Own Self Actualization Rogers Theory Of Personality example essay topic

Critical analysis Rogers Theory of Personality And How it influences the Therapeutic Relationship By Fiona Wicks April 2002 There have been several different personality theories, which have adopted a phenomenological approach ranging from the humanistic theory outlined by Carl Rogers to the existentialism of R D Laing. They all share the idea that as phenomenological understanding of the person and their situation is essential to the understanding of that individual's personality. Rogers attempts to present his statement of personality dynamics and behaviour by putting together the theoretical formulation, which were explicit or implicit in his theory and the effects upon personality. Personality refers to an organisation of more or less permanent qualities that charactise an individual. Rogers developed his theory of personality as a result of clinical work. He emphases the importance of self concept and personal growth.

He argues that all human human beings have two basic needs. Firstly to self actualise otherwise psychological problems will occur. Secondly to recognise and obtain positive regard, affection, love and respect from other people irrespective of that individuals good or bad behaviour. This provides the individual with security and then they are free to discover their potential by exploring the world and their relationships. For Rogers the therapeutic task is for people who have failed to self actualise and who continually to strive for the approval of others, neglecting their own self actualisation to get back in touch with their inner selves by exploring their own feelings, abilities, traits and inclinations in the security of their safe therapeutic relationship. Rogers is such an important figure in the development of psychotherapy.

His method of therapy is consistent with his theoretical viewpoint. He was constantly testing his theoretical viewpoint in the counselling situation and improving his counselling practise. Born in 1902 in Oak Park near Chicago Rogers started working as a psychologist in New York with the Society for the Prevention toe cruelty to Children. Disenchantment with other theories he began to develop his own ways of working with clients as other methods treated people as objects for study rather than as people needing understanding and compassion. Rogers moulded over a score of years an effective and consistent psychotherapy. He looked upon the theory as tentative.

Some of the propositions he regarded as assumptions while the majority were regarded as hypothesis subject to proof or disproof. While studying it I became increasing fascinated by the obvious influence of his earlier years. When he was twelve his family moved to a large farm further away from the "temptations of suburban life". This was because his parents had a rigid, legalistic type of Christian belief, which although they loved their six children, led them to a lifestyle which Rogers, clearly found stifling. There was no drinking of alcohol, no dancing, no theatre visits, no card games and indeed little social life of any kind. Instead there was hard work.

He was a lonely sickly child. Eventually he was to need therapy himself to help him through his deep-seated belief in his own unworthiness. Due to the perverse theology of his parents he rejected every kind of external authority and control, including the approaches to psychotherapy that he found encompassed in a closed system of belief, trusting only in his own subjective experience. This affected every area of his life as work, including his marriage where he even resisted what he saw as a possessive attitude in his wife Helen and later broke away from her during what he thought was her attempt to control him during her terminal illness. No one could talk to Rogers about religion as it made him uncomfortable and yet his work was deeply influenced by his Christian background.

Towards the end of his life 1987 he was more open to the subject of the supernatural. He turned to the occult rather than Christianity with Spiritual mediums. This had the result of making him consider the possibility of the continuation of the human spirit-something he had never before beloved possible. His negative attitude towards death and the afterlife were not dealt with during his main worming life- He had a charming ability to close his mind to these and other important issues. About Rogers: Rogers was one of the main figures in what is called the Human potential movement. His therapeutic practice has no horror stories from former clients.

He did away with some of the trappings of the imbalance in the power relationship. He called patients "clients". His method is client centred or non-directive. He opened psychotherapy to all who showed talent and not restricted to those with university or professional qualifications.

He showed hostility to labelling and use of diagnosis. He rejected the medical model of mental illness He was against manipulation with therapy Essential for the therapy are 3 core conditions to have a successful outcome against therapy Jeffrey Mous aiff Massoon 1994 Often he asked himself a number of questions about what sort of conditions were required for a person to become fully functional? What hind of relationship would help correct the effects of a negative conditioning especially in cases where negative aspects of interpersonal relationships distorted the process of actualisation? What were the qualities necessary for a person who had low self worth and whose locus of evaluation was moving toward being internal away from external?

