5 - Rogers Flashcards
1
Q
What is the phenomenal field?
A
- everything currently or potentially available to consciousness
- our reality is what we’re paying attention to
- includes sensations, cognitions, emotions, memories,
- doesn’t matter about the objective state of the world
2
Q
What is the one motive in Rogers’ theory?
A
- actualizing tendency
- innate need to fully realize all our potentials
- in Roger’s opinion, people are naturally good, they are just thwarted by their ideal self
3
Q
How are we directed to the overall goal?
A
- organismic valuing process
- approach opportunities for actualizing
- reject situations inconsistent with actualizing
4
Q
What is the “self” as defined by Rogers?
A
- special part of the phenomenal field
- everything that we identify as “I”, gives us a sense of belonging
- children are not born with a self, it develops over time
5
Q
What is the condition that has to be true for the self to properly develop?
A
- unconditional positive regard = purest form of love
- if this condition is met, the process will work as intended
- however, most don’t grow up with unconditional love
6
Q
What happens if the one base condition is not met?
A
- if positive regard is conditional, then there are conditions of worth
- conditions of worth = ways in which the individual must behave and feel in order to receive positive regard
- these conditions are external (parents, siblings, peers, etc.)
- over time, conditions of worth become internalized to become the ideal self
7
Q
What is the ideal self?
A
- the ideal person as others see it; who we should be in their opinion, not necessarily the right opinion
- the ideal self takes over the function of the OVP in guiding the person’s behaviour choices
- this distorts the course of self development
8
Q
What happens if the ideal self is different from the self?
A
- incongruence = inconsistency between the self concept (including conditions of worth) and the individual’s experience
- the idea of incongruence is virtually identical to Freud’s idea of anxiety
- the incongruence-inducing thoughts are buried in the unconscious mind, out of the phenomenal field
- uses denial or perceptual distortion
9
Q
What is the purpose of Rogerian therapy?
A
- reduce the negative effects of the ideal self (incongruence), and reinstall the OVP as the guide for behaviour
- there is no specific length of time for this to occur
- the client decides when the therapy is over (opposite from Freud)
10
Q
What are the conditions for therapeutic change?
A
- client and therapist must be in each other’s phenomenal field
- therapist must try to empathically understand client
- therapist must provide unconditional positive regard
- client must be aware of empathy and positive regard
11
Q
How does the Rogerian approach work?
A
- most of the time, the therapist will sit quietly and listen to the client
- they will occasionally test to make sure that they’re understanding
- what matters is the client’s opinion of themselves
- therapist provides a safe and free environment
12
Q
What are the Rogerian therapeutic changes?
A
- expresses feelings more freely
- describes feelings more accurately
- detects incongruence between self-concept and experiences
- experiences incongruence without distortion
- recovers experiences that were previously denied awareness
- reorganizes concept of self to include denied experiences
- develops self more congruent with experiences
- feels self to be locus of evaluation and control
13
Q
What is a fully functioning person?
A
- in Roger’s view, everyone is self-actualizing all the time
- the only difference is how you are being guided
- fully functioners are guided by the organismic valuing process toward goals that are consistent with the appropriate self-development
14
Q
What are the characteristics of a fully functioning person?
A
- open to experience
- existential mode of living
- organismic trusting
- sense of experiential freedom
- creativity
15
Q
What is the method of the Q-sort?
A
- client sorts through 100 cards with various statements
- the 100 cards are sorted into 9 different piles, with a set number of cards in each section
- the sections are from most to least,
- first time = based on how well or poorly the statements relate to how the client sees themselves now (self)
- second time = what you would like to be (ideal self)
- the therapist calculates the correlation
16
Q
What are the three options of results from the Q-sort?
A
- self remains the same, ideal shifts
- ideal remains the same, self shifts
- both change, and meet in the middle
17
Q
What are the criticisms of Rogers?
A
- almost completely ignores the role of the unconscious
- view of human nature too moralistic and simplistic =
doesn’t believe in bad people, just bad outcomes - ignores importance of sexual and aggressive motives
- cannot explain fully functioning individuals who didn’t have unconditional positive regard
- relies too heavily on self-report
