Carl Rogers And The Humanistic Psychology Movement Essay

Carl Rogers (1902-87) was the founder of the client-centred or person-centred approach to counselling and therapy. (McLeod 2001)

Rogers worked with many others in developing the idea that clients could heal themselves, if only the therapist provided ‘facilitative’ or core conditions of, ‘empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard.’

Humanistic therapy emerged in the 1950's as an alternative to behavioural and psychoanalytic therapy. Rogers is it’s

Freud’s view of human nature from a psychoanalytical stand point was he believed that the contents of an individual’s matters consciousness were determined by psychological, individual and biological motivations Freud, S. (2001).. His worldviews presented interpretations of who the individual was, where they came from, and what their destiny was. On the other hand, Rogers believed the psychoanalytical view humans as never free from primitive passions, childhood fixations, and only the product of powerful biological drives was not flexible enough. Rogers’s foundation of

This essay is to describe Sigmund Freud’s and Carl Rogers’ differing concepts of human psychology concerning determinism. Freud is known to be a determinist. This means that he believes that humans don’t have free will, that there are forces beyond the individuals control which control their actions and underlying reasons behind behaviours. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/). Rogers is known as a non-determinist. This is the belief that humans have free will, that they control their own behaviours, desires and are not bound by laws (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/free-will?q=free+will). However a new idea which mostly stems from the cognitive approach has been created called “Soft – Determinism.” This is the idea that people have a degree of free will. That our behaviours and desires are mostly determined however we can choose specific ways to act in particular situations.

Before looking at the latter 3 in more detail, it is important to understand Carl Rogers’s view of the person and perhaps what is ultimately bringing the client to therapy. Carl Rogers believed that there is incongruence between the self that is the actualisation part, that has a desire to grow, is open to experiencing in the moment and ultimately psychological well being and the actual experience of the self. He believed this effect was caused

I am on a life-long path as a Skilled Helper (Egan) with some training in Integrative Psychotherapy. I am currently striving to integrate Carl Rogers’ ideas and practices into my existing knowledge framework whilst attempting to see previously identified phenomena through new eyes. My aim is to use this knowledge to influence my practice as co-creator of therapeutic relationships. My principal aims in this essay are to define some of the basic ideas of Rogers, to then describe how this links and informs his notions of a joint therapeutic endeavour through his Core

The aim of this assignment is to compare and contrast two theories or theorists of counselling from psychodynamic, humanistic or cognitive behavioural traditions and also to assess their strengths and weaknesses. This essay will focus on exploring the contrasting ideas and approaches of Carl Rogers who is a key figure associated with the person-centered approach and Fritz Perls who developed Gestalt therapy. Although they are both regarded as humanistic counsellors, they share a very different approach when working with clients. I have chosen to analyse these two theorists because of their contrasting styles, in particular my curiosity was sparked after viewing both Perls and Rogers sessions with Gloria. I found it fascinating how such different styles could still be successful in therapy. In particular fritz perls style really grabbed my attention as at first, I was really put off by his seemingly rude demeanour. However, after reading information on gestalt therapy and the ideas behind it I started to understand how it works.

The focus of this paper is the person-centered approach, which is the understanding of personality and human relationships in psychotherapy and counseling in the areas of client-centered therapy, education of student-centered learning, organizations, and other group settings. Even though psychoanalysis and behaviorism have made major contributions to psychology, it has influenced the understanding and practices of the humanistic movement, specifically with the therapies for the different mental disorders. Psychoanalysis understands the unconscious behavior, behaviorism focuses on the conditioning process that produces behavior. Humanistic psychology focuses on the person's potential to act as a whole person in a nurturing environment by

