Carl Rogers: The Self-Actualization Theory

Biographical Sketch of Carl Rogers

o Carl Rogers is a humanistic American psychologist who focused on the therapeutic
relationship and developed a new method of client-centered therapy.
o Born January 8, 1902, in a small suburb of Oak Park.
o He was the fourth of six children.
o When Carl was 12, his family decided to escape the evils and temptations of
suburban life by moving to a farm west of Chicago. He studied farming.
o He soon became more interested in the helping professions
o After graduation, he married his long-time girlfriend Helen, and they had a son and
a daughter.
o He was one of the first to use the term client rather than patient.
o In 1945, Rogers moved to the University of Chicago where he established a
counseling center.
o He gave up control of the center in 1947 and allowed everyone an equal voice in
running itincluding student interns, secretaries, and faculty.
o Personally, Rogers has been described as compassionate, patient, and even-
tempered. He cared deeply about people but not about institutions, appearances,
credentials, or social class, and he doubted every authority including his own.
o Rogers rejected the deterministic nature of both psychoanalysis and
behaviorism and maintained that we behave as we do because of the way we
perceive our situation.
o Carl Rogers died on February 4, 1987, from cardiac arrest following surgery for a
broken hip sustained in a fall.
Overview of Rogers's Person-Centered Theory
o Although Carl Rogers is best known as the founder of client-centered
therapy, he also developed an important theory of personality that underscores
his approach to therapy.
o Rogers carefully crafted his person-centered theory of personality to meet his
own demands for a structural model that could explain and predict outcomes
of client-centered therapy. However, the theory has implications far beyond the
therapeutic setting
 o Central to Rogers' personality theory is the notion of self or self-concept. This
is defined as "the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about
oneself".
o The self is the humanistic term for who we really are as a person.
o Two primary sources that influence our self-concept are childhood experiences
and evaluation by others.
Basic Assumptions
Person-centered theory rests on two basic assumptions:
a. The formative tendency, which states that all matter, both organic and
inorganic, tends to evolve from simpler to more complex forms
b. An actualizing tendency, which suggests that all living things, including
humans, tend to move toward completion, or fulfillment of potentials
THE BASIC NATURE OF HUMAN BEINGS
Rogers rejects the concept of a superior, prescient psychotherapist, on whom the
patient passively depends for shrewd interpretations. Instead he emphasizes that
only we can know, and choose, our proper directions in life. In accordance with
this belief, Rogers originally named his approach client-centered therapy.
Actualization
According to Rogers, we are motivated by a single positive force: an innate
tendency to develop our constructive, healthy potentials. This actualizing
tendency includes both drive-reducing and drive- increasing behavior. On the one
hand, we seek to reduce the drives of hunger, thirst, sex, and oxygen deprivation.
Yet we also demonstrate such tension-increasing behavior as curiosity, creativity,
and the willingness to undergo painful learning experiences in order to become
more effective and independent.
Self-Worth and Positive Regard
All of us need warmth, respect, and acceptance from other people, particularly
such significant others as our parents. This need for positive regard is innate,
and remains active throughout our lives. But it also becomes partly independent of
specific contacts with other people, leading to a secondary, learned need for
positive self-regard.
a. Unconditional positive regard is where parents, significant others (and
the humanist therapist) accepts and loves the person for what he or she
is. Positive regard is not withdrawn if the person does something wrong or
makes a mistake.
 b. Conditional positive regard is where positive regard, praise and approval,
depend upon the child, for example, behaving in ways that the parents think
correct. Hence the child is not loved for the person he or she is, but on
condition that he or she behaves only in ways approved by the parent(s).
Teleology
Rogers agrees that childhood events play a prominent role in forming the adult
personality. But he prefers to emphasize currently active needs and our striving
toward the goal of actualization. Behavior is not caused by something which
occurred in the past. Present tensions and present needs are the only ones which
the organism endeavors to reduce or satisfy
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
A. Experience and the Organismic Valuing Process
a. Experience- Everything that is presently within or potentially available to
awareness, including thoughts, needs, perceptions, and feelings. A
relatively small part of experience is conscious, whereas the greatest
portion is unconscious.
b. Organismic valuing process - An innate ability to value positively those
experiences that are perceived as actualizing, and to value negatively those
that are perceived as non-actualizing.
B. The Self and Self-Actualization
a. Carl Rogers believed that humans have one basic motive, that is the
tendency to self-actualize - i.e. to fulfill one's potential and achieve the
highest level of 'human-beingness' we can.
A sense of self or personal identity begins to emerge during infancy, and,
once established, it allows a person to strive toward self-actualization, which
is a subsystem of the actualization tendency and refers to the tendency to
actualize the self as perceived in awareness.
Self-actualization occurs when a persons ideal self (i.e. who they would
like to be) is congruent with their actual behavior (self-image). Rogers
describes an individual who is actualizing as a fully functioning
person. The main determinant of whether we will become self-actualized is
childhood experience.
i. Two Subsystems of Self:
ii. Self-concept -includes all those aspects of ones being and ones
experiences that are perceived in awareness (though not always
accurately) by the individual.
iii. Ideal Self - defined as ones view of self as one wishes to be.