Answering these questions he published a paper on interpersonal relationships in 1959. He hypothesized that a person who moved towards a more integrated state, who experienced less need to distort or deny experience into awareness would show a number of characteristics. To begin with becoming more congruent and open to experiences with less need to be defensive. Then becoming more realistic and better at solving personal problems. Then more psychologically adjusted the person became the less vulnerable and more realistic in his / her perceptions of the ideal self because the actual self would be more realistic. As a result of these changes the individual would be less liable to tension and anxiety, more able to express positive regard for others, more confident, self directing and trusting of his or her own values.

He / she would be more realistic to his / her perceptions of others and more acceptance of others. Consequently more able to socialise maturely with abilities to be more creative, adaptable and self-expressive. Although he was highly suspicious of these theories and during the 1930's and 40's in America, he perceived a major new approach in psychotherapy, which constituted a radical departure from the accepted analytical methods. Rogers felt that 2"the client knows best". It is the client who knows what is hurting and in the final analysis it is the client who knows how to move forward. He was convinced of their fundamental insight that he first called his way of working "Non Directive Counselling" emphasising that the counsellor task is to enable the client to make contact with his own inner resources rather than to guide, advise or in some other way influence the direction the client should take.

This positive approach to counselling interest me deeply as I am a children's and General Registered Nurse who deals with people who hurt not only physically but along side is mental anguish, depression, anxiety, low self esteem, inability to cope with their present situations. So often in our hospitals we dash past patients to write copiously about then in their case notes without listening or knowing how our patients are really feeling or thinking. As Carl Rogers enable countless people throughout the world to be themselves with confidence- I feel I would really like to help people around me to listen to know themselves through my counselling skills. Roger's impact has been enormous through his writing, through the school of counselling and psychotherapy, which he founded. He also had a direct influence through his work on many areas of professional activity where the quality of human relationships is central.

He believed deeply in the capacity of every individual to find his or her own way forward and he maintained that the ideal facilitator was one who would enable others to feel that they had done " it" themselves what ever the "it" might be. This central belief in the wholeness of the human personality and the need for individuality, self-awareness, change positive regard, moving forward to become a fully functioning person. Rogers said "The individual has within himself the vats resources of self understanding for altering self understanding, for altering the self concept, his attitudes And his self directed behaviour and that these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided". A way of being 1980 by Houghton Mifflin Company page 49 In this my first essay I will critically analysis Rogers theory of personality and how it influences the therapeutic relationship- mentioning some relevant publications, a summary of his propositions, how theory can effect the client highlighting the therapeutic relationships and the core conditions of worth.

The object of the therapy is self-actualisation. I will explain how Rogers believes this happens. There were other theory around at Rogers time and so it will be interesting to look at them to see whether they may have influenced Rogers or not as the case may be. Rogers sparked off much excitement and criticism, fear and delight so I plan to take these various reactions into consideration and my own opinions.

I will conclude by stating how it has influenced the therapeutic relationship and recapture the essence of Rogers approach. What was the basis of the therapeutic relationship before? Rogers is quoted as saying "On the basis of my experience I have found that if I am to bring about a climate marked by genuineness, prizing and understanding then exciting things happen. Persons and groups in such ac climate move away from rigidity and towards flexibility, away from static living towards process living, away from dependence towards autonomy, away from defensiveness towards self-acceptance, away from being predictable towards an unpredictable creativity. They exhibit living proof of an actualizing tendency". This became the corner stone for Rogers's theory.

"When I am exposed to a growth promoting climate, I am able to develop a deep trust in myself, in individuals and in entire groups. I would love to create such a an environment in which people, groups and even plants can grow" -from "A way of being" Rogers 1980 page 43. The understanding of the therapeutic relationship has led Rogers to formulate theoretical statements regarding all interpersonal relationships, seeing the therapeutic relationship simply as a special case. He felt that if his views were valid they could be applied to various fields of human experience and endeavour such as interpersonal relationships developing or potentially developing or changing personality and behaviour. They could be applied to family life, education groups, and leadership and in situation of group tension and conflict. Rogers acknowledges and thanks many colleagues such as Victor Rai my, Richard Hogan, Oliver Brown, Eugene Gendelin and A.H. Maslow among many others for their research in this area.

