PERSONALITY - ROGERS Person-Centered Theory

                                     Rogers Person-Centered Theory

Overview of client-centered theory;

  Although he is the best known as the founder of cilent-centered theraphy, Carl Rogers developed a humanistic theory of personality that grew out of his experiences as a practicing psychotherapist. Unlike Freud, who was primarily a theorist and secondarily a therapist. Rogers was a consummate therapist but only a reluctant theorist (Rogers, 1959). He was more concerned with helping people than with discovering why they behaved as they did. He was more likely to ask ‘How can i help this person grow and develop?’ than to ponder the question ‘What caused this person to develop in this manner?’.

  Like many personality theorist, Rogers built this theory on the scaffold provided by experiences as a therapist. Unlike most of these other theorists, however, he continually called for empirical research to support both his personality theory and his therapeutic approach. Perhaps more than any other therapist-theorist, Rogers advocated a balance between tender-minded and hardheaded studies that would expand knowledge of humans feel and think.

  Even though he formulated a rigorous, internally consistent theory of personality, Rogers did not feel comfortable with the notion of theory. His personal preference was to be a helper of people and not a constructor of theories. To him, theory might imply a measure of finality.

Person-centered theory:

  Although Roger’s concept of humanity remained basically unchanged from the early 1940s until his death in 1987, his theraphy and theory underwent several changes in name. During the early years, his approach was known as ‘nondirective,’ an unfortunate term that remained associated with his name for far too long. Later , his approach was variously termed ‘client-centered,’ ‘person-centered,’ ‘student-centered,’ group-centered,’ and ‘person to person,’ We use the label client-centered in reference to Roger’s theraphy and the more inclusive term person-centered to refer to Rogerian personality theory.

Formative tendency:

  Rogers believed that there is a tendency for all matter, both organic and inorganic, to evolve from simpler to more complex froms. For the entire universe, a creative process, rather than a disintegrative one, is in operation. Rogers called his process the formative tendency and pointed to many examples from nature. For instance, complex galaxies of stars form from a less well-organized mass; crystals such as snowflakes emerge from formless vapor; complex organisms develop from single cells; and human consciousness evolves from a primitive unconsciousness to highly organized awereness.

Actualizing tendency:

  An interrelated and more pertinent assumption is the actualizing tendency, or the tendency within all humans to move toward copletion or fulfillment of potentials. This tendency is the only motive people process. The need to satisfy one’s hunger drive, to express deep emotions when they are felt, and to accept one’s self are all examples of the single motive of actualization. Because each person operates as one complete organism, actualization involves the whole person-physiological and intellectual, rational and emotional, conscious and unconcious.

Tendencies to maintain and to enhance the organism are subsumed within te actualizing tendency. The need for maintenance is similar to the lower steps on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It includes such basic needs as food, air, and safety; but it also includes the tendency to resist change and to seel the status quo. The conservative nature of maintenance needs is expressed in people’s desire to protect their current, comfortable self-concept. People fight against new ideas; they distort experiences that do not quite fit; they find change painful and growth frightening. Even though people have a strong desire to maintain the status quo, they are willing to learn and to change. This need to become more, to develop, and to achieve growth is called enhancement. The need for enhancing the self is seen in people’s willingness to learn things that are not immediately rewarding. Enhancement needs are expressed in a variety of froms, including curiosity, playfulness, self-exploraiton, friendship, and confidence that one can achieve psychological growth. People have within themselves the creative power to solve problems, to alter their self-concepts, and to become increasingly self-directed. Individuals perceive their experiences as reality, and they know their reality better than anyone else. They do not need to be directed, controlled, exhorted, or manipulated in order to spur them toward actualization. The actualization tendency is not limited to humans. Other animals an deven plants have an inherent tendency to grow toward reaching their genetic potential-provided certain conditions are present. For example, in order for a bell pepper plant to reach its full productive potential, it must have water, sunlight, and a nutrient soil.

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 pleasent and what does not. They begin to evaluate experiences as positive or negative, using as a criterion the actualizing tendency. Because nourishment is a requirement for actualizing, infants value food and devalüe hunger. They also value sleep, fresh air, physical contact, and health because each of these is needed for actualization.

  Once infants establish a rudimentary self structure, their tendency to actualize the self begins to evolve. Self actualization is a subset of the actualization tendency and is therefore not synonymous with it. The actualization tendency refers to organismic experiences of the individual; that is, it refers to the whole person-conscious and unconscious, physiological and cognitive.

The self concept:

  The self concept includes all those aspects of one’s being and one’s experiences that perceived in awareness by the individual. The self-concept is not identical with the organismic self. Portions of the organismic self may be beyond a person’s awareness or simply not owned by that person. For example, the stomach is part of the organismic self, but unless it malfunctions and causes concern, it is not likely to be part of one’s self-concept. Similarly, people can disown certain aspects of their selves, such as experiences of dishonesty, when such experiences are not consistent with their self-concept.

Awareness:

  Without awareness the self-concept and the ideal self would not exist. Rogers defined awareness as ‘the symbolic representation of some portion of our experience’. He used the term synonymously with both concsciousness and symbolization.