Awareness
People are aware of both their self-concept and their ideal self, although awareness need
not be accurate or at a high level.
Three levels of Awareness:
1. Those that are symbolized below the threshold of awareness and are either
ignored or denied, that is, subceived, or not allowed into the self-concept
2. Those that are distorted or reshaped to fit it into an existing self-concept
3. Those that are consistent with the self-concept and thus are accurately symbolized
and freely admitted to the self-structure.
Denial of Positive Experiences
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.
Congruence
A healthy state of unison between the organismic valuing process and the self-
concept, and therefore between the actualizing and self-actualizing tendencies.
The development of congruence is dependent on unconditional positive regard.
Carl Rogers believed that for a person to achieve self-actualization they must be
in a state of congruence.

Defense
 o Experiences that serve as a threatening reminder of the incongruence between
the self-concept and organismic experience are likely to be defended against by
distorting them, or (less frequently) by blocking them from consciousness.
o Responding to experiences that threaten the self-concept and evoke anxiety by
distorting them, or (less frequently) by screening them out from awareness.

Barriers to Psychological Health

o Conditions of Worth -A standard that must be satisfied to receive conditional
positive regard from a significant other, which is introjected into the self-concept.
Supersedes the organismic valuing process, and leads to behaviors that are not
actualizing.
o Incongruence - A split between the organismic valuing process and a self-concept
burdened by conditions of worth (and, therefore, between the actualizing and self-
actualizing tendencies), which results in feelings of tension and confusion. The
converse of congruence.
o Vulnerability - Rogers believed that people are vulnerable when they are
unaware of the discrepancy between their organismic self and their significant
experience.
o Anxiety and Threat - Rogers defined anxiety as a state of uneasiness or tension
whose cause is unknown
o Defensiveness - The protection of the self-concept against anxiety and threat by
the denial or distortion of experiences inconsistent with it.
o Disorganization - In a state of disorganization, people sometimes behave
consistently with their organismic experience and sometimes in accordance with
their shattered self-concept.
The Fully Functioning Person
Rogers believed that every person could achieve their goals, wishes, and desires
in life. When they did so self-actualization took place. For Rogers, people who are
able be self-actualize, and that is not all of us, are called fully functioning persons.
This means that the person is in touch with the here and now, his or her subjective
experiences and feelings, continually growing and changing.
The Fully Functioning Person: Five Characteristics
1. Open to experience: both positive and negative emotions accepted. Negative
feelings are not denied, but worked through (rather than resorting to ego defense
mechanisms).
 2. Existential living: in touch with different experiences as they occur in life, avoiding
prejudging and preconceptions. Being able to live and fully appreciate the present,
not always looking back to the past or forward to the future (i.e. living for the
moment).
3. Trust feelings: feeling, instincts and gut-reactions are paid attention to and
trusted. Peoples own decisions are the right ones and we should trust ourselves
to make the right choices.
4. Creativity: creative thinking and risk taking are features of a persons life. A person
does not play safe all the time. This involves the ability to adjust and change and
seek new experiences.
5. Fulfilled life: person is happy and satisfied with life, and always looking for new
challenges and experiences.
Critique of Rogers
Rogers's person-centered theory is one of the most carefully constructed of all
personality theories, and it meets quite well each of the six criteria of a useful
theory. It rates very high on internal consistency and parsimony, high on its ability
to be falsified and to generate research, and high-average on its ability to organize
knowledge and to serve as a guide to the practitioner.
Concept of Humanity
Rogers believed that humans have the capacity to change and grow-provided that
certain necessary and sufficient conditions are present. Therefore, his theory rates
very high on optimism. In addition, it rates high on free choice, teleology, conscious
motivation, social influences, and the uniqueness of the individual.