What is found as we find ourselves?

 Today’s Post

Last week we saw how psychology has evolved from Freud’s analysis and diagnosis to a guided inner search for the authentic self and hence can be seen as a secular meditative experience.

This week we will explore one of the pivotal practitioners of such psychology to see how this ‘guided inner search’ can unfold and what can be expected from it.

Carl Rogers

Dr. Carl Rogers was one of the psychologists who was key to the evolution of psychology from Freud’s analysis and diagnosis to a very personal level of psychotherapy which focuses on the inner search for self.  Rogers was one of the earliest psychologists to depart from the then-traditional viewpoint that sees the therapist as a clinically objective analyst, sitting above and against the analyzed, translating the patient’s feelings and actions into prepackaged characteristics derived by Freud such as libido, ego, and superego.

Rogers’ goal was to uncover hidden motivations and use the clarity of such insights to motivate clients to change their behavior, taking a decidedly different approach from Freud.  He speaks of his perspective in the introduction to his book, “On Becoming a Person”:

“It is about a client in my office who sits there by the corner of the desk, struggling to be himself, yet deathly afraid of being himself- striving to see his experience as it is, wanting to be that experience, and yet deeply fearful of the prospect.  I sit there with that client, facing him, participating in that struggle as deeply and sensitively as I am able.  I try to perceive his experience, and the meaning and the feeling and the taste and the flavor that it has for him.  I bemoan my very human fallibility in understanding that client, and the occasional failures to see life as it appears to him, failures which fall like heavy objects across the intricate, delicate web of growth which is taking place.  I rejoice at the privilege of being a midwife to a new personality- as I stand by with awe at the emergence of a self, a person, as I see a birth process in which I have had an important and facilitating part.”

   Obviously this is quite different from the relationship that Freud formulates, as can be summarized by Rogers’ understanding of the role of the therapist:

“How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”

    instead of,

“How can I diagnose, treat, cure, or change this person?”

   The goal of both approaches is treatment of the individual, but the methods and the implicit assumptions are clearly different.

Rogers echoes Teilhard’s ‘ontological’ insight into love when he states that

“Change appears to come about through experience in a relationship”.

   He states his overall hypothesis:

“If I can provide a certain type of relationship, the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change, and personal development will occur”.

   In Rogers’ approach, the therapist’s role changes from “analyst” to “facilitator”.  His approach changes from assuming that the person to be found is “dangerous” to seeing it as “a reliable base for human growth”.

Rogers expands on this approach:

 “The individual has within himself the capacity and the tendency, latent if not evident, to move forward to maturity.  In a suitable psychological climate this tendency is released, and becomes actual rather than potential.  He sees this potential as evident in his capacity to understand those aspects of his life and of himself which are causing him pain and dissatisfaction.  This is an understanding which probes beneath his conscious knowledge of himself into those experiences which he has hidden from himself because of their threatening nature.  As a result, the person who emerges tends to reorganize his personality and his relationship to life in ways which are regarded as more mature.”

   Further,

“It is my hypothesis that in such a relationship the individual will reorganize himself at both the conscious and deeper levels of his personality in such a manner as to cope with life more constructively, more intelligently, and in a more socialized as well as a more satisfying way”.

   So against the Freudian belief that man is basically irrational, and that his impulses, if not controlled will lead to the destruction of self and others, Rogers sees the human person as capable of becoming freer, less defined by the past and more open to the future as he grows.  Since the basic nature of the human person is constructive and trustworthy, as the person matures he will become more creative and live more constructively.

How Is This ‘Meditation’?

    We can see how the process described by Rogers is highly resonant with Teilhard’s description of his meditation from a few weeks ago.

Step 1: Recognizing the Facets of our Person

“…understanding those aspects of his life and of himself which are causing him pain and dissatisfaction.”

This is exploration of the ‘scaffolding’ of his person: those influences which affect the development of personality: beliefs, faiths and fears but provide a degree of emotional safety.  Rogers describes how this difficult task can be facilitated by the therapist.

Step 2: Moving past the Safety of the Scaffolding

Moving past those “experiences which he has hidden from himself because of their threatening nature”.

Once the client begins to become aware of these ‘scaffoldings’, Rogers shows how the therapist can provide a safe way of exploring both the ways that the client is being inhibited by them as well as tactics to be employed in overcoming them.

Step 3: Encountering the Font of Our Consciousness

“…the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth,”

In Rogers’ insight, this process leads a client to realize that at his core, he is a trustworthy agent who can safely experience, own and trust his emotions and insights.

Step 4: Using this insight to live a more complete life

“the individual will reorganize himself at both the conscious and deeper levels of his personality in such a manner as to cope with life more constructively, more intelligently, and in a more socialized as well as a more satisfying way”.

As Karen Armstrong puts it, such a person ‘inhabits his humanity more fully”

The Next Post

Having established the perspective of seeing the basic human self as constructive and trustworthy, and the role of the therapist as ‘facilitator’, Rogers went on to observe how these characteristics precipitated positive changes in the lives of his clients.  Next week we will see how he saw such growth taking place.