Rogerian Psychotherapy

Relocating the “center”

 Carl Rogers
 Born in suburb of Chicago (Oak Park) in 1902

 Strict, controlling, religious parents

 Childhood spent in solitary pursuits

 2 years at the Union Theological Seminary

 Ph.D clinical psychology from Columbia

University Teachers College in 1931

 Formulated essentials of person-centered

therapy in 1940

 Continued to write and lecture into his 80s

 Died in 1987
Natalie Rogers
 Experience: Foundation of Rogerian theory

 Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The

touchstone of validity is my own experience. No
other person's ideas, and none of my own
ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It
is to experience that I must return again and
again, to discover a closer approximation to
truth as it is in the process of becoming in me.

 Neither the Bible nor the prophets ~ neither

Freud nor research - neither the revelations of
God nor man - can take precedence over my
own direct experience.
Carl Rogers, On  [....] My experience is not authoritative because
Becoming a Person it is infallible. It is the basis of authority because
(pages 23-24). it can always be checked in new primary ways.
In this way its frequent error or fallibility is
always open to correction.
 Assumptions about human nature

 Human beings are innately good

 Value of life is in present

 Human beings are purposive & goal-directed

 Basic human need: Deep human relationships, unconditional

positive regard from others

 Core of human life resides in self-experience

 Client’s behavior understood from a phenomenological approach

"It is the client who knows what hurts, what directions to go, what problems
are crucial, what experiences have been deeply buried." -- On Becoming a
Person
Personality theory: A few of the 19 propositions

 All persons are in the center of a continually changing world of experience

(phenomenal field). The person’s perception of this field is his/her
"reality“ (1, 2)
 The organism has one basic striving: to actualize, maintain, and enhance
itself (4)
 As a result of interacting with the environment, the person develops a sense
of self or self concept, consisting of images and beliefs (9)
 What I am (self-identity)
 What I can do (self-efficacy)
 How I think/feel about myself (self-esteem)

 Behavior is the organism’s goal-directed attempt to satisfy its needs as

experienced, in the field as perceived (5)
 Behavior is usually consistent with self-concept. When behavior is
inconsistent with self, it is usually not “owned” by the person (12, 13)
 Emotion accompanies and usually facilitates such goal directed behavior (6)
A few more propositions: (Psychological health)

 Psychological adjustment exists when the self concept allows the person to
assimilate all sensory and visceral experiences into a consistent self. This is
congruence. (14)

 Psychological maladjustment exists when the person denies to self significant

sensory and visceral experiences (because they are inconsistent with the
person’s ideal self, the type of person that one believes one ought to be). This
results in incongruence between the real self and the ideal self. (15)

 Incongruence = Neurosis

 Increased and continued incongruence can lead to psychosis

 Under certain conditions, involving primarily complete absence of threat to

the self structure, experiences which are inconsistent with it may be perceived
and examined, and the structure of self revised to assimilate and include such
experiences.
Case Example: Mr. Smith

Self-Concept Ideal self

“How I see me” “How I should be”

Fearful Content
Insecure Secure
Lonely Lonely
Incongruence
Manipulative Honest
Gullible Skeptical
Smart Smart
 On Psychopathology

 No dividing line between normality and psychopathology.

 Rejection of diagnostic labels:

Rogers considered “...such categories as pseudoscientific efforts
to glorify the therapist’s expertise and depict the client as a
dependent object..” (Rogers, 1951)

 Defenses: Organism’s response to experiences that

threaten the self-concept (distortion, denial)

 Neurosis: Powerful conditions of worth in self-concept.

Incongruent with totality of experience.

 Psychosis: Person is badly hurt by life, needs corrective

influence of a deep interpersonal relationship.
Psychopathology
Therapeutic Process

 The therapeutic relationship is the primary intervention

"...In my early professional years I was asking the question: How
can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the
question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this
person may use for his own personal growth?" -- Carl Rogers, On
Becoming a Person.

