Concerning Carl Rogers

“Experience is, for me, the highest authority.”
“Neither the Bible nor the prophets, neither the revelations of God can take precedence over my own direct experience.”
Carl Rogers On becoming a person

“The major barrier to mutual interpersonal communication is our very natural tendency to judge, to evaluate, to approve or disapprove, the statement of the other person, or the other group." "...the whole emphasis is upon process, ... that we can find a pathway toward the open society.” Carl Rogers on becoming a person

“Religion, especially the Protestant Christian tradition, has permeated our culture with the concept that man is basically sinful, and only by something approaching a miracle can his sinful nature be negated.” “I have little sympathy with the rather prevalent concept that man is basically irrational, and that his impulses, if not controlled, will lead to destruction of others and self.” “We know how to disintegrate a man’s personality structure, dissolving his self-confidence, destroying the concept he has of himself, and making him dependent on another. … brainwashing.” Carl Rogers On becoming a person

“Prior to therapy the person is prone to ask himself, 'What would my parents want me to do?’
During the process of therapy the individual come to ask himself, ‘What does it mean to me?’”
Carl Rogers On becoming a person

"Life, at its best, is a flowing, changing process in which nothing is fixed." "The good life is not any fixed state. The good life is a process. The direction which constitutes the good life is psychological freedom to move in any direction [where] the general qualities of this selected direction appears to have a certain universality."
    "We know how to disintegrate a man's personality structure, dissolving his self-confidence, destroying the concept he has of himself, and making him dependent on another . . . ." "We can choose to use our growing knowledge to enslave people in ways never dreamed of before, depersonalizing them, controlling them by means so carefully selected that they will perhaps never be aware of their loss of personhood."
    "How shall we use the power of this new science? What happens to the individual person in this brave new world? Who will hold the power to use this new knowledge? Toward what end or purpose or value will this new type of knowledge be used?" Carl Rogers On becoming a person

“The good life is not any fixed state. The good life is a process. The direction which constitutes the good life is psychological freedom to move in any direction [where] the general qualities of this selected direction appear to have a certain universality.” “When the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming.” “The major barrier to mutual interpersonal communication is our very natural tendency to judge, to evaluate, to approve or disapprove, the statement of the other person, or the other group.” “the whole emphasis is upon process, not upon end states of being … to value certain qualitative elements of the process of becoming, that we can find a pathway toward the open society.” Carl Rogers on becoming a person

"... lives openly and freely in relation to others, guiding his behavior on the basis of his immediate experiencing – he has become an integrated process of changingness.” “The innermost core of man’s nature, the base of his ‘animal nature,’ is positive in nature.” Carl Rogers On becoming a person

“Individuals move not from a fixity through change to a new fixity, though such a process is indeed possible. But [through a] continuum from fixity to changingness, from rigid structure to flow, from stasis to process.” “The qualities of the client’s expression at any one point might indicate this position on this continuum, might indicate where he stood in the process of change.” Carl Rogers On Becoming a Person

The spectrum according to Carl Rogers

    1. No desire to change. “To provide the experience of being received, in play or group therapy, where the person can be exposed to a receiving climate, without himself having to take any initiative, for along enough time to experience himself as received.” ibid
    2. Experiencing is bound to the structure of the past. “If the slight loosening and flowing is not blocked then there is a still further loosening and flowing of symbolic expression.” ibid
    3. Experiencing is described as in the past, non present feelings and exploring the self as an object. [Continue an environment where] “the client feels understood, welcomed, received as he is.” ibid
    4. Experiencing is less bound to the structure of the past. “If the client feels himself received in his expressions, behaviors, and experiences at the fourth stage then this sets in motion still further loosening, and the freedom of organismic flow is increased.” ibid
    5. Feelings are expressed as in the present. “Increased loosening of feelings, experiences.” ibid
    6. “Self as an object tends to disappear. Experiencing takes on a real process quality, a physiological loosening. Client feels cut loose from his previously stabilized framework.” ibid
    7. “Because of the tendency of the sixth stage to be irreversible, the client goes on into the seventh stage without much need of the therapist’s help. New feelings are experienced, in the therapeutic relationships, used as a clear referent. Personal constructs held loosely.” “Willing to communicate himself in a receptive climate." ibid

    "At one end of the continuum the individual avoids close relationships, which are perceived as being dangerous. At the other end he lives openly and freely in relation to the therapist and to others, guiding his behavior on the basis of his immediate experiencing – he has become an integrated process of changingness.” Carl Rogers On Becoming a Person

