Raskin, N. (2004). Contributions to Client-Centered Therapy and the Person-Centered Approach. Herefordshire, Ross-on-the-Rye, UK: PCCS Books. Discrepancies between self-concept and reality can cause incongruence, leading to psychological tension and anxiety. A person is said to be in a state of incongruence if some of the totality of their experience is unacceptable to them and is denied or distorted in the self-image.

On the whole,” writes Rogers, “the viewpoint of the professional worker as well as the layman is that man as he is, in his basic nature, had best be kept under control or under cover or both.”This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one’s potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. Yet the deeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses thas the good life this process of becoming.”

This method involves removing obstacles so the client can move forward, freeing him or her for normal growth and development. By using non-directive techniques, Rogers assisted people in taking responsibility for themselves. Michael Martin (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge University Press. p. 310. ISBN 9780521842709. "Among celebrity atheists with much biographical data, we find leading psychologists and psychoanalysts. We could provide a long list, including...Carl R. Rogers..." From the late 1950s into the '60s, Rogers served on the board of the Human Ecology Fund, a CIA-funded organization that provided grants to researchers looking into personality. In addition, he and other people in the field of personality and psychotherapy were given a lot of information about Khrushchev. "We were asked to figure out what we thought of him and what would be the best way of dealing with him. And that seemed to be an entirely principled and legitimate aspect. I don't think we contributed very much, but, anyway, we tried." [45] Selected works by Carl Rogers [ edit ]

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Open to experience: both positive and negative emotions accepted. Negative feelings are not denied, but worked through (rather than resorting to ego defense mechanisms). For example, if parents only show love and approval when a child gets good grades or behaves in ways they approve, the child may grow up believing they are only worthy of love and positive regard when they meet certain standards. Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of the self is such that all the sensory and visceral experiences of the organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic level into a consistent relationship with the concept of self.

Certain ideas that Rogers championed,” writes Kramer, “have become so widely accepted that it is difficult to recall how fresh, even revolutionary, they were in their time.” Rogers’ Influences: Humanist Psychology Is Existentialist PsychologyIncongruence is “a discrepancy between the actual experience of the organism and the self-picture of the individual insofar as it represents that experience. Conditional positive regard is a concept in psychology that refers to the expression of acceptance and approval by others (often parents or caregivers) only when an individual behaves in a certain acceptable or approved way. It includes all the goals, values, and traits a person deems ideal or desirable. It’s their vision of “who I want to be.” This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Creativity: it follows that they will feel freer to be creative. They will also be more creative in the way they adapt to their circumstances without feeling a need to conform.

Conditional positive regard is where positive regard, praise, and approval, depend upon the child, for example, behaving in ways that the parents think correct. Rogers suggested that the incongruent individual, who is always on the defensive and cannot be open to all experiences, is not functioning ideally and may even be malfunctioning. They work hard at maintaining and protecting their self-concept [ citation needed]. Because their lives are not authentic, this is difficult, and they are under constant threat. They deploy defense mechanisms to achieve this. He describes two mechanisms: distortion and denial. Distortion occurs when the individual perceives a threat to their self-concept. They distort the perception until it fits their self-concept. This defensive behavior reduces the consciousness of the threat but not the threat itself. And so, as the threats mount, the work of protecting the self-concept becomes more difficult and the individual becomes more defensive and rigid in their self-structure. If the incongruity is immoderate this process may lead the individual to a state that would typically be described as neurotic. Their functioning becomes precarious and psychologically vulnerable. If the situation worsens it is possible that the defenses cease to function altogether and the individual becomes aware of the incongruity of their situation. Their personality becomes disorganised and bizarre; irrational behavior, associated with earlier denied aspects of self, may erupt uncontrollably. Rogers, Carl. and Stevens, B. (1967). Person to Person: The Problem of Being Human. Lafayette, CA: Real People Press. Most of the ways of behaving that the organism adopts are those that are consistent with the concept of self. A rich full life: Rogers describes the life of the fully functioning individual as rich, full and exciting, and suggests that they experience joy and pain, love and heartbreak, fear and courage more intensely. His description of the good life:This is what I mean when I say Rogers writes some really beautiful things about the human condition. Carl Rogers on Empathy Counselling tutors tell us that On Becoming a Person is one of the most important books we students will ever read. What they don’t tell us is that reading it can often be such a draining, soul-destroying process that we’ll need to see our own therapist afterwards. We’ve already told you a thing or two about existentialism’s fundamental tenets while summarizing Being and Nothingness , the central work by, arguably, the greatest existentialist philosopher of the 20 th century, Jean-Paul Sartre.