Rogers stipulated the conditions for therapy to occur: vs. Two people must meet vs. The first person is a incongruent, vulnerable anxious state vs. While the second, the therapist is congruent in the relationship vs. The therapist must be experiencing unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding of the clients internal frame of reference. vs. The client perceives the therapist's unconditional positive regard and empathic understanding. vs. The most important characteristic is the ability to understand the client's communication and with the meaning these communications have for the client. The process of therapy happens when the conditions of the therapeutic process exist and the client is increasingly free in expressing feelings through verbal or motor channels. These express feelings increasingly have a reference to the self rather than the none self. The client increasingly differentiates aand discriminates against the objects of his or her feelings and perceptions, including his or her environment, his or her self and his or her experience and the interrelationship of these.

The person becomes more accurately symbolised. Expressed feeling will have reference to the incongruity between past experiences and his or her concept of self. He or she becomes aware of the threat of incongruence fully aware that the concept of self is reorganised to include these experiences which have been denied to awareness. This results in the concept of self becoming increasingly congruent with this experience.

The clients self now includes these experiences which would formerly have been too threatening to be an awareness. Defensiveness is decreased and the client is increasingly able to experience without feelings of threat. The feeling of unconditional regard builds up and the individual react to experience with organismic valuing process. The research of Stock found people became more referent, objective and less strongly emotional. At the centre of Rogers theory is the importance of the phenomenological world as contrasted with the objective world. Each person is the centre of his / her own changing world of experience, the nature of this personal self accounts for most of his / her behaviour, normal and pathological.

The persons self concept, the relatively stable patterns of self perceptions that he / she had acquired in interactions in the word around him or her, largely determines how he / she will relate to other people and objects. The more positive the individuals self concept, the more likely he / she is likely to be adaptive and successful in his / her transactions with the world around him / her. Rogers assumes that every person has in him / her a strong motivation for positive change in growth. Giving the proper setting every individual will be able to actualise the positive aspect of him or her self. The way a person perceives reality was all important to Rogers. This applied to me as my self concept of my first school was very low and I was sent by worried parents to a convent where my self concept changed as did my locus of evaluation as did my locus of evaluation from external to internal with the help of some very empathic nuns full of positive regard and congurance.

My world was transformed and I began to like myself and self actualise. Rogers hated theories and thought their application made it difficult to trust the evidence of ones own perceptions, intuitions and that relying on a theory could promote a situation where the therapist moulds the client into a preconceived cognitive structure rather than working in the clients world as he / she experiences it. His theory of personality is clear and uncomplicated, forceful and based on clinical experience. He pushed aside the restraints of other theories of personality and buried himself in his clients discovering with them what worked. Rogers devoted his energies to relating deeply to his clients. He found that the best way to understand a person's behaviour was to know about the person's subjective awareness of him or herself and what really mattered was the clients perception of reality which should be respected however bizarre or misguided it appeared to the therapist...

This was summarised by Rogers in "Experience is for me the highest authority" published in Ko vell 1991. Rogers experience was that people had a basically positive direction, they know what hurts and which direction to go for healing. The therapists role was to aid the client in exploration and discovery of his or her own inner resources. It was not on any account to impose external solutions, strategies, interpretations or explanations. Once clients become aware that another person believes in their capacity to cope and manage their problems they tend to do just that. I endorse Rogers theory because as a student nurse I was experiencing low self esteem.

I was about to hand in my resignation to Matron. Following an encouraging meeting with her I left believing in myself and my ability to achieve my potential. I felt good and continued a long career in nursing. I admire Rogers optimistic view of human nature.

