Carl Rogers was born January 8th 1902 in Oakpark, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He was one of the first humanistic theorists in Psychoanalysis, and after graduating with a Ph.D in clinical psychology from Columbia University in 1931, he became a professor at Ohio State in 1940.
In 1951 he published a major work, Client Centered therapy where he outlines his approach theory which was unique at the time and differed from the Psychoanalytic thoughts of people like Jung and Freud, as it put the person who is being treated as the subject matter and not the illness or the reason. His revolutionary theory struggled to break into mainstreem thinking as it was the first psycotherapeutic approach that let the client lead the session, he believed that every human was their own best expert and would lead themselves towards a a healthier place, with the aid of a therapist.
He saw the people he treated as basically good beings, who have a naturalistic feeling towards having good mental health; and he believed that people who had problems with mental health, criminality and other human problems were those who obtained distortions of this natural tendency.
In his theory he outlined three special qualities in which a therapist needs to be as effective as possible in order for them to start a productive therapeutic relationship with their client; Congruence – genuineness and honesty with the client; Empathy – the ability to feel from the clients point of view; and Respect – unconditional positive regard towards the client.
In 1962, Rogers expanded on a theory of toward becoming a fully-functioning person, which he concluded that every being asks of themselves during their lifetime, often many times in search of the ideal self.
Rogers described it as “moving away from facades that are not true to the person in question, to not be concerned with pleasing others with artificial goals, or others expectations and to concentrate instead on becoming self directing and excising self responsibility, is open to change and to others and their lives and choices, and trusts and values oneself and dares to express themselves in new ways such as the following five traits”.
“To be open to experience – to accept reality non defensively, and to be open to feelings. Existential living – to live in the here and now. Organism trusting – To trust oneself, do what feels right, and what comes natural. Experimental freedom – Acknowledge the feeling of freedom, and take responsibility. Creativity – To contribute to actualization of others, participate with the world and of life itself”.
