HUMANISTIC PERSONALITY THEORY

Carl Rogers' Humanistic Personality Theory

Carl Rogers' Humanistic Personality Theory

Introduction

This paper highlights Carl Rogers' humanistic personality theory. The reason why I have selected this theory is because of the fact that humanistic theory's approach to counseling includes a number of theoretical viewpoints. The dominant perspectives in this category are person-centered therapy and Gestalt therapy, which emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as alternatives to the prevailing approaches of the time, psychoanalysis and behaviorism.

Discussion

Phenomenological psychology's concepts such as self-actualization, authenticity, and congruence have considerable utility in the realm of personality theory and offer a persuasive depiction of human psychological life, but such concepts can become marginalized in the world of quantitative research due to their esoteric nature. Despite the widespread acceptance of the importance self-structure, phenomenological approaches are on the periphery of contemporary personality research (Rogers, 1951). Even so, phenomenological methods of inquiry, such as narrative case studies, continue to provide rich, contextualized information about individual personality.



Personality Characteristics

For Rogers, the key question in the therapeutic relationship was: How can the counselor provide a relationship that the client can use for personal growth? That question expressed Rogers's heartfelt conviction that the counselor provides a helping, facilitative relationship that has the potential to liberate clients from their incongruous, unactualizing way of being. When that helping, facilitative relationship is provided, clients will use it to help themselves grow. Clients are capable of personal growth in a counseling relationship characterized by three core conditions: empathie understanding, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness.

Empathie understanding is often defined by the phrase “walk a mile in my shoes.” Rogers advocated that counselors (metaphorically) crawl into the skin of their clients, to see as they see, to think as they think, and to feel as they feel. By profoundly understanding their clients, communicating that understanding, and facilitating further and deeper exploration, counselors open the way for clients to begin listening to and understanding themselves. For Rogers, being empathie was the core facilitative condition that freed clients to use the counseling relationship to grow (Rogers, 1957).

Unconditional positive regard (also referred to as non-possessive warmth, respect, liking, acceptance, and prizing) is an appreciation of clients for who they are. It also involves a positive respect for and acceptance of the client's immediate experiencing. In the words of Thomas Harris's popular 1969 book, I'm OK—You're OK, positive regard involves genuinely feeling and communicating to clients that they are “OK.”

Genuineness (also referred to as realness, congruence, and transparency) entails honestly being yourself in the counseling relationship. The counselor puts up no front or façade. Genuineness involves honesty, expressed with sensitivity, compassion, and appropriateness. Although genuineness is difficult to define concretely, when present in a counseling interview, its salience is incontrovertible, its presence palpable, and its power miraculous.

Family Life

Rogers's most prominent philosophical assumption was that human beings are inherently good. Rogers believed that the primary motivation of human behavior is to grow into one's full capacity. Humans have a self-actualizing tendency that will orient people toward growth if unconditional positive regard and emotional ...