Carl Rogers: Background Carl Rogers was born in 1902, the fourth of six children in a close-knit and deeply religious family (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 1). His family was wealthy and well established – both of his parents had attended college during a time where this was not common. His father was a successful businessman, and his mother came from an old money family which could trace its heritage back centuries. His parents were loving, yet very strict. Rogers was forbidden from having an active social life outside of the family and was not allowed to engage in activities such as going to the theatre or dances, being expected instead to engage constantly in productive work (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 1). He was a sickly child who was seen by the rest of the family as over-sensitive. This combined with his lack of a social life outside of his family lead to him being a very withdrawn child, reading incessantly (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 2). From his books and his family farm he learned a love of science. He made himself into an expert on the large nocturnal moths that lived on the family farm, and even set up an operation breeding them (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 2). His father desired to run the farm as scientifically as possible and so encouraged such pursuits in his children, and they all learned how to experiment agriculturally from young ages. Yet despite his joy in his experiments, Rogers still held a deep yearning for human intimacy that his situation could not fulfill (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 3). Perhaps surprisingly given his future yet unsurprisingly given his past, Rogers entered college majoring in agriculture (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 3). A university agricultural group he entered gave him his first opportunity to make friends outside of his family circle, and its head gave him a model for leadership that differed from his strict father. He would later write that its leader, a Professor Humphrey, was an excellent example of leadership (Ibid.). His new influences and situation lead him in his Sophomore year to change his major from agriculture to history, in preparation for becoming a minister (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 3). His diaries during this time show the groundwork being laid for Rogers’ future work in a transformation of how he saw God, showing a shift from an authoritarian figure to a personal one that offered the intimacy and freedom Rogers had long craved (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 4). A trip to the World Student Christian Federation in China made a deep impression on him of the variety that could be found in people, and not long after he returned he began taking courses in psychology. During his graduate studies, Rogers was presented with a rigorously scientific approach to psychology that appealed to his scientific side, yet which he felt was too cold and impersonal (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 7). The groundwork had all been laid for Rogers’ future work – he would combine this scientific approach with his own interest in intimate personal connection, and these would define his contributions to the field of psychology. Carl Rogers: Contributions Rogers’ interest in the patients as people rather than lists of symptoms to correct lead him to become a pioneer in the client-centered approach to therapy (Hiles). As a result of the dramatic shifts in his worldview during his youth, Rogers was skeptical of the theorizing tendencies of many of his contemporary therapists (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 24). His approach, rather than trying to fit a patient into a psychological mold, was to engage with a patient and their world as they saw it. A client-centered approach held that therapeutic relationship based on respect for the client’s view of themselves and the world, no matter how bizarre or misguided it may appear to others, would be a healthy one (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 24-25). It is the patient after all who knows what hurts, and under the client-centered approach it is the patient who ultimately knows what needs to be done for this injury to heal (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 25). This principal forms one of the core conditions of the clientcentered approach: unconditional positive regard (Kirschenbaum & Jourdan, 2005). The core conditions are the term Rogers used to describe the prerequisites for a productive therapeutic environment (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 36), and this idea remains quite influential in modern psychology (Kirschenbaum & Jourdan, 2005). In addition to unconditional positive regard, Rogers cited congruence as a core condition. A client experiences some type of incongruence – a disconnect between how they should be living or what their life should be like and what they or their lives are actually like – that leads them to the therapist (Patterson, 1993). As such, a therapist must present the client with congruence in the therapeutic relationship – they must be what they are in the relationship without hiding behind their professional role or another façade (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 36). The third core condition is empathy. Rogers wrote that empathy means temporarily living in the client’s life, seeing the world and the client as they see it (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 38). The goal is to have the therapist be a companion to the person in their inner world. (Ibid.). Rogers’ client-centered approach holds that if these three core conditions of congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathy could all be met, then therapeutic improvement will occur (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 39). Rogers approach has had such an impact that his once revolutionary ideas are now largely taken for granted (Thorne & Sanders, 2012, p. 44). His influence shows no sign of decreasing either – although Carl Rogers died in 1987, a meta-analysis of psychiatric literature found that he has in fact been cited and discussed in the literature more in the 17 years after his death than he had been in the previous 40 (Kirschenbaum & Jourdan, 2005). Organizations and training institutes dedicated to the client-centered approach have proliferated around the world, and recent research has confirmed the effectiveness of his core conditions (Ibid.). Rollo May: Background Rollo May was born in1909 to a troubled family. His parents had an unhappy marriage (Rabinowitz et al., 1989, p. 106) and his only