The School of Humanistic Psychology - Essay Example

An assessment of the theoretical, methodological, and empirical contribution of Carl Rogers to psychology and to society as a whole by [insert your name, please] [insert the name of the University/school, please] August 19, 2008 The school of humanistic psychology originated in the 1950s as a reaction against psychoanalysis and behaviorism (Sundaram 2005). Its major purpose was to overcome the limitations of psychodynamic theories that didn’t address the issues of human dimension of psychology. The scientists who followed the humanistic approach were focusing their studies on purely human concepts like creativity, individuality, self-actualization, etc. According to Journal of Humanistic Psychology (Kramer 1995) Carl Rogers was the one to make one of the greatest contributions into the development of the new branch of psychological studies. Carl Rogers is an American psychologist who became one of the founders of humanistic, client-centered (or later named person-centered), approach in practical and theoretical psychology. The scientist was born on January 8, 1902 in Oak Park, IL - a suburb of Chicago. He was the forth of the six children of a devout Christian housewife and a successful civil engineer. Carl was such a clever child that he already could read before going to the kindergarten. Since he learned to read in the early years he started his education from the second grade. At the age of 12 the family moved to a farm near Chicago where he had enough freedom to become a rather independent, isolated and self disciplined person. There a future therapist was brought up in a strict manner with a great number of chores, and according to the strict philosophy of his mother – a devout Christian. Such a life made Carl a somewhat isolated and independent introvert. Living on a farm leaved a mark on his first career choice. So he entered the University of Wisconsin Madison in order to major in agriculture. Later he switched to history, and finally religion to study for the ministry. During that time Rogers was among those selected 10 students who were to go to China for the World Christian Federation Conference for the term of six months. Being there he broadened his thinking so much that having returned home he started to doubt some basic religious views together with his own religious convictions. After graduation against his parents wishes Rogers got married with Helen Suiet. After the wedding a just married couple moved to New York City. There Carl attended the most liberal religious institution - the Union Theological Seminary. Though he was successful at this career, Carl once again decided to change the profession because the experiences he got while studying radically influenced and even changed his religious views. Fortunately this change gave the world one the most influential people in the history of psychology. After two years he left the Seminary in order to attend Teacher’s College switching to the clinical psychology program of Columbia University. After finishing his doctoral work in 1931, Rogers began his clinical work in Rochester, NY. Thus, he engaged in the child study at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. In 1930 he became the agency director. There he first learned about Rank’s theory (the relational approach to psychotherapy), the concepts of which became a foundation of Roger’s own approach. Rank developed an interpersonal therapy which made a great influence on the social workers of the thirties – it influenced Roger’s views as well. During that time, in 1939, Rogers wrote his first book, The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child. After it was published in 1940 he was offered a full professorship at the Ohio State University. Rogers published Counseling and Psychotherapy in 1942. In 1945 the scientist was invited to set up and head a counseling center at the University of Chicago. At that time, in 1951, he published his major work, Client-Centered Therapy, to outline the theory of the new approach in counseling and therapy. In 1956 Rogers was appointed to be the first president of the American Academy of Psychotherapists. In 1987 the scientist died of a hear attack after a surgery on the hip. His heritage, however, is not forgotten, and is widely used by his followers as a foundation for further research in the area. The 16 books and a number of articles Rogers wrote explaining his theory clearly explain his humanistic and phenomenological approach. The concept is based on experimental and practical work, and Combs and Snygg’s "phenomenal field" personality theory (Porter, 1941). So, Rogers is considered to be a humanistic psychologist who founded the counseling movement. He believed that naturally a human being is healthy and positive, so that any disorders and negative behaviors are a result of outer influences. He believes each individual is unique and has the potential for self-determination and self-actualization. He has devoted much of his time to studying self-esteem, and the results of that research became a foundation for further studies to define social characteristics of the behaviors of people with different levels of self-esteem. As for this topic, Rogers believed that children’s behaviors and self-esteem greatly depend on parents’ features and practices. He emphasizes that it is the outside conditions that promote or block self-actualization. Another impact of Rogers on the development of psychotherapy is that he opened this field of psychology for systematic investigation. Surely, the client-centered therapy approach of Rogers was the one to lead to such a result. Rogers was studying the changes associated with his therapy. He observed a decrease in defensiveness, increase in openness to new experiences, development of a more positive self and feelings toward others. While working with schizophrenic patients he came to the conclusion that a positive therapeutic climate was leading to positive personality changes. The therapy requires a therapist’s entry into the patient’s inner world in order to