Carl Rogers Essay

Carl Rogers Carl Rogers Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 February 4, 1987) was an influential American psychologist and among the bringers of the humanistic approach to psychology. Rogers is widely considered to be sensation of the founding fathers of psych new(prenominal)apy research and was honored for his pioneering research with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contri scarcelyions by the American Psychological Association in 1956.The person-centered approach, his own uncommon approach to understanding personality and human relationships, found wide application in various domains such as psychotherapy and counseling (client-centered therapy), education ( savant-centered learning), organizations, and other group settings. For his professional work he was bestowed the Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Psychology by the APA in 1972. Towards the end of his life Carl Rogers was nominated for the Nobel Peace apprise for his work with national intergroup conflict in South Africa and Northern Ireland.In an empirical study by Haggbloom et al. (2002) using six criteria such as citations and recognition, Rogers was found to be the sixth most eminent psychologist of the 20th century and second, among clinicians, only to Sigmund Freud. The fully run person Optimal development, referred to below in proposition 14, results in a certain process rather than static state. Rogers describes this as the good life, where the organism continu on the wholey aims to fulfill its full potential. He listed the characteristics of a fully functioning person (Rogers 1961) 1.A growing aerofoilness to experience they move away from defensiveness and come no need for subception (a perceptual defense that involves unconsciously applying strategies to prevent a troubling stimulus from entering consciousness). 2. An increasingly existential lifestyle living each moment fully not distorting the moment to fit personality or ego concept but allowing persona lity and self concept to emanate from the experience. This results in excitement, daring, adaptability, tolerance, spontaneity, nd a lack of rigidity and suggests a foundation of swan. To open ones spirit to what is going on now, and discover in that present process whatever construction it appears to have (Rogers 1961) 3. Increasing organismal trust they trust their own judgment and their ability to choose behavior that is appropriate for each moment. They do not rely on existing codes and social norms but trust that as they are open to experiences they will be able to trust their own sense of right and wrong. 4.Freedom of choice not organism shackled by the restrictions that influence an incongruent individual, they are able to make a wider range of choices more fluently. They believe that they play a role in determining their own behavior and so feel responsible for their own behavior. 5. Creativity it follows that they will feel more free to be creative. They will withal b e more creative in the way they adapt to their own circumstances without feeling a need to conform. 6. Reliability and constructiveness they can be certain(p) to act constructively.An individual who is open to all their necessarily will be able to husband a balance between them. Even aggressive needs will be matched and balanced by intrinsic goodness in congruent individuals. www. bapca. org. uk/about-2/carl-rogers. html? tmpl=component&print=1&varlet= 1/4 3/22/13 Carl Rogers 7. A rich full life he describes the life of the fully functioning individual as rich, full and elicit and suggests that they experience joy and pain, love and heartbreak, fear and courage more intensely.Rogers description of the good life 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 ones potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. (Rogers 1 961) Nineteen propositions Rogers surmise (as of 1951) was based on 19 propositions 1. All individuals (organisms) exist in a continually changing manhood of experience (phenomenal field) of which they are the center. 2. The organism reacts to the field as it is experienced and perceived.This perceptual field is reality for the individual. 3. The organism reacts as an organized whole to this phenomenal field. 4. A portion of the total perceptual field piecemeal becomes differentiated as the self. 5. As a result of interaction with the environment, and particularly as a result of evaluational interaction with others, the social organisation of the self is formed an organized, quiet but consistent conceptual pattern of perceptions of characteristics and relationships of the I or the me, together with value attached to these concepts. . The organism has one basic tendency and striving to actualize, maintain and enhance the experiencing organism. 7. The best vantage point for und erstanding behavior is from the internal frame of reference of the individual. 8. Behavior is basically the goal-directed attempt of the organism to forgather its needs as experienced, in the field as perceived. 9.Emotion accompanies, and in general facilitates, such goal directed behavior, the kind of emotion being related to to the perceived significance of the behavior for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism. 10. The values attached to experiences, and the values that are a part of the self-structure, in some instances, are values experienced directly by the organism, and in some instances are values introjected or taken over from others, but perceived in depraved fashion, as if they had been experienced directly. 