On Becoming A Person (1954) Carl Rogers
When an activity feels as though it is valuable or worth doing, it is worth doing
One of the fathers of the positive psychology movement, Rogers suggests that people need unconditional acceptance, empathy, and positive regard for positive growth and change to occur, and this can happen in the therapeutic relationship, or even with other people -- “The self-awareness and human presence of the therapist is more important than the therapist’s technical training” (from preface). He says that, left to their own devices, free of psychological issues and the hurt of rejection, people will generally move in a positive direction, towards something that would be subjectively considered good or positive – contra Freud and Hobbes, man is not inherently bad. Man is “basically socialized, forward-moving, relational and realistic.” “...to be understood has a very positive value to these individual” so one ought to understand from the point of view of the other, first and foremost, in a social interaction. One must “[accept] the feelings and attitudes and beliefs that he has as a real and vital part of him, then I am assisting him to become a person.” “...I become less and less inclined to hurry in to fix things... I am much more content simply to be myself and to let another person be himself.” But, the paradox here is, the more people are understood, and realities are accepted, “the more change seems to be stirred up.” Man is “incorrigibly socialized in his desires.” His feelings “operate in a constructive harmony rather than sweeping him into some uncontrollably evil path.” “We do not need to ask who will socialize him, for one of his own deepest needs is for affiliation and communication with others.” “When man’s unique capacity of awareness is thus functioning freely and fully, we find that we have, not an animal whom we must fear... [but] a balanced, realistic, self-enhancing, other-enhancing behavior as a resultant... when [man] denies to awareness various aspects of his experience—then indeed we have all to often reason to fear him and his behavior.” Says that the origin of so much that is bad in the world is that feeling of rejection, that feeling of intense hurt that so many people feel, leading them to engage in disastrous behaviors, “...hostility, jealousy, etc.--result from frustration of more basic impulses for love and security and belonging.” Cooperation, not struggle, is the “basic law of human life” (but this cannot be imposed from above). Points out, as a source of Jordan Peterson, that many movements of the 20th century that were ostensibly engaged in as “for the greater good” served no such cause at all (I.e. Mao, Stalin, etc). From the preface, “The prevailing judgment was that Rogers could be dismissed because he was not serious. This judgment hides and reveals a narrow view of what is serious or intellectual.” Rogers quotes Kierkegaard, “to be that self which one truly is” as one of his defining mantras, “I am quite aware that this may sound so simple as to be absurd.” Rogers came in contact with Dr. A.C. McGiffert at seminary, before renouncing religion, “who believed devoutly in freedom of inquiry, and in following the truth no matter where it led.” He further saw this light as a therapist, in thinking that accepted dogmas of psychotherapy might be wrong, “the possibility that there were mistakes in authoritative teachings, and that there was still new knowledge to discover.” Man needs to trust his feelings and self, and this is an area where people become alienated by their life experience, being a slave to shoulds and expectations. “...when an activity feels as though it is valuable or worth doing, it is worth doing...I have never regretted moving in directions which ‘felt right,’ even though I have often felt lonely or foolish at the time.” “...only one person... can know whether what I am doing is honest, thorough, open, and sound, or false and defensive and unsound, and I am that person.” “Every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true. And being closer to the truth can never be a harmful or dangerous or unsatisfying thing.” Thus, Rogers does not put forth a philosophy or belief set which he thinks others must hold, because that is up for others to interpret and devise. People who go through therapy find that “The therapist procedure which they had found most helpful was that the therapist clarified and openly stated feelings which the client had been approaching hazily and hesitantly” -- thus, restating what they said, perhaps more forcefully, showing “warm interest” but without emotional over involvement; truly desiring to understand, not being defensive, or showing someone why they are wrong, allowing people to “blossom and grow in that climate”, asking “What’s hitting your now?”. The most important thing is the attitudes and feelings of the therapist, and how they are perceived by the other party. “To withhold one’s self as a person and to deal with the other person as an object does not have a high probability of being helpful.” “Slowly [the client] moves toward taking the same attitude toward himself [of positive regard], accepting himself as he is, and therefore ready to move forward in the process of becoming.” He moves from “construing experience in rigid ways, which are perceived as external facts... toward developing changing, loosely held construing of meaning in experience.”, “moving towards a conception of himself as a person of wroth, as a self-directing person, able to form his standards and values upon the basis of his own experience.” “The initial discrepancy between the self that he is and the self that he wants