define and remove any obstacles of normal growth and development of the individual. In general the therapy is based on the theory that all the people initially have positive nature, so any client can improve without any new knowledge being learned – the positive change happens once a person starts to accept and respect oneself first of all (Shaffer 1978). The theory is based on individual’s perception of the world. In general the major concepts of Rogers’ client-centered therapy are that, first of all, a human organism has a ‘actualizing tendency’ which is to develop the organism and lead it toward autonomy (Rogers 1959) - it is the motive force of the theory. Another concept is that an individual’s ‘phenomenal field’ includes both conscious and unconscious experiences creating the self through differentiation and social evaluations. Rogers believes that personality change is possible to take place both naturally, as a result of positive experiences, and by means of a therapy. In any case, according to the scientist, it is necessary and inevitable. One more innovation Rogers introduced to the world is that he not only shared his theoretical findings, but also was recording his sessions in order to provide the world with a practical foundation for further studies (Ryckmann 1993). The psychologist believed that any theory always leaves space for errors and uncertainties, so treated his one as a basis for further studies and creative thinking. A personality, however, is for Rogers the main focus of his studies. Krebs and Blackman (1988) believe that Roger’s theory lacks precision and specificity in terms and concepts. Sure, it is greatly related to the fact that Rogers works with personalities – it is not easy to define all the processes taking place in a human mind, it is difficult to define the stages of development. At the same time some critics blame Rogers for devoting little attention to unconscious (Hall & Gardner 1985). However, Rogers believes that the idea of congruence and organic wisdom is very related to unconscious and he posits that an organism has a number of experience the individual is not aware of (Hall & Gardner 1985). One more revolutionary concept as for that time was to popularize the word client – Rogers viewed his patients as free and self directed customers who were realizing what kind of help they need, for the scientists they were independent people instead of sick and helpless patients. He believed his clients much better than any scientist know in which areas they need help. Therefore, in his opinion the therapist’s work is to just unveil clients’ inner knowledge, provide with an opportunity to speak for themselves. In addition, Rogers didn’t not support the distinction between psychotherapist and counselor – though the term psychotherapist was applied only to psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, Rogers believed these specialists should act, and, consequently, be called counselors (Psychotherapy Networker). Later on he concluded that his approach can be used not only in therapy, but in other social fields, such as education, cross-cultural relations, nursing, etc., as well. So, he decided to call it a person-centered theory, and was practically applying it to the theory of personality, interpersonal relations, and other counseling-related situations. The application to cross-cultural relations lead him to workshops bringing together Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, buyers and sellers in the United States, blacks and whites in Africa (Natalie Rogers). To sum up, Carl Rogers is an American psychologist, who made a great contribution not only psychology, but also to the different fields of education, psychotherapy, and counseling among others. He is also considered to be one of the founders of the humanistic approach in psychology and was quite successful in psychotherapy research. For that in 1956 he was honored by the American Psychological Association with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize towards the end of his life. During his life Rogers wrote more than sixteen books and over two hundred professional articles. The most outstanding ones are Client Centered Therapy, A Way of Being, Becoming a Person. Now Carl Rogers is considered to be among the sixth most influential psychologists of the twentieth century. He is so eminent and dwell-known that he is the second only to Sigmund Freud. Roger’s contribution into the development of humanistic psychology includes not only theory, but practical results to provide a basis for further research and development of the area. References Hall, C.S. and Gardner, L., 1985. Introduction to the theories of personality. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons Kramer, R., 1995. The Birth of Client-Centered Therapy. Carl Rogers, Otto Rank, and "The Beyond". Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 35, No. 4, p. 54-110 Krebs, D. and Blackman, R., 1988. Psychology: A first encounter. Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Psychotherapy Networker. The Top 10. The Most Influential Therapists of the Past Quarter-Century. [Online] Available at: http://psychotherapynetworker.org/index.php?category=magazine&sub_cat=articles&page=1&type=article&id=The%20top%2010 [accessed 18 August 2007] Rogers, C.R., 1959. A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (ed.). Psychology: A study of science. (pp. 184-256). N.Y.: McGraw Hill. Rogers, N. Carl Rogers. Biography. [Online] Available at: http://nrogers.com/carlrogersbio.html [accessed 18 August 2007] Ryckmann, R.M., 1993. Theories of personality (5th ed.) California: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co. Porter, E.H., 1941. The development and evaluation of a measure of counseling interview procedure. Ph. D. Dissertation, Ohio State University. Shaffer, J.B., 1978. Humanistic psychology. N.J.:Prentice-Hall Inc. Sundaram, V., 2005. There is a need for humanistic psychology. News Today. [Online] October 29. Available at: http://newstodaynet.com/2005sud/05oct/ss14.htm [accessed 18 August 2007] Read More