![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Carlrogers.jpg\")
<\/a>In fact, Carl Rogers’ approach was first called \u201cclient-centered therapy\u201d and was based on the idea that the client (no longer called a ‘patient’) had within him vast resources for understanding and accepting his dynamics of actions, attitudes, and emotions.\u00a0 These resources are released in working with the therapist (often called a facilitator).\u00a0 The therapist communicates his own caring, empathy, and non-judgmental understanding.<\/p>\nCarl Rogers’ way of working with the people was to bring his enormous capacity for empathy and understanding, his listening skills, and his caring for people to create a climate in which the inner potential of the client for growth could be realized.\u00a0 He had an unshakable belief that the person is trustworthy, resourceful, capable of self-direction, and consequently, able to modify his view of self to overcome obstacles and pain and to become more effective, productive, and fully functioning.\u00a0\u00a0 The view that clients have, within themselves, vast, untapped resources for self-directed growth was met with rejection by many in the field of psychotherapy.\u00a0 As C.H. Pattrerson has written in his The Therapeutic Relationship,<\/em><\/p>\n “Person-centered therapy is often threatening to therapists, since it places responsibility on the therapist as a person, not on the therapist as an expert using a wide range of techniques supposedly selected on the basis of dealing with specific client problems or diagnoses.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Even others within the humanist wave could be critical.\u00a0 Abraham Maslow said,<\/p>\n \u201cRogers doesn’t have enough sin and psychopathology in his system. He speaks of the only drive as self-actualization, which is to imply there is only a tendency to health.\u00a0 Then where does all the sickness come from? He needs more theory of psychopathogenesis, fear, of resentment, of countervalues, of hostility.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n If many therapists were unwilling to follow Rogers in their therapeutic work, many more individuals who were working with people seeking growth and the release of potentials rather than overcoming personal problems, did follow Rogers’ lead.\u00a0 The 1960s and 1970s saw the development of encounter groups and a human potential movement.\u00a0 Rogers’ views on the need for empathy and unconditional positive regard were taken over by many of those who organized encounter groups.\u00a0 Rogers shifted some of his activities from one-on-one client centered work to what could be done in a group setting.\u00a0 The two foundation blocks of Rogers’ person-centered approach are 1) that each human being has within a growth potential or actualizing tendency, and 2) that this can best be realized if a proper interpersonal psychological climate is present.\u00a0 These elements could also be used in a group setting, and many of Rogers’ views were taken over in the training of primary and secondary school teachers.<\/p>\n With the experience of the positive results of encounter groups, late in his life, Rogers hoped that his healing techniques could be used to help heal the deep antagonisms within those who held responsibility for States.\u00a0 In the early 1980s, in the Soviet Union some persons became more open to an interest in what was being done in the intellectual life of Western countries. Carl Rogers was invited to lecture to mental health professionals in the Soviet Union.\u00a0 Soviet psychotherapy had been largely in the behaviorist tradition and the heavy use of drugs for behavior modification.\u00a0 Freud and Jung were known by reputation but not to be mentioned in polite company.\u00a0 Thus the largely unknown but not taboo humanist approach merited being known, and Rogers was warmly welcomed.<\/p>\n I met Rogers on his return from the Soviet Union when he gave a talk in Geneva on his Soviet experiences.\u00a0 He had seen people who were discovering new ideas, who had deep inner resources but these resources had remained undeveloped during most of the Soviet period by fear of stepping outside Communist orthodoxy.\u00a0 He saw the need for follow-up both by him and by others such as those of us meeting with him in Geneva.<\/p>\n Rogers’ peace activities also concerned Central America and South Africa \u2212 areas torn by deep divisions and uncertainty about the future.\u00a0 His death in 1987 ended his personal ability to carry on this peace-related approach.\u00a0 Much of Rogers’ influence today remains in the client-centered therapy field.\u00a0 Most political leaders do not feel that they are in need of help to discover new and more satisfying personal meaning about themselves and the world they inhabit.\u00a0 Perhaps power fills all their emotional needs.\u00a0 However for those of us who work without power for peace, the humanist psychology wave and its emphasis on the formation of attitudes, fears, and aspirations can give us real tools for action.<\/p>\n Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n C.R. Rogers. Client-centered therapy <\/em>( Boston: Houghton-Mifflim, 1951)<\/p>\n C.R. Rogers. On becoming a person \u2013 a therapist’s view of psychotherapy <\/em>(Boston: Houghton-Mifflim, 1961)<\/p>\n C.R. Rogers. Carl Rogers on encounter groups <\/em>(New York: Harper and Row, 1970)<\/p>\n C.R. Rogers. A way of being <\/em>(Boston: Houghton-Mifflim, 1980)<\/p>\n ______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n Carl Ransom Rogers was a US psychologist and educator and a leading figure of what is often called \u201cthe third wave of psychology.” The first wave was Freud and Jung and their views of psychoanalysis. The second wave was the behaviorists symbolized by B.F. Skinner. The third wave, often called \u201chumanist\u201d, has Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, and Carl Rogers as its best known figures. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":125351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biographies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/em>Ren\u00e9 Wadlow is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a><\/em>. He <\/em>is President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation and problem-solving in economic and social issues, and editor of <\/em>Transnational Perspectives.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"