For instance, Rogers (1965) devoted much of his work and writing to the uniqueness of ordinary people in the psychology of science. As such, he interrogated the place of the individual person in life through a series of thought-provoking psychological dissertations. For instance, he challenged the role of the American Association of Humanistic Psychologists in enhancing an educational atmosphere that would create a philosophy of life that transcends time and one that infuses the true value of living. Likewise, Wertheimer (1938) advanced the principle of the Gestalt Theory, which further interrogates the essence of life and living within the science of psychology. Indeed, both Rogers and Wertheimer seem to concur with the arguments of psychologists such as William James who placed more value and emphasis on the human value. For instance, he called on the need to look more deeply in the human mind and to report what lies in there. Indeed, this is statement concurs with Roger’s and Wertheimer’s convictions that the human mind is a fundamental tool in psychological sciences and which holds the magical key of introspection. Eventually, it emerges that the individual person holds much of the power to affect their life experiences with aspects such as joy, pain, and sorrow and the

It is inevitable that in psychotherapy there are numerous theories. Theories arise out of scholarly investigations of ideas on human behavior. Human behavior is an extraordinarily interesting subject and therefore produces a plethora of ideas from a variety of theorists. These theorists are influenced by their education, culture, and time period. One influential theorist is Carl Rogers. His contributions to human behavior have changed many of the theories that preceded him, and his theory contributed to many theories that followed.

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I particularly like in part two that Rogers discusses the idea of empathy. I have learned that empathy is not just a valuable quality to possess, but that in some ways it is the quality which will make or break your relationship with your client. Empathy to me shows me that you actually "get" what it is that the person is trying to relay to you, it does not mean that you are feeling sorry for them or that you want to know exactly what it is that they are going through, but instead you are willing to look at experiences through their eyes and to see the world as they see it in order to understand their perspective and point of view. Part II also discusses some of the challenges to the helping profession as it was known to him at the publication of this book. Rogers in particular discusses his desire that future psychologist will be born not so much with a standard university idea of what is to be expected in a uniform ideal way, but that they will possess the ability to think on their own and with their own ideas they will be able to reach to a larger population of persons.

Carl Rogers originated client-centred therapy, which is based on the belief that individuals, rather then environment or subconscious drives, can control their choices and values and fulfil their own unique potential. Rogers' theory stresses that it is the individual's own comprehension of his or her experiences that is important, rather then the therapist's professional interpretation (Rogers, 1951). Kelly founded what is known as the personal construct system. He suggested that our personal constructs reflect our constant efforts to make sense of our world, just as scientists make sense of their subject-matter; we observe, we draw conclusions about patterns of cause and effect, and we behave according to those conclusions (Kelly, 1963). Both theories emerged at a time when psychotherapy was the most commonly practiced therapy technique.

Humanistic theory by Carl Rogers, is based on an ensemble of theories and methods largely having the origins in humanistic psychotherapy, but adapted to the specific of activity from the social work areas, the solving of the socio-human and collective problems and not only the individual problems. Regardless of the specific and nature of the object of intervention humanistic theory uses this unlimited and miraculous resource of the human or humane personality. This is the reason why its theories and methodologies operate with concepts like human being, soul, person, self, empathy, compactly, personal development, spirituality, humane personality, even when aims objectives at the family, organizational or community level. humanistic social work is, ultimately, the representation of the individual client as personality, soul, being, and moving in the background the representation as body or through elementary social relationships, as well as the representation of the collective client as a sympathetically interaction between persons with souls, personalities, as human beings. Humanistic traits like empathy and spirituality, through creativity, aesthetic sensibility, authentic faith, concern for truth, balanced personality will transmit and stimulate the development of the human/ humane features at the client’s level too, factually transmitting positive energy, happiness, aesthetic, intellectual, spiritual, and playful qualities. Also, thus contributing to its personal development, increasing the self-esteem, social consciousness, the capacity of initiative and social autonomy - fulfilling the true mission of the humanistic social work practice. So, humanistic work prioritizes the human personality as resource and operates with an empathetic professional personality concept that combines the human humane personality with the pragmatic positive personality. The focus of the humanistic curriculum is the goal is to train and cultivate the empathetic-professional personality, the ability to resonate to the sufferings and the human problems of customers and display qualities such as empathy, presence of spirit, the high level of