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             HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY: CARL ROGERS (Lecture Series-3)
                                                         nd 
                                                   B.A. II (Honors) 
                                       (Paper-IVth : Systems in Psychology) 
                                                           By
                                                  Dr. Masaud Ansari
                                              Department of Psychology, 
                                               A.P.S.M. College, Barauni
                                                                                              th
                                            L. N. M. University, Darbhanga                 28 AUGUST 2020
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   Carl Rogers (1902–1987)
       Carl Rogers is best known for a popular approach to psychotherapy called person-
   centered therapy. Rogers also advanced a personality theory based on a single motivational
   factor similar to Maslow’s concept of self-actualization. Unlike Maslow, however, Rogers’s ideas
   did not derive from the study of emotionally healthy people but from applying his person-
   centeredtherapytothosetreatedat hisuniversitycounselingcenters.
       The name of Rogers’s therapy indicates his view of the human personality. By placing
   the responsibility for improvement on the person or client rather than on the therapist (as in
   orthodox psychoanalysis), Rogers assumed that people can consciously and rationally change
   their thoughts and behaviors from undesirable to desirable. He did not believe that we are
   permanently restrained by unconscious forces or childhood experiences. Personality is shaped
   bythepresentandhowweconsciouslyperceiveit.
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   Conti…
       Carl Rogers was born in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His parents espoused
   strict fundamentalist views that, as Rogers put it, held him like a vise throughout childhood and
   adolescence. Their religious beliefs, and the suppression of any display of emotion, forced him
   to live by a code that was not his own. He was a solitary child who read incessantly. He
   believedthat his older brother washis parents’ favorite; as a result, Rogers felt hewas always in
   competition withhisbrother. Hegrewupwith“bitter memories of being theinevitablebutt of his
   brother’sjokes, evenashewasstarvedofjoy byhismother”(Milton,2002,p.128).
       Loneliness led Rogers to rely on his own experiences, and he turned to books as an
   escape.Hereadeverythinghecouldfind,evenadictionary andanencyclopedia.Hissolitude
   forced him to depend on his own resources and his own personal view of the world, a
   characteristic that was to become the foundation of his approach totheunderstanding of the
   humanpersonality:
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   Conti…
           As I look back, I realize that my interest in interviewing and in
           therapy certainly grew out of my early loneliness. Here was a
           socially approved way of getting really close to individuals and
           thus filling some of the hunger I undoubtedlyfelt. (Rogers, 1980, p.
           34)
       WhenRogerswas12,thefamilymovedtoafarmwherehedevelopedastronginterest
   in nature. He read about agricultural experiments and the scientific approach to solving
   problems. At age 22, while attending a Christian student conference in China, he finally freed
   himself fromhis parents’ fundamentalist codeand adopted a moreliberal philosophy of life. He
   becameconvinced that people must choose toguide their lives by their own interpretation of
   eventsratherthanrelyingon theviewsof others.