 1902 in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, the fourth of six children. His father was a successful civil engineer and his mother was a housewife and devout Christian. His education began directly in second grade, since he knew how to read even before entering kindergarten.
When Carl was 12, his family moved 30 miles west of Chicago, and it was here that he would spend his teenage years. With a strict education and many duties, Carl would be rather solitary, independent and self-disciplined.
He went to the University of Wisconsin to study agriculture. Later, he would turn to religion to practice the faith. During this time, he was one of the 10 chosen to visit Beijing for the “World Student Christian Federation Conference” for 6 months. Carl tells us through his biography that this experience expanded his thinking so much that he began to doubt some basic questions about his religion.
After graduating, he married Helen Elliot (against his parents’ wishes), moved to New York, and began attending Union Theological Seminary, a famous liberal religious institution. Here, he took an organized student seminar called “Why am I entering the ministry?“
It is important to note that, unless one wants to change careers, they should never attend a seminar with such a title. Carl tells us that most of the participants “They thought about leaving religious work immediately“.
The loss in religion would beof course, the gain of psychologyRogers switched to the clinical psychology program at Columbia University and received his PhD in 1931. However, Rogers had already begun his clinical work at the Rochester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Cruelty to Children). In this clinic, he would learn the theory and therapeutic applications of Otto Rank, who would encourage him to take the path of developing his own theory.
Theory and books by Carl Rogers
In 1940, he was offered the full professorship at Ohio. Two years later, he would write his first book “Counseling and Psychotherapy“.(All the titles of his books in Spanish, we will place them at the end of the chapter.) Later, in 1945, he was invited to establish an assistance center at the University of Chicago. In this place, in 1951, he published his greatest work , Client-Centered Therapywhere he would talk about the central aspects of his theory.
In 1957, he returned to teaching at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin. Unfortunately, at that time there were serious internal conflicts in the Department of Psychology, which caused Rogers to become very disillusioned with higher education. In 1964, he happily accepted a research position in La Jolla, California. There he attended therapies, gave many lectures and wrote, until his death in 1987. Currently, Carl Rogers is recognized as one of the pioneers and fathers of humanism.
Carl Rogers: Humanistic Theory
Next, we are going to do a detailed analysis of the theory proposed by the American psychologist.
Rogers’ theory can be defined as clinical since it is based on years of experience with patients. Rogers shares this characteristic with Freud, for example, in addition to being a particularly rich and mature (well thought out) and logically constructed theory, with broad application.
However, it has nothing to do with Freud in the fact that Rogers views people as basically good or healthy. or at least not bad or sick. In other words, he views mental health as the normal progression of life, and understands mental illness, crime, and other human problems as distortions of natural tendency. Furthermore, he also has nothing to do with Freud in that Rogers’ theory is in principle simple.
In this sense, the principle is not only simple, but even elegant.
In its entirety, Rogers’ theory is built on a single “life force” that he calls the actualizing tendency. This can be defined as an innate motivation present in every form of life aimed at developing its potential to the greatest possible limit. We are not just talking about survival here: Rogers understood that all creatures seek to make the best of their existence, and if they fail in their purpose, it will not be for lack of desire.
Carl Rogers’s personality theory
Rogers summarizes in this great single need or motive, all the other motives that the other theorists mention. He asks us, why do we need water, food and air?; Why do we seek love, security and a sense of competition? Why, in fact, do we seek to discover new medicines, invent new sources of energy or make new artistic works?
Rogers answers: because it is typical of our nature As living beings do the best we can.
It is important at this point to note that unlike how he uses the term, Rogers applies life force or updating trend to all living creatures. In fact, some of its earliest examples include algae and fungi!
Let’s think carefully: Aren’t we surprised to see how the vines seek life to get between the stones, breaking everything in their path; or how animals survive in the desert or in the icy north pole, or how grass grows between the stones we step on?
Application of the actualizing tendency: examples of the theory
Also, the author applies the idea to ecosystems, saying that an ecosystem like a forest, with all its complexity, has much greater potential for updating than a simple one like a corn field. If a simple bug becomes extinct in a forest, other creatures will emerge and adapt to try to fill the space; On the other hand, an epidemic that attacks the corn plantation will leave us with a deserted field. The same applies to us as individuals: if we live as we should, we will become increasingly complex, like the forest, and therefore more flexibly adaptable to any disaster, whether small or large.
However, people, in the course of actualizing their potentials, created society and culture. In itself this does not seem like a problem: we are social creatures; It is in our nature. But, as culture was created, it developed a life of its own. Instead of remaining close to other aspects of our natures, culture can become a force in its own right. Even if, in the long term, a culture that interferes with our actualization dies, we will die with it in the same way.
Let’s understand each other, culture and society are not intrinsically bad. It’s a bit like the Papuan birds of paradise in New Guinea. The striking, colorful plumage of the males apparently distracts predators from the females and young. Natural selection has led these birds to have more and more elaborate wings and tails, such that in some species they cannot even take off from the ground. In this sense and up to this point, it doesn’t seem that being very colorful is so good for the male, right? Likewise, our elaborate societies, our complex cultures, our incredible technologies; those that have helped us prosper and survive, can at the same time serve to harm us and probably even destroy us.
Free will and the beginnings of humanistic theory
Rogers tells us that organisms know what is good for them. Evolution has provided us with the senses, the tastes, the discriminations that we need: when we are hungry, we find food, not just any food, but one that tastes good to us. Food that tastes bad tends to be harmful and unhealthy. This is what bad and good flavors are: our evolutionary lessons make it clear! We call this organismic value.
- Rogers groups issues such as love, affection, attention, nurturing and others under the name of positive vision. It is clear that babies need love and attention. In fact, you could very well die without it. Certainly, they would fail to prosper; in being everything they could be.
- Another, perhaps uniquely human, issue we value is positive self-reward, which includes self-esteem, self-worth, and a positive self-image. It is through the positive care of others throughout our lives that allows us to achieve this self-care. If this is the case, we feel tiny and helpless and again we do not become everything we could be.
Details of Carl Rogers’ theory
Like Maslow, Rogers believes that If we leave them to their free will, animals will seek what is best for them; They will get the best food, for example, and consume it in the best proportions possible. Babies also seem to want and like what they need.
However, throughout our history, we have created an environment significantly different from the one from which we started. In this new environment we find things as refined as sugar, flour, butter, chocolate and others that our African ancestors never knew.
These things have flavors that seem to please our organismic value, although they do not serve our actualization. Millions of years from now, we’ll probably find broccoli more appetizing than cheesecake, but by then neither you nor I will see it.
Our society also leads us back to its conditions of worth. As we grow up, our parents, teachers, relatives, the “media” and others only give us what we need when we prove that we “deserve” it, rather than because we need it. We can drink only after class; We can eat candy only when we have finished our plate of vegetables and, most importantly, they will love us only if we behave well.
Achieving positive care over “a condition” is what Rogers calls conditioned positive reward. Since all of us actually need this reward, these conditions are very powerful and we end up being subjects very determined not by our organismic values or by our updating tendency, but by a society that does not necessarily take our real interests into account. A “good boy” or a “good girl” is not necessarily a happy boy or girl.
As time passes, this conditioning leads us to…