Levels of awareness:

  Rogers recognized three leves of awareness. First, some events are experienced below the threshold of awareness anda re either ignored or denied. An ignored experience can be illustrated by a woman walking down a busy Street, an activity that presents many potential stimuli, particularly of sight and sound. Because she cannot attend to all of them, many remain ignored. An example of denied experience might be a mother who never wanted children, but out of guilt she becomes overly solicitous to them. Her anger and resentment toward her children may be hidden to her for years, never reaching consciousness but yet remaining a part of her experience and coloring her conscious behavior toward them.

  Second, Rogers hypothesized that some experiences are accurately symbolized and freely admitted to the self-structure. Such experiences are both nonthreatening and consistent with the existing self-concept. For example, if a pianist who was full confidence in his piano-playing ability is told by a friend that his playing is excellent, he may hear these words, accurately symbolize them, and freely admit them to his self-concept.

  A third level of awareness involves experiences that are perceived in a distorted form. When our experience is not consistent with  our view of self, we reshape or distort the experience so that it can be assimilated into our existing self-concept. If the gifted pianist were to be told by a distrusted competitor that his playing was excellent, he might react very differently than he did when he heard the same words from a trusted friend. He may hear the remarks but distort their meaning because he feels threatened. His experiences are inaccurately symbolized in awareness and therefore can be distorted so that they conform to an existing self-concept that, in part, says, ‘I am a person who does not trust my piano-playing competitors, especially those who are trying to trick me’.

Denial of positive experiences:

  Our examples of the gifted pianist illustrates that 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. A student who feels inadequate but yet makes a superior grade might say to herself, ‘I know this grade should be evidence of my scholastic ability, but somehow I just don’t feel that way. This class was the easiest one on campus. The other students just did not try.  My teacher did not know what she was doing’. Compliments, even those genuinely dispensed, seldom have a positive influence on the self-concept of the recipient.

Becoming a person:

  Rogers discussed the processes necessary to becoming a person. First, an individual must make contact-positive or negative-with another person. This contact is the minimum experience necessary for becoming a person. In order to survive, an infant must experience some contact from a parent or other caregiver. As children become aware that another person has some measure of regard fort hem, they begin to value positive regard and devalue negative regard. That is, the person develops a need to be loved, liked, or accepted by another person, a need that Rogers referred to as positive regard. If we perceive that others, especially significant others, car efor, prize, or value us, then our need to receive positive regard is at least partially satisfied. Positive regard is a prerequisite for positive self-regard, defined as the experience of prizing or valuing one’s self. Rogers believed that recieving positive regard from others is necessary for positive self-regard, but once positive self-regard is established, it becomes independent of the continual need to be loved. This conception is quite similar to Maslow’s notion that we must satisfy our love and belongingness needs before self-esteem needs can become active, but once we begin to feel confident and worthy, we no longer require a replenishing supply of love and approval from others.

Condition 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. ‘A condition of worth arises when the positive regard of a significant other is conditional, when the individual feels that in some respects he is prized and in others not’. Conditions of worth become the criterion by which we accept or reject our experiences. We gradually assimilate into our self-structure the attitudes we perceive others expressing toward us, and in time we begin to evaluate experiences on this basis. If we see that others accept us regardless of our actions, then we come to believe that we prized unconditionally. But if we perceive that some of our behaviors are approved and some disapproved, then we see that our worth is contional.

Incongruence:

  We have seen that the organism and the self are two separate entities that may or may not be congruent with one another. Also recall that actualization refers to the organism’s tendency to move toward fulfillment, whereas self-actualization is the desire of the perceived self to reach fulfillment. These two tendencies are sometimes at variance with one another. Vulnerability the greater the incongruence between our perceived self and our organismic experience, the more vulnerable we are. Rogers believed that people are vulnerable when they are unaware of the discrepancy between their organismic self and their significant experience. Lacking awareness of their incongruence, vulnerable people often behave in ways that are incomprehensible not only to others but also to themselves. Anxiety and 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 an incongruence. When we become dimly aware that the discrepancy between our organismic experience and our self-concept may become conscious, we feel anxious.

Defensiveness:

  In order to prevent this inconsistency between our organismic experience and our perceived self, we react in a defensive manner. Defensiveness is the protection of the self-concept against anxiety and threat by the denial or distortion of experiences inconsistent with it. Because the self-concept consists of many self-descriptive statements, it is many-faceted phenomenon. When one of our experiences is inconsistant with one part of our self-concept, we will behave in a defensive manner in order to protect the current structure of our self-concept.

Critique of Rogers:

  Rogerian theory has produced much research in the realm of psychotheraphy and classrom learning, it has been only moderately productive outside these two areas and thus receives only an avarage rating on its ability to spark research activity within the general field of personality.

  We rate Rogerian theory high on falsification. Rogers was one of only a few theorists who spelled out his theory in an if-then framework, and such a paradigm lends itself to either confirmation or discomfirmation. His precise language facilitated research at the University of Chicago and later at the University os Wisconsin that exposed his theory of theraphy to falsification. Unfortunatelly, since Roger’s death, many humanistically oriented followers have failed to put his more general theory to test.

  The theory itself is unusually clear and economical, but some of the language is awkward and vague. Concepts such as’organismic experiencing,’ ‘becoming,’ ‘positive self-regard,’ ‘need for self-regard,’ ‘unconditional self-regard,’ and ‘fully functioning’ are too broad and imprecise to have clear scientific meaning. This ciritism is a small one, however, in comparison with the overall tightness and parsimony of person-centered theory.