sister was schizophrenic (Burgental, 1996), leading him to develop an interest in psychology at an early age. Much like Carl Rogers, he would find solace from his family troubles in solitude, spending much of his time at the St. Clair river (Rabinowitz et al., 1989, p. 107). From early on, Rollo May was focused on the wrongs of the world and how to right them, a viewpoint that would come to define his work and put him at odds with Carl Rogers, who saw humanity and the world as inherently good. May was rebellious in high school and stated that he had learned more from the river than he had his public education (Rabinowitz et al., 1989, p. 107). Not long after beginning college at Michigan State College, he started a student literature magazine which was critical of authorities to the point of landing him on probation with the school (Ibid.). May left the school and transferred to a liberal arts college in Ohio, where he thrived. After graduation, his life continued to parallel Carl Rogers’ in many ways. Like Rogers he spent time abroad that proved to be very influential. He traveled to Austria where he learned of psychotherapy, which contrasted with the strictly behavioral model he was taught in the United States (Rabinowitz et al., 1989, p. 107). Once again he would be forced to change his educational path because of corrupt authorities – seeing the rising influence of Nazism in Austria and Germany, May returned to the United States in 1933 (Ibid.). While initially planning on studying at Columbia University, he was dissatisfied with the impersonal clinical approaches there that differed from the psychoanalytics he had learned in Europe. As such, like Rogers, he decided to pursue his further education at a religious institution. He enrolled at Union Theological Seminary, where he would be further confronted with the evil in the world. Many of his professors had, like him, left Europe to avoid the Nazis, and the persecution they had faced was often discussed (Ibid.) Rollo May: Contributions Rollo May is considered to be the co-founder of humanistic psychology (Hiles). Yet in many ways he also responsible for psychology itself being a recognizable discipline. He was very influential in keeping psychology independent from the medical field. During the 1950’s, there was a push in the medical field to have psychology subsumed by medicine, such that only medical doctors would be able to perform psychotherapy ((Rabinowitz et al., 1989, p. 108). May was a leading figure in the fight against this, and helped defeat almost yearly bills being pushed to accomplish this (Ibid.). When May began his work, Positivism held strong sway over the psychological community and there was a strong tendency among psychologists to reduce psychiatric issues to mechanical biological processes or dismiss aspects of human experience that had no animal counterpart as subjective and unknowable, and therefore outside the realm of medical science (Schneider et al., 2014, p. 341). Love for example was reduced to solely a matter of the sexual instinct, sadness was reduced to physical depression, and anxiety was considered to be a matter of physical stress (Ibid.). May strongly disagreed with this approach, which he felt disregarded the most critical aspects of human existence (Ibid.). He decided that as psychology was a science of human nature, it must take into account the unique features of human existence – it had to be humanistic. He believed psychology was more akin to studies in literature and history than hard science such as biology or physics (Schneider et al., 2014, p. 342). May published the first psychological work on anxiety, The Meaning of Anxiety, in 1950. It was the first work on the subject since Freud and brought about a revolutionary new perspective (Rabinowitz et al., 1989, p. 110). Prior to May’s work, the belief had been that all anxiety was the result of neuroses, and a truly mentally healthy person would live a life free of anxiety. May, never one to shy from challenging authority, argued that some anxiety was healthy and that it was critical to distinguish between normal and abnormal anxiety (Ibid.). The book was widely read and discussed, with many others taking up his ideas that a degree of anxiety was a normal and even an essential aspect of life (Ibid.). Even within the humanistic psychology movement, May found authorities to challenge. He and Carl Rogers had a long running disagreement about the evil within humanity, with May believing Rogers’ client-centered approach could not adequately deal with negative and hostile feelings on the part of clients (May, 1982). At present there appear to be two camps within humanistic psychology (Wilber, 1989). One is one the side of Rogers, holds that humans are inherently good, and places value on transpersonal experiences that some may call mysticism (Ibid.). The other is on the side of May and draws on his criticisms of the other camp. It holds that transpersonal experiences are imaginary, that humans can be either fundamentally good or evil depending on their choices (Hiles), and tends to see the other camp as out of touch (Wilber, 1989). Works Cited Burgental, J. F. (1996). Rollo May (1909–1994). American Psychologist, 51(4). Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/51/4/418/ Hiles, D. Pioneers of Humanistic-Existential Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/HPpioneers.htm Kirschenbaum, H., & Jourdan, A. (2005). The Current Status of Carl Rogers and the Person-Centered Approach. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 42(1), 37. Retrieved from https://brainmass.com/file/336853/carl+rogers.pdf May, R. (1982). The problem of evil: An open letter to Carl Rogers. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1983-06152-001 Patterson, C. H. (1993). Outcomes in counsellor education. Asian Journal of Counselling, 2(1), 81-87. Retrieved from http://www.sageofasheville.com/pub_downloads/OUTCOMES_ IN_COUNSELLOR_EDUCATION.pdf Rabinowitz, F. E., Good, G., & Cozad, L. (1989). Rollo May: A man of meaning and myth. Journal of Counseling and Development, 94. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED341881.pdf Schneider, K. J., Pierson, J. F., & Bugental, J. F. (Eds.). (2014). The handbook of humanistic psychology: Theory, research, and practice. Sage Publications. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=vUcXBAAAQBAJ Thorne, B., & Sanders, P. (2012). Carl Rogers. Sage. Retrieved from http://www.familysuccess.ir/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/book-7.pdf Wilber, K. (1989). Two humanistic psychologies? A response. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 29(2), 230-243. Retrieved from http://jhp.sagepub.com/content/29/2/230
