Carl rogers tearey on fear - Essay Example

Your here Your first and here The of your mentor here The of the here 07 March 2007 Carl Rogers' Theory on FearCarl Ransom Rogers (1902-1987) was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and is best known as the founder of "client-centered" or "non-directive" therapy. Rogers initially studied theology, however, he turned to clinical and educational psychotherapy, studying at Teachers' College of Columbia University. The concern with opening up, and theorizing from experience, the concept of the human organism as a whole, and the belief in the possibilities of human action, joined with therapeutic insights and the belief born out of Rogers' practice experience, that the client usually knows better to how to proceed than the therapist.

As the founder of the "client-centered" therapy, Rogers has said that the counselor is to be "nondirective" in the sessions-his job is to reflect the counselee's responses back to him, and thus, set up a catalytic atmosphere of acceptance. Such an environment is supposed to allow the client to get in touch with the innate resources within himself for successfully dealing with life and developing self-esteem When you are in a situation when there is incongruity between your image of yourself and your immediate experience of yourself (i.e. between the ideal and the real self) you are in threatening situation, feeling fear.

For example, if a person is been taught to feel unworthy if he/she does not get A's on all tests at school, and yet that person is not really great a student, then situations such as tests are going to bring that incongruity to light-tests will be very threatening and that person will feel fear in that particular situation. According to Rogers, when a person is expecting a threatening situation and fear, then that person feels anxiety. Anxiety is a signal indicating that there is trouble ahead, and that a person should avoid that situation.

One way to avoid the situation is to run away from that threatening situation by using psychological defense. Rogers' idea of defense is considering everything from a perceptual point-of-view, so that even memories and impulses are thought of as perceptions. In Rogers' theory, a person has two defenses: denial and perceptual disorder. Denial means blocking out the threatening situation altogether, for not facing the problems- for a limited period of time. Denial for Rogers does also include what Freud called repression: If keeping a memory or an impulse out of your awareness-refuse to perceive it-a person may be able to avoid a threatening, fearful situation for a limited period of time.

Perceptual distortion is a matter of reinterpreting the situation so that it appears less threatening. For the poor neurotic, every time a person uses defense, a person puts a greater distance between the real and ideal. When people become more incongruous, and find themselves in more and more threatening situations, develop greater and greater levels of anxiety, and use more and more defenses. It becomes a vicious circle that the person eventually is unable to get out of, at least on his or her own.

Rogers also has a partial explanation for psychosis: Psychosis occurs when a persons' defenses are overwhelmed, and their sense of "selves" becomes shattered into disconnected pieces. His behavior likewise has little consistency to it. We see him as having a " psychotic breaks"-episodes of bizarre behavior. His words may make little sense. His emotions may be inappropriate. He may lose the ability to differentiate self and non-self, and become disoriented and passive. Rogers' therapy was an extension of his theory, and was known as "client-centered" therapy, since the basis of the therapy was designated around the client.

According to Rogers, each person has within the inherited tendency to continue to grow and develop. In order for an individual to experience total self-actualization the therapist must express complete acceptance of the patient. Rogers began to use the term "client" instead of "patient" due to the fact that the individuals that he was counseling did need help but not within the same regard that a medically ill person does. Eventually throughout its development Rogers' theory began to be known as "people-centered" due to its expansion beyond psychotherapy to such areas as education, marriage, leadership, parent-child relationship, and the development of professional standards.

References:1. Rogers, Carl. On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. USA: Mariner Books,1995