This differed greatly from the psychoanalytic focus onabnormal behavior.
Below are a few Carl Rogers quotations to help you understand his perspectives.
Rogers believed people possess inherent goodness and that people are driven by the actualizing tendency.
Bettmann Archive / Getty Images
FromOn Becoming a Person, 1961
“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.
My experience is not authoritative because it is infallible.
It is the basis of authority because it can always be checked in new primary ways.
In this way, its frequent error or fallibility is always open to correction.”
He believed unconditional positive regardfor the client is essential for effective treatment.
I have gradually come to one negative conclusion about the good life.
It seems to me that the good life is not any fixed state.
It is not a condition in which the individual is adjusted or fulfilled or actualized.
FromOn Becoming a Person,1961
These quotes capture the essence of Rogers' humanistic theory.
His approach turned from simply diagnosing and treating pathology into using therapy as a tool to help people grow.
Part of self-actualization is the actual process of reaching, striving, and growing.
The good life, as Rogers calls it, is the journey not just the destination.
Ismail NAH, Tekke M.Rediscovering Roger’s self theory and personality.J Educ Health Community Psychol.
2015;4(3):28-36.
Rogers CR.On Becoming a Person, A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy.
Houghton Mifflin; 1961.
