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Running head: CARL ROGERS AND HIS IMPACT

Carl Rogers and His Impact

Mackenzie Padgett

University of Mount Olive


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Abstract

Carl Rogers was an extremely well-known psychologist who developed what is now called

person-centered therapy. He wanted people to know that they were able to control their own

issues and understand that they had the capability to figure out their lives and different situations

that may occur. The way that Robert Frager and James Fadiman would have described Rogers in

Personality and Personal Growth, the seventh edition, would have been that he had an optimistic

and humanitarian point of view towards therapy and psychology (Frager & Fadiman, 2013). One

of his main drives in his career was to allow clients the opportunity to find and help themselves

through therapy. The therapist’s job is not to direct the client, but for the client to direct the

therapy session and therapist. His view on therapy was completely opposite to other theorists in

his time. Rogers impact on psychology is unique and focuses on clients as people and not as an

illness that must be treated.


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Carl Rogers and His Impact

Carl Rogers is a greatly known theorist in the field of psychology. He was born on

January 8th, 1902 in Oak Park, Illinois (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 273). His family was

Christian, and he grew up believing that he had to interpret what his parents thought to be

correct. This was all he knew to be true. His focus fell on reading as opposed to being athletic.

He was a calm and non-aggressive child (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 273). Since Rogers was

not athletic and did not have an automatic bond with someone around his age, such as how

athletes have with each other, he found himself to be quite lonely as a child. He focused on his

schoolwork and was a higher achiever in school. His family moved to a farm during his high

school years. They said that it was best to keep their children away from the immorality of the

world (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 274). His parents believed that the world was evil and that it

was better to isolate themselves away from the values of society, instead of learning to cope with

what happens around them that they thought was not accurate.

Rogers started to fall in love with science, which led to his love for psychology. He

continued his education at the University of Wisconsin where he started to find people like him

(Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 274). He began to feel like he fit in, and not so alone anymore.

Rogers decided to go into ministry, and he later went on a trip to China. While he was gone on

the trip, his eyes were opened to new possibilities and beliefs that were available to him (Frager

& Fadiman, 2013, p. 274). The beliefs he had adopted from his parents were slipping through the

cracks. He started to look at the world around him differently and flipped his views of what his

parents had taught him. As hard as his parents pushed him to believe what they did and the way

they isolated him could have very well been why he was so easily submerged in this new style of

thinking.
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In 1924, Rogers got married to Helen Elliot and they moved to New York City. He was

told over and over again by his own parents and Helen’s parents not to pursue his education any

further (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 274). He went on against their wishes to focus on

psychology at the Teachers College at Columbia University. He began working at a child

guidance center in Rochester, New York. After he had worked there a little while he started to

question and change his process in psychotherapy. This is when the theory of client-centered

therapy began to arise in 1939 (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 274).

Client- centered therapy is where the client leads the therapy sessions. Rogers looked at

therapy as a time for the client to open up and express their thoughts about their own situation. In

the article “Nondirectivity in the theory of Carl R. Rogers: An unpredicted premise” by Jerold

Bozarth, it concludes that Rogers thought it was the therapist’s job to sit back and listen with

open ears and an open mind (Bozarth). This style of therapy is also called non-directivity. The

client is the only one who knows what they are experiencing mentally and emotionally. A

therapist is similar to a parent with a baby or nonverbal child. The parent can guess what their

child wants when he or she is crying, but without some sort of help or guidance from the child, it

is simply a guessing game. Therapists play a very similar role as the parent in this scenario.

Since clients in therapy sessions are typically able to speak, Rogers assumed why not let the

client say what is going through their mind. The therapist must allow comfort and freedom to

speak without judgement in client-centered therapy. Clients are capable of determining what

direction they want to go in. They should also be able to discuss the area of their life that is

bothering them or leading to a dilemma and why they think it is causing them discomfort or

confusion.
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Rogers theory suggests that therapists should not be the ones leading their clients to come

to a conclusion about how to handle or resolve their obstacles, but the other way around. It is

crucial for the client to understand they have the capability to control the concerns in their life.

Therapists are to come prepared with an “attitude of trust” so the client will be comfortable

talking out their problems (Bozarth). This is what is called self-direction, the client leading the

conversation or therapy session. A counselor should not force a reaction from his or her client

but stay in the unknown while their client is speaking. Without the client having the confidence

and freedom to speak about their concerns in a safe place they will never know their strengths or

power to overcome such feelings. Once clients find their sense of strength to cope with the issues

in their lives it is considered to be one’s personal power (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 280).

Person-centered therapy comes from the idea of personal power. This type of therapy is

different from client-centered therapy because it focuses on people in everyday life concerning

social aspects, as opposed to merely clients struggling in therapy. In the article “Revisiting Carl

Rogers theory of personality,” it shares that “Rogers expanded his model to apply to other

applications including a theory of personality, interpersonal relations, education, nursing, cross-

cultural relations and other “helping” professions and situations” (Revisiting Carl, 2018). Person-

centered therapy starts to go into the ideas of people experiencing congruence and incongruence.

Rogers did not approve of labels for people such as average or below average (Frager &

Fadiman, 2013, p. 280). Instead he used the words congruence or incongruence.

People who have a good balance in their lives are considered to have a high level of

congruency. There are three areas in our lives that we need to focus on when considering this

issue of balance: experience, communication, and awareness (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 280).

