Carl Rogers and Humanistic Education

Carl Rogers and Humanistic Education 

Carl Rogers

🤔Who is Carl Rogers?

Carl Rogers is widely regarded as one of the most eminent thinkers in psychology. He is best known for developing the psychotherapy method called client-centered therapy and for being one of the founders of humanistic psychology.

 

   Carl Ransom Rogers was born in 1902 in Oak Hill, Illinois. His father was a civil engineer, and his mother was a housewife; he was the fourth of six children. Rogers was a high achiever in school from an early age: He started reading before age 5 and was able to skip kindergarten and first grade. When he was 12, his family moved from the suburbs to a rural farm area. He enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in 1919 as an agriculture major. However, after attending a 1922 Christian conference in China, Rogers began to question his career choice. He later changed his major to History with plans to become a minister. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1924 with a bachelor's degree in History and enrolled at the Union Theological Seminary before transferring to Teachers College of Columbia University in 1926 to complete his master's degree.

  Rogers considered psychology to be a way to continue studying life's questions without having to subscribe to a specific doctrine. He decided to enroll in the clinical psychology program at Columbia and completed his doctorate in 1931.

After receiving his Ph.D., Rogers spent several years working in academia, holding positions at Ohio State University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Wisconsin.

It was during this time that Rogers developed his approach to therapy, which he initially termed "non-directive therapy." This approach, which involves the therapist acting as a facilitator rather than a director of the therapy session, eventually came to be known as client-centered therapy.

😮😎In 1946, Rogers was elected President of the American Psychological Association. Rogers wrote 19 books and numerous articles outlining his humanistic theory. Among his best-known works are Client-Centered Therapy (1951), On Becoming a Person (1961), and A Way of Being (1980).

After some conflicts within the psychology department at the University of Wisconsin, Rogers accepted a position at the Western Behavioral Studies Institute (WBSI) in La Jolla, California. Eventually, he and several colleagues left WBSI to form the Center for Studies of the Person (CSP).

 

In 1987, Rogers was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. He continued his work with client-centered therapy until he died in 1987

👉What are Carl Rogers' significant theories?

1. Self-Actualization

  Rogers believed that all people possess an inherent need to grow and achieve their potential. This need to achieve self-actualization, he believed, was one of the primary motives driving behavior.

    2. Unconditional Positive Regard

  For psychotherapy to be successful, Rogers suggested, the therapist needed to provide unconditional positive regard to the client. This means that the therapist accepts the client as they are and allows them to express both positive and negative feelings without judgment or reproach.

    3. Development of the Self

   Rogers believed that a healthy self-concept develops over time as a result of a person's life experiences.  People with a stable sense of self tend to have greater confidence and cope more effectively with life's challenges.

    According to Rogers, self-concepts develop in childhood, and parenting plays a large role in developing self-concepts. Parents who offer their children unconditional love and regard are more likely to foster a healthy self-concept. Children who feel that they have to “earn” their parents' love may end up with low self-esteem and feelings of unworthiness.

     4. Congruence

   Rodgers also suggests that people often have an image of their "ideal self." However, our concept of what we think we should be does not always match our perceptions of who we actually are. When our self-image does not line up with our ideal self, we are in a state of incongruence.

👉Rogers believed that by receiving unconditional positive regard and pursuing self-actualization, however, people can come close to reaching a state of congruence.

🤔What are Carl Rogers' contributions to humanistic learning theory?

 

      The humanistic learning theory was developed by Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and James F. T. Bugental in the early 1900s. Humanism was a response to the common educational theories at the time, which were behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Abraham Maslow is considered the father of the movement, with Carl Rogers and James F.T. Bugental adding to the psychology later down the line. Carl Rogers (1902-1987) was a humanistic psychologist who agreed with the main assumptions of Abraham Maslow. However, Rogers (1959) added that for a person to "grow", they need an environment that provides them with genuineness (openness and self-disclosure), acceptance (being seen with unconditional positive regard), and empathy (being listened to and understood). Without these, relationships and healthy personalities will not develop as they should, much like a tree will not grow without sunlight and water.

       With his emphasis on human potential, Carl Rogers had an enormous influence on both psychology and education. Beyond that, he is considered by many to be one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. More therapists cite Rogers as their primary influence than any other psychologist.

As described by his daughter Natalie Rogers, he was "a model for compassion and democratic ideals in his own life, and in his work as an educator, writer, and therapist."

👉Rogers believed that every person could achieve their goals, wishes, and desires in life. When, or rather if they did so, self-actualization took place. A person must be able to satisfy several factors to reach their potential. This was one of Carl Rogers' most significant contributions to psychology.

👉'' The organism has one basic tendency and striving - to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism'' (Rogers, 1951, p. 487).

Rogers rejected the deterministic nature of both psychoanalysis and behaviorism and maintained that we behave as we do because of the way we perceive our situation. "As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves".

👉Rogers’ theory of personality development was based on humanistic psychology. According to his approach, everyone exists in a world full of experiences. These experiences shape our reactions that include external objects and people. Also, internal thoughts and emotions. This is known as their phenomenal field. Phenomenal field means a person’s reality, objects, behavior, thoughts, and people.

👉Carl Rogers believed that humans have one basic motive, that is the tendency to self-actualize which is to fulfill one's potential and achieve the highest level of 'human-beingness'.

👉Rogers believed that every person could achieve their goal. This means that the person is in touch with his or her subjective experiences and feelings, continually growing and changing. In many ways, Rogers regarded the fully functioning person as an ideal and one that people do not ultimately achieve. It is wrong to think of this as an end or completion of life’s journey; rather it is a process of always becoming and changing.

👉Carl Rogers (1951)viewed the child as having two basic needs: positive regard from other people and self-worth. How students think about themselves, their feelings of self-worth are of fundamental importance both to psychological health and to the likelihood that they can achieve goals and ambitions in life and achieve self-actualization.