Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers (1902-1987) worked in the humanist area of psychology. Humanists such as Rogers promoted the view that within man is an active desire to reach his full potential, or self-actualisation.

Rogers is known for producing one of the most influential theories of self-concept development. According to Rogers, we hold an image of ourselves as we are called the ‘actual-self’ and an image of our ideal self which is how we would like to be and this is called the ‘ideal-self’. If the two images are the same, we will develop good self-esteem if not we will not.

Rogers suggests the development of this congruence and the resultant self-esteem is dependent on two factors which are:

     Unconditional Positive Regard in the form of love and affection from others.

     Self-Actualisation which is fulfilling our potential and achieving all we are capable of.

Carl Rogers also worked extensively with counselling and therapy and founded Client-Centred Therapy which is where the client is the centre of attention. Rogers believed that therapists had to display three qualities to be able to get their clients to open up to them and the three qualities are:

     Genuineness

     Unconditional Positive Regard

     Empathy