“It seemed to me it would be a horrible thing to have to profess a set of beliefs, in order to remain in one’s profession.” “The inner core of man’s personality is the organism itself, which is essentially both self-preserving and social.” “Do we dare to generalize from this type of experience that if we cut through deeply enough to our organismic nature, that we find that man is a positive and social animal? This is the suggestion from our clinical experience.” “We try to create a relationship with him in which he is safe and free. . . To accept him as he is, to create an atmosphere of freedom in which he can move in his thinking and feeling and being, in any direction he desires." “The individual in such a moment, is coming to be what he is. He has experienced himself." “The individual increasingly comes to feel that this locus of evaluation lies within himself.” Carl Rogers On Becoming a Person

"We can choose to use our growing knowledge to enslave people in ways never dreamed of before, depersonalizing them, controlling them by means so carefully selected that they will perhaps never be aware of their loss of personhood." Carl Rogers On Becoming a Person

"... openly and freely in relation to others, guiding his behavior on the basis of his immediate experiencing – he has become an integrated process of changingness.” Carl Rogers On becoming a person.

“Individuals move not from a fixity through change to a new fixity, though such a process is indeed possible. But [through a] continuum from fixity to changingness, from rigid structure to flow, from stasis to process.” Carl Rogers On Becoming a Person

"What we need to learn, it seems, are ways of gaining acceptance for a humanistic person-centered venture in a culture more devoted to rule by authority." Freedom To Learn FOR THE 80’S Carl Rogers, Charles E Merrill Co, Columbus OH. 1969

“In psychology, Freud and his followers have presented convincing arguments that the id, man’s basic and unconscious nature, is primarily made up of instincts which would, if permitted expression, result in incest, murder, and other crimes.” “The whole problem of therapy, as seen by this group, is how to hold these untamed forces in check in a wholesome and constructive manner, rather than in the costly fashion of the neurotic.” Carl Rogers in his book on becoming a person: A Therapist View of Psychotherapy

“We can predict, from the way individuals perceive the movement of a spot of light in a dark room, whether they tend to be prejudiced or unprejudiced.” Carl Rogers On Becoming A Person

‘We must accept the fact that some kind of control of human affairs is inevitable. We cannot use good sense in human affairs unless someone engages in the design and construction of environmental conditions which affect the behavior of men.” Carl Rogers On becoming a person

"We can choose to use our growing knowledge to enslave people in ways never dreamed of before, depersonalizing them, controlling them by means so carefully selected that they will perhaps never be aware of their loss of personhood." "Walden Two: 'Now that we know how positive reinforcement works [dialogue to consensus], and why negative doesn't' [chastening]... 'we can be more deliberate and hence more successful in our cultural design. "We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled, though they are following a code much more scrupulously than was ever the case under the old system, nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That's the source of the tremendous power of positive reinforcement―there's no restrain and no revolt. By a careful design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behavior―the motives, the desires, the wishes. The curious thing is that in that case the question of freedom never arises." "If we have the power or authority to establish the necessary conditions, the predicted behaviors will follow." (Carl Rogers On Becoming A Person)

“We know how to change the opinions of an individual in a selected direction, without his ever becoming aware of the stimuli which changed his opinion.” “We can predict, from the way individuals perceive the movement of a spot of light in a dark room, whether they tend to be prejudiced or unprejudiced.” “We know how to influence the buying behavior of individuals by setting up conditions which provide satisfaction for needs of which they are unconscious, but which we have been able to determine.” “…our potential ability to influence or control the behavior of groups. If we have the power or authority to establish the necessary conditions, the predicted behaviors will follow.” Carl Rogers On becoming a person

"Dr. Skinner says: 'We must accept the fact that some kind of control of human affairs is inevitable. We cannot use good sense in human affairs unless someone engages in the design and construction of environmental conditions which affect the behavior of men." "Environmental changes have always been the condition for the improvement of cultural patterns, and we can hardly use the more effective methods of science without making changes on a grander scale . . ." Carl Rogers On becoming a person

"... lives openly and freely in relation to others, guiding his behavior on the basis of his immediate experiencing – he has become an integrated process of changingness.” Carl Rogers On becoming a person.

“‘Have you merely released the beast, the id, in man?’ There is no beast in man. There is only man in man, and this we have been able to release.” “I can be whatever I deeply am.” “I don’t know exactly who I am, but I can feel my reactions at any given moment, and they seem to work out pretty well as a basis for my behavior from moment to moment.” “The innermost core of man’s nature, the base of his ‘animal nature,’ is positive in nature.” Carl Rogers On Becoming A Person