Rogers theory is that the actualising tendency is the motivating force that enables the person to achieve wholeness. People have the ability to improve although external forces, traumas and emotional deprivation can inhabit this process. The individual's self concept is acquired in childhood and is based on life experience and the attitude of those around. These experiences can determine if the self-concept is positive or negative. If positive the person because self-actualising and reaches wholeness. If early experiences are bad or negative the self-concept will be negative therefore a criticised or unloved child will probably grow with a negative self-concept.

Other experiences and events can confound this. Often decision making is difficult and this where the councillor can play an important part helping the client to realise his / her ability to process the inner resources necessary to raise self concept. Our need for love and positive regard is very strong and we do things contrary to our real needs in order to feel. Rogers feels that as well as the self-concept each individual positives a organismic self. This is the inner life of a person, present at birth and consists of the basic force to regulate the physiological and psychological. Its most important function is to grow mature and achieve self-actualisation.

This instinctive move towards harmony and integration is present in everybody but because of conditions of worth it may be repressed or ignored. These conditions of worth are the rules imposed on us at birth. They govern our behaviour along with disapproval or rejection when rules are broken. Children need to be loved and accepted and so the organismic self is often rejected in favour of pleasing others.

This internal ising of the condition of worth may continue into adult causing what Rogers called external locus of evaluation, which results in a fully functioning or autonomist person. They have been fortunate enough to live in a context that has facilitated the emergency of self-context with which they have been in touch for part of the time. I ask myself is it really possible for all person centred councillors to be real people with the clients all the time. Surely real consillors would have the same reactions as real people in ordinary situations? This does include unconditional acceptance, lack of judgement, or empathic understanding.

We constantly judged some, avoid some and for good reason. Masson critises Rogers by saying " No real person does any of these things that Rogers that Rogers prescribes in real life, so if the therapist manages to do so in a session being all accepting, all understanding this is merely artifices. It is not reality and not what Rogers claims them to be. This artifical attitudes are helpful but I do not find them real" (Geffery Mustafory Massoon 1994) The next condition of worth is unconditional positive regard on behalf of the therapist who should ask him / herself if he / she will prize and care for the person.

If he / she can achieve this constructive and positive change is more likely to occur. A valuing, caring, accepting of this person as an individual and it is a non possessive love which infers "I am able to accept you as you area". Some critics such as Massoon do not in compass negative possibilities such as the therapist feeling unsafe with the client therefore not experiencing positive regard. Perhaps the therapist dislikes the client? Massoon found it strange that Rogers never reported his clients suffering from genuine tram as. The final core condition was empathy, here the therapist asks him / herself if he / she will be able to understand the inner world of the individual from the inside.

Finding out what the world looks like through the clients eyes. The therapist asks him / herself "will I be able to be sufficiently sensitive to move around inside the world of my clients feelings so that I know what it is like to be him or her" The outcomes of therapy are that the client becomes more open to experience, less defensive more realistic, objective, extensional in perceptions, better at problem solving, increased in congruence of self, increased sense of experience, less vulnerability to threat, increased positive self regard, reduced tensions and anxiety, increased positive self regard, an internal locus of evaluation, owns his or her own behaviour, becomes more sociable and is perceived to be so. Appears to be more mature, creative, adaptable and is more fully expressive of hid or her own purpose or values. The effectiveness of Rogers research from which he developed his theory was backed up by: Grum mon and John, T.A. T Hoga and Hague, Joni dz, Mitchell, Rorschach, Dimond many others.

Hoga and Haig studied the decrease in defensiveness during this process of person centred counselling and Chadorkoff found that congruence is associated with a lack of defensiveness. Others who share self and the ac utilisation theory are Goldstein and Maslow. Goldstein 1878-1965 was influenced by Gestalt psychology who wrote a book called the Organism and became more closely associated with phenomenology and existential psychology. Rogers would have agreed with Goldstein that self actualisation is the driving force in personality and motive. Maslow 1908-1970 approached self-actualisation from a different prospective to Rogers. He sought out people who had developed their potential to the utmost and developed the pyramid of hierarchical needs.