A child experiencing the feeling of anger is a good example of congruence. When a young child
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is angry, he is going to make it clear that he is not happy. He will also be aware of one thing

occurring in his life, the fact that he is mad is going to overpower other things happening around

him. If the child is mad and sees a balloon, which would typically make him happy, he is not

necessarily going to smile and forget that he is mad. His feelings or what he is experiencing,

determines what he communicates and his awareness of events occurring around him.

Incongruency is the opposite of congruence. When an individual is experiencing one

thing but conveys something else or acts in a way that does not line up with their emotions, they

would be said to have incongruency in their life (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 280). It is crucial

for someone to display how they are feeling, or they may not feel validated for their emotions. If

an individual is highly stressed but shows signs of happiness and completeness, then that

individual will most likely feel alone. But on the other hand, if the individual shows signs of

feeling an increased amount of stress, then one of their peers will probably tell them they feel

similar and it will allow them to find a way to cope with their incongruency. Finding someone

that shares the same emotions can help a person figure out how to become congruent again.

Someone who does show incongruency may be taken the wrong way in everyday life. If one is

aware of their feelings and communicates another emotion to others around them, they can come

across as being deceiving or untrustworthy (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 280).

Individuals sometime try to hide their true emotions if they are not positive to keep others

around them in a good mood. But if someone is going through something, they should be honest

so they can have the support to find their balance. Rogers’ theory would believe that people who

are reluctant to convey their true feelings have a lack of self-control and of personal awareness

(Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 280). It is difficult to understand why someone would conceal their

feelings. People may be afraid to share their emotions due to being rejected in the past. They
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may have been told to toughen up or get over it. Life is not always that easy. It may also be that

the individual is so used to hiding their experiences that they forget that they can communicate

how they are feeling. Incongruency can lead to anxiety and being disoriented or even confused

(Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 280).

Mental hospital patients typically are in a state of incongruency. Rogers would most

likely agree that these patients are not diseased or ill people, but they would all share a high

degree of incongruence. Another area that affects whether someone is congruent is self-

actualization. Self- actualization includes self-worth, self-image, and the ideal self (Revisiting

Carl, 2018). Self-worth is determined by the level of significance someone thinks they have on

the world around them. It is also the part of an individual that compares him or her own

experiences to others’ lives around them. According to the article “Rediscovering Roger’s self

theory and personality” by Nik Ahmad Hisham Ismail and Mustafa Tekke, self-image is how

someone perceives they are in actuality or if they were to be realistic (Ismail & Tekke, 2015).

The ideal self is the goals and possibly future hopes someone has in mind for them to eventually

become or they may dream to become. When these three themes intersect it is how one reaches

their most congruent self and if they are unaligned then an individual is incongruent.

There are a couple different types of incongruency such as the couple discussed, but

Rogers understood that it was more valuable to focus on fixing or resolving incongruency instead

of worrying about what type one was struggling with (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 280). It is

essential for someone high in incongruence to comprehend they are not balanced so that they can

learn how to handle their contrasting emotions and work through them. Life is much smoother

when everything lines up and follows the same path, which explains how Rogers felt.
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Anyone can adapt and move towards congruence if they choose to. The self is constantly

changing and reworking to become the best version of itself. Rogers had the attitude that

individuals had the power and strength to accomplish change and adaption to a more balanced-

self on their own (Frager & Fadiman, 2013, p. 295). For someone to do anything they must have

faith that they can, the same goes for attaining congruence. Individuals who comprehend they

can achieve their goals and that they have the potential to reach congruence are what Rogers

would deem a fully functioning person (Ismail & Tekke, 2015). A good way of thinking about a

fully functioning person would be to look at the attempt of growth to be equivalent to someone

finding balance concerning their self-worth, self-image, and their ideal self.

Rogers left a valuable impact on psychology by viewing people as people and not looking

at them as diseases or illnesses. Everyone goes through something and reaches incongruency

somewhere throughout their lives. It is a bold statement to assume everyone can pull themselves

out of their issues or incongruence. He believed that everyone had that capability if they were

given the freedom to and felt comfortable doing so. Client- centered therapy is amazing because

it gives the client a chance to speak their mind and lead the conversation, where typically a

therapist would play a guessing game to try to find the source of concern. The person- centered

approach is mind-blowing because it extends beyond a therapy session. It accepts people who are

off-balance and need to find symmetry in their lives.

Before Rogers’ theory surfaced, theorists only focused on the ailment someone had and

not helping the individual find a way themselves to cope with or resolve their issues. Rogers

beliefs are humanitarian and person focused. He realized that everyone is different and only each

individual knew what they were struggling with and how they could fix their incongruence. Past

theorists would have completely shunned Rogers’ attitudes towards therapy. They would also
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have disagreed with how much or how little therapists should guide conversations with their

clients.
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References
Bozarth, J. “Nondirectivity in the theory of R. Carl Rogers: An unprecedented premise.” Person-

Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies. Dec2012, Vol. 11 Issue 4, p262-276. 15p.

Retrieved from:

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.umo.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=5465ebe4-

1d72-4fe2-9092-a38c8a9e3d69%40pdc-v-

sessmgr04&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=83932587

Frager, R. & Fadiman, J. (2013). Personality and Personal Growth. (7th ed.). Pearson Education,

Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Ismail, N. & Tekke, M. (2015). “Rediscovering Roger’s self theory and personality.” Journal of

Educational, Health and Community Psychology 2015, Vol 4, No 3, ISSN: 2088-3129

Retrieved from:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286456614_Rediscovering_Rogers's_Self_The

ory_and_Personality

“Revisiting Carl Rogers theory of personality.” Journal Psyche. Retrieved from:

http://journalpsyche.org/revisiting-carl-rogers-theory-of-personality/

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