1. As experiences occur in the life of the individual, they are either, a) symbolized, perceived and organized into some relation to the self, b) ignored because in that location is no perceived relationship to the self structure, c) denied symbolization or given distorted symbolization because the experience is incompatible with the structure of the self. 12. Most of the ways of behaving that are adopted by the organism are those that are consistent with the concept of self. 13.In some instances, behavior may be brought about by organic experiences and needs which have not been symbolized. Such behavior may be inconsistent with the structure of the self but in such instances the behavior is not owned by the individual. 14. Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of the self is such that all the sensory and visceral experiences of the organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic aim into a consistent relationship with the concept of self. 15.Psychological maladjustment exists when the organism denies awareness of significant sensory and visceral experiences, which consequently are not symbolized and organized into the gestalt of the self structure. When this situation exists, there is a basic or potential psycholog ical tension. 16. Any experience which is inconsistent with the organization of the structure of the self may be www. bapca. org. uk/about-2/carl-rogers. html? tmpl=component&print=1&page= 2/4 3/22/13 Carl Rogers perceived as a threat, and the more of these perceptions there are, the more rigidly the self structure is organized to maintain itself. 7. Under certain conditions, involving primarily complete absence of threat to the self structure, experiences which are inconsistent with it may be perceived and examined, and the structure of self revised to assimilate and include such experiences. 18. When the individual perceives and accepts into one consistent and integrated system all his sensory and visceral experiences, then he is necessarily more understanding of others and is more accepting of others as separate individuals. 9. As the individual perceives and accepts into his self structure more of his organic experiences, he finds that he is replacing his present value system b ased extensively on introjections which have been distortedly symbolized with a continuing organismic valuing process. Additionally, Rogers is known for practicing unconditional positive regard, which is defined as accepting a person without negative judgment of . a persons basic worth. Learner-centred educationCarl Rogers applied his experiences with large(p) therapy to the education process and developed the concept of learner-centered teaching. He had the following five hypotheses regarding learner-centered education -A person cannot teach another person directly a person can only facilitate anothers learning (Rogers, 1951). This is a result of his personality theory, which states that everyone exists in a constantly changing world of experience in which he or she is the center. Each person reacts and responds based on perception and experience.The belief is that what the student does is more important than what the teacher does. The counsel is on the student (Rogers, 1951). Therefore, the background and experiences of the learner are essential to how and what is learned. Each student will process what he or she learns differently depending on what he or she brings to the classroom. -A person learns significantly only those things that are perceived as being involved in the maintenance of or enhancement of the structure of self (Rogers, 1951). Therefore, relevancy to the student is essential for learning.The students experiences become the core of the course. -Experience which, if assimilated, would involve a change in the organization of self, tends to be resisted through defence reaction or distortion of symbolism (Rogers, 1951). If the content or presentation of a course is inconsistent with preconceived information, the student will learn if he or she is open to varying concepts. Being open to consider concepts that vary from ones own is vital to learning. Therefore, gently encouraging open-mindedness is helpful in pleasing the student in learning .Also, it is important, for this reason, that new information is relevant and related to existing experience. -The structure and organization of self appears to become more rigid under threats and to decompress its boundaries when completely free from threat (Rogers, 1951). If students believe that concepts are being forced upon them, they might become uncomfortable and fearful. A barrier is created by a inflect of threat in the classroom. Therefore, an open, friendly environment in which trust is developed is essential in the online classroom. Fear of retribution for not agreeing with a concept should be eliminated.A classroom tone of support helps to alleviate fears and encourages students to have the courage to explore concepts and beliefs that vary from those they bring to the classroom. Also, new information might threaten the students concept of him- or herself therefore, the less vulnerable the student feels, the more likely he or she will be able to open up to the learning process. -The educational situation which most effectively promotes significant learning is one in which (a) threat to the self of the learner is reduced to a stripped-down and (b) differentiated perception of the field is www. bapca. org. k/about-2/carl-rogers. html? tmpl=componentprint=1page= 3/4 3/22/13 Carl Rogers facilitated (Rogers, 1951). The instructor should be open to learning from the students and also working to connect the students to the subject matter. Frequent interaction with the students will help achieve this goal. The instructors acceptation of being a mentor who guides rather than the expert who tells is instrumental to student-centered, nonthreatening, and unforced learning. This article is taken from the Wikipedia entry for Carl Rogers. www. bapca. org. uk/about-2/carl-rogers. html? tmpl=component&print=1&page= 4/4