to be is greatly diminished [through therapy].” As with Adler, he discourages evaluations, good or bad, “since to inform someone that he is good implies that you also have the right to tell him he is bad.” The therapist tries to “grasp the moment-to-moment experiencing which occurs in the inner world of the client” and “as he finds someone else listening acceptantly to his feelings, he little by little becomes able to listen to himself.” -- by pointing out to the client what he has said and feels, the client becomes more in touch which what he does think and feel. “I sense how frightening his world is for him, how tightly he tries to hold it in place.” The therapist joins him “on the fearful journey into himself, into the buried fear, and hate, and love which he has never been able to let flow in him.” The process works to “let [him] experience fully, and in awareness, all of his reactions including his feelings and emotions” -- the process of not being a person is being alienated from your own self, of not feeling, of pushing it away, not wanting to know. “If we are thoughtfully trying to understand our tasks as administrators, teachers, educational counselors, vocational counselors, therapists, then we are working on the problem which will determine the future of this planet. For it is not upon the physical sciences that the future will depend. It is upon us who are trying to understand and deal with the interactions between human beings—who are trying to create helping relationships.” When we help man break down his mask, “he discovers how much of his life is guided by what he thinks he should be, not by what he is.” The “...deepest form of despair is to choose ‘to be another than himself’.” (Kierkegaard). Man learns to evaluate new evidence as it is, not to fit his pre-existing distorted patterns. Of alienation from feeling, “Formerly he could not freely feel pain or illness, because being ill meant being unacceptable. Neither could he feel tenderness and love for his child, because such feelings meant being weak...” “...[the client] has to learn the langauge of feeling and emotion as if he were an infant learning to speak; often even worse, he finds he must unlearn a false language before learning the new one.” But, “one person cannot teach another.”, you can only lead a horse to water, “The teaching would destroy the learning.” “The most that one person can do to further it in another, is to create certain conditions which make this type of learning possible.It cannot be compelled.” (this is what Kierkegaard said, of the kind of learning people do in therapy). Puts forth about “openness to experience” as being more than just someone who is willing to do drugs, but rather as, someone who is willing to listen to their senses, to know their life experiences, and to use them as guiding forces in their life. “Thus an individual may persist in the concept that ‘I can handle liquor,’ when openness to his past experience would indicate that this is scarcely correct.” Or, someone may not see the faults in their partner, seeing only their good sides; they are not open to their experience (Adam from East of Eden). “Now that he can permit himself to experience [his feelings], he will find them less terrible...” For the creative individual, the most important question is, “Am I living in a way which is deeply satisfying to me, and which truly expresses me?” People “become more content to be a process rather than a product." “...some people do not value fluidity. This will be one of the social value judgments which individuals and cultures will have to make.” Goes through his seven stages of clients, 1 thinking they do not need help, everything is fine; these people would rarely submit themselves for thearpy. People can slowly move from 3 to 4, 5, 6, but some of 1’s and 2’s cannot be helped; the process from 3 to 7 could take years. Man may “... move away, hesitantly and fearfully, from a self that he is not” as a first step, away from expectations. Of self actualized people, Maslow, “Their ease of penetration to reality... an animal-like or child-like acceptance and spontaneity imply a superior awareness of their own impulses, their own desires, opinions, and subjective reactions in general.” Again Maslow “self-actualized people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experience may be for other people.” These kind of people also “move toward the acceptance of the experience of others.” Maslow “One does not complain about water because it is wet, nor about rocks because they are hard... As the child looks out upon the world with wide, uncritical and innocent eyes... without either arguing the matter or demanding that it be otherwise, so does the self-actualizing person look upon human nature both in himself and in others.” Of learning to trust the self, “Ernest Hemingway was surely aware that ‘good writers do not write like this.’ But fortunately he moved toward being Hemingway, being himself, rather than toward some one else’s conception of a good writer... Time and again... I have seen simple people become significant and creative in their own spheres, as they developed more trust of the processes going on within themselves...” He who is “is not trying to be more than he is, with the attendant feelings of insecurity or bombastic defensiveness.” Regarding implications for political policy, “We could focus on the problem at hand, rather than spending our energies to prove that we are moral or consistent.” “... it is a richly rewarding experience to be what one deeply is.” “This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one’s potentialities. It involves the courage to be... when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming.” Of science, “Each of [the questions of what to pursue] is necessarily a subjective personal judgment, emphasizing that the splendid structure of science rests basically upon its subjective use by persons.” “It is only when he too agrees to scientific method as a good means of preventing self-deception that he will be likely to accept its findings.” Psychology works to rectify behaviors which are learned, not diseases; thus, cure is an inappropriate word to use for its outcomes. Regarding education, “The student... in the required course, is apt to view the course as an experience in which he expects to remain passive or resentful or both, an experience which he certainly does not often see as relevant to his own problems.” Rogers put forth the idea that education should be made to seem relevant to life, “These are requirements set, not by the teacher, but by life. The teacher is there to provide the resources which the student can use to learn so as to be able to meet those tests.” Life has certain constraints which must be met, a “conservatism”
that stares us all in the face. “The natural place of evaluation in life is as a ticket of entrance, not as a club over the recalcitrant.” “Our whole culture... is deeply committed to keeping young people away from any touch with real problems. They are not to work, they should not carry responsibility... they simply should be guarded from any direct contact with the real problems of individual and group living. They are not expected to help about the home, to earn a living... to deal with moral issues. This is a deep seated trend which has lasted for more than a generation. Could it possibly be reversed?” Regarding open debate, “Although the tendency to make evaluations is common in almost all interchange of language, it is very much heightened in those situations where feelings and emotions are deeply involved.”, resorting to “our very natural tendency to judge.” If one can greatly understand the other side, “it will be of the greatest help to him in altering those every hatreds and fears, and in establishing realistic and harmonious relationships with the very people and situations toward which he has felt hatred and fear.” Achieving the speaker’s frame of reference is penultimate to understanding. “The great majority of us could not listen; we would find ourselves compelled to evaluate, because listening would seem too dangerous. For the first requirement is courage, and we do not always have it.” (I.e. listening about Russian communists in the era of McCarthy). “These defensive distortions drop away with astonishing speed as people find that the only intent is to understand, not judge.” We must be allowed to “revise new ways of relating to these complex changes, [or] the lights will go out.” “A generally passive and culture-bound people cannot cope with the multiplying issues and problems” of complex modern society. “Galileo and Copernicus made creative discoveries which in their own day were evaluated as blasphemous and wicked.” The capacity for self actualization, to become his potentialities, exists deep beneath his psychological defenses. “It seems clear that no contemporary mortal can satisfactorily evaluate a creative product at the time that it is formed, and this statement is increasingly true the greater the novelty of the creation.” “Many, perhaps most, of the creations and discoveries which have proved to have great social value, have been motivated by purposes having more to do with personal interest than with social value, while on the other hand history records a somewhat sorry outcome for many of those creations (various Utopias, Prohibition, etc.) which had as their avowed purpose the achievement of the social good. No, we must face the fact that the individual creates primarily because it is self-satisfying to him, because this behavior is felt to be self-actualizing, and we get nowhere by trying to differentiate ‘good’ and ‘bad’ purposes in the creative process.” Significantly creative products are accompanied with both feelings of being alone, as well as with the desire to share it with others. Regarding determinism, “the way the individual perceives the movement of a dim light in a dark room, we can tell a good deal about the degree to which he is a rigid, prejudiced, ethnocentric person.” Regarding authoritarian bosses, “when supervisors are sensitive to worker attitudes, and when supervision is not suspicious or authoritarian, production and morale increase”. People need to feel the skin in the game, to meet the goals which are required by life, not which are authoritarian and unexplained. Social isolation and feelings of rejection can lead to false confessions; public attitudes can tell us that “men could not possibly fly in a contraption which was heavier than air.” Contra Skinner, thinks that spontaneous and free life is that which makes life good; behaviorism is that which denies the very essence of living. The colossal rigidity of a Skinner-type living arrangement, or a Brave New World, is the inability to adapt, no questioning, scientific operations which cannot transcend themselves to question guiding purposes; they cannot evolve. We can be more than slaves to a ruling elite. “...responsible personal choice... is the most essential element in being a person, which is the core experience in psychotherapy, which exists prior to any scientific endeavor,… to deny the reality of the experience of responsible personal choice is... stultifying... [and] close-minded...” “...the goals we select, the purposes we wish to follow, must always be outside of the science which achieves them.”