 Most Freudian methods explicitly rejected

 No couch
 No use of interpretation
 No investigation of client’s past
 No dream analysis
Therapeutic Relationship (continued)

 Client must perceive three characteristics in the therapist:

1. Unconditional positive regard: Non-

judgmental, non-possessive respect and
caring for client’s self-concept and
feelings

2. Empathy: attuned to the client’s feelings

and beliefs

3. Genuineness: in touch with (and shares)

own personal experience
Unconditional Positive Regard
 Nonjudgmental acceptance
“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at
a sunset, I don't find myself saying, "Soften the orange a bit on the right
hand corner." I don't try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”
― Carl Rogers, A Way of Being
“The more I can keep a relationship free of judgment and evaluation, the
more this will permit the other person to reach the point where he
recognizes that the locus of evaluation, the center of responsibility, lies
within himself.” ― Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can
change.” ― Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Perosn

 Intentionally non-skeptical
“The kind of caring that the client-centered therapist desires to achieve is a
gullible caring, in which clients are accepted as they say they are, not with a
lurking suspicion in the therapist's mind that they may, in fact, be otherwise.
This attitude is not stupidity on the therapist's part; it is the kind of attitude
that is most likely to lead to trust...” ― Carl Rogers
 Empathy
Evidence for an empathic civilization

 “To perceive the internal frame of reference of

another with accuracy and with the emotional
components and meanings which pertain thereto as
if one were the person, but without ever losing the
"as if" condition. “Thus, it means to sense the hurt
or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to
perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them,
but without ever losing the recognition that it is “as
if” I were hurt or pleased and so forth.”
 “When the other person is hurting, confused,
troubled, anxious, alienated, terrified; or when he
or she is doubtful of self-worth, uncertain as to
identity, then understanding is called for. The
gentle and sensitive companionship of an empathic
stance… provides illumination and healing. In
such situations deep understanding is, I believe, the
most precious gift one can give to another.”
 Genuineness

 “In my relationships with persons I have found that it does not help, in
the long run, to act as though I were something that I am not.”
― Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person

 “In place of the term “realness” I have sometimes used the word
“congruence.” By this I mean that when my experiencing of this
moment is present in my awareness and when what is present in my
awareness is present in my communication, then each of these three
levels matches or is congruent. At such moments I am integrated or
whole, I am completely in one piece. Most of the time, of course, I, like
everyone else, exhibit some degree of incongruence. I have learned,
however, that realness, or genuineness, or congruence—whatever
term you wish to give it—is a fundamental basis for the best of
communication.” ― Carl R. Rogers, A Way of Being
 Therapeutic goals

 Specific goals determined by therapist and client based on

client’s specific circumstances

 General (meta) goals include helping clients…

 abandon the defensive facades that protect incongruent
self-concept
 accept anxiety-provoking aspects of self-experience
 move from incongruence to congruence

video demonstration with Gloria

Demo starts at 9:30
Case Example: Mr. Smith begins therapy

Self-Concept Ideal Self

“How I see me” “How I should be”

Lonely
Insecure Authentic Content Authentic
Fearful Cautious Secure Cautious
Gullible Cautious Lonely
Smart Honest Authentic
Manipulative Assertive Skeptival Cautious
Smart

Moving toward Congruency

 Criticisms

 Overly optimistic and simplistic view of human nature

 Three therapeutic conditions are necessary but insufficient

 Implies therapist must be congruent

 Diagnosis has benefits

 Therapeutic confrontation can be beneficial

 Research

 Some studies of genuineness, empathy, and unconditional

positive regard found that these three characteristics were
related to constructive change in therapy. Other studies
have found no relationship (Epstein, 1980)

 Self-concept has also been studied. Research supports

notion that therapy is usually related to increased self-
acceptance (Wylie, 1984)
 Dibs In Search of Self
 What is Dibs like when he first meets Miss A?
 Was he mentally retarded?
 Was he autistic?
 Would he meet DSM criteria for some other disorder?

 How did he develop the behaviors above

 From an Adlerian perspective?
 From a Rogerian perspective?
 Bruno Bettelheim: “The Empty Fortress”

 What did Axline think Dibs needed in order to improve?

 How did she try to treat Dibs?

 Why did she insist on her clinic (rather than his home)?
 What kind of limits did she set? What was their purpose?

 How might a different type of therapist work with Dibs?

 Diagnostic criteria (Autism)
 A total of six (or more) items from (1), (2), and (3), with at least two from (1),
and one each from (2) and (3):
 qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least 2 of the following:
 marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and
gestures to regulate social interaction
 failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
 a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by a lack of showing,
bringing, or pointing out objects of interest)
 a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by a lack of showing,
bringing, or pointing out objects of interest)

 qualitative impairments in communication as manifested by at least 1 of the following:

 delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through alternative
modes of communication such as gesture or mime)
 in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others
 stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language
 lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play appropriate to developmental level

 restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as

manifested by at least 1 of the following:
 encompassing preoccupation with 1or more stereotyped & restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal in intensity or focus
 apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
 stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
 persistent preoccupation with parts of objects

 Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas, with onset
prior to age 3 years: (1) social interaction, (2) language as used in social
communication, or (3) symbolic or imaginative play.