He came to the conclusion that self-actualizes were realistic, excepting of themselves, others and the world. They are spontaneous problem centred rather than self centred, detached, independent, creative, non-conformist, profoundly mystical or spiritual. They are capable of having deep emotional relationships and a philosophical rather than a hostile sense of humour. Now I propose to discuss 4 propositions of Rogers theory of personality. vs. Number 2: The organism reacts to the field as it is experienced and perceived, this perceptive field is, for the individual reality.

This means that we see our selves as the centre of our reality that is our every changing world around us. We experience ourselves as the centre of our world and can only know our own perceptions. We do not react to some absolute reality but to the perception of this reality. The perception is reality.

We continually check our perceptions against one another, thus they become a more reliable guide to reality. Each perception is a hypothesis and so the world is composed of a series of tested hypothesis. In person centred counselling the client may change his / her perception which may change his / her relationship with people and the world around him / her. The task of the counsellor is to perceive the world as the client does by listening and hearing the client, thinking as he or she does and entering into the client worlds.

( 1 F to come back) vs. The organism acts as an integrate whole to the phenomenal field. This means that whole person works together rather than in separate parts. This proposition shows the degree of integration within the human personality where in parts which may have been very wounded are supported and protected by other parts in such a way that they all survive. Dealing with the whole person does not mean that the counsellor should ignore elements and dynamics within the personality. The counsellor will work with the whole personality and be attentive to the different aspects of the client endeavouring to extend the therapeutic conditions to all these aspects. In working with clients with conflicting aspects within their personality, the person centred counsellors task is to manifest the therapeutic conditions in relation to all aspects of the personality.

The counsellor must value each aspect if the clients personality, listen and be congruent, give equal attention to all of the personality even when these aspects are in conflict and mutually rejecting. ( 2) vs. Number 4: The organism has one basic tendency and striving-to actualise, maintain and enhance the experiencing organism. This means that human beings have a basic tendency to full fill their potential, to be positive and forward looking. They will grow, improve and protect their existence. Constraints on the actualising tendency arise from the environment in which the person lives.

Given the ideal environment the organism will actualise all of its creative potential. To actualise we need the correct ingredients of love, acceptance from important significant people in our environment, positive regard, positive self-regard. We need to develop trust in our own inner experiencing and have an internal locus of evaluation. In the therapeutic relationship the councillor provides congruence, empathy and unconditional positive regard in combination with his or her authentic self. In the process of this actualisation, the organism moves through struggle and pain towards enhancement and growth. For the foreword moving tendency to operate the experience must be adequately symbolised. vs. Number 7: The best vantage point for understanding behaviour is from the internal frame of reference of the individual, which means to understand the behaviour of a person, we must look at the world from there point of view.

One of the necessary and sufficient conditions which if present in a relationship would cause a constructive personality change if the councillor experiences an empathic understanding of the clients internal frame of reference and endeavours to communicate this experience to the client without judgement. If the clients experience congruence from the therapist alongside unconditional positive regard. There were other theories of personality that Rogers would have considered. They can be divided into psychodynamic, social psychological trait type, cognitive behaviour of self an existential.

Central to Freud's psychoanalytical theory were the concept of the "ID" which operates according to the pleasure principle, the ego, which operates according to the reality principle, and the super ego, which is our conscience. Jung in his theory of analytic psychological describes the role of the complexes and the appearance through complex indicators. He describes the collective unconscious, which contain the archetypes that exist in all people. Alder 1870-1937, Fromm 1990 and Sullivan 1892-1936 and Horny produced social physiological theories, which accentuated the role of social and cultural factors and interpersonal relations especially within the family, in determining personality. George Kelly in 1905-1956 derived Cognitive Therapy which states the way a person interprets some aspect of the world are a central feature of the personality. Me dard Boss 1903 along with others developed Existential Theory regards man as being in the world and is free to be what ever he wants to be.

Man has the responsibility to full fill all his possibilities. none available.