Rogerian Applications

Question 1

Julian Baggini

Answer 1

“We are our experiences”

Question 2

Self-Experience Discrepancy

Answer 2

An incongruence between the Self and experiences

Question 3

Self and Experiences for a psychologically healthy person:

Answer 3

Is able to assimilate experiences into their self-structure (beliefs) – good and bad
Is open to experience (actions) rather than reacting to experience in a defensive manner

Question 4

Self and Experiences for a psychologically unhealthy person:

Answer 4

 Incongruent experiences are either denied completely or distorted
 This creates a discrepancy with actual experience and the Self’s awareness of the experience (self-experience discrepancy)
 We create defences against this

Question 5

Self-Experience Discrepancy Defences:

Answer 5

Rationalization
Fantasy
Projection

Question 6

Rationalization

Answer 6

 Rationalize the experience to maintain congruence between the self and experience
E.g.,
 Reality: I got a C on the essay because I procrastinated
 Self-talk: I prioritised what I could do with the little time I had, I studied as much as I could

Question 7

Fantasy

Answer 7

 Create a fantasy world to maintain congruence
E.g.,
 I may think I’m extremely valued by others (incongruent view of reality; narcissism, histrionic)
 I may think I’m extremely unvalued by others (incongruent view of reality; depression)
 In both, I may feel no or little self-experience discrepancy as it has become pervasive

Question 8

Projection

Answer 8

 Project your incongruent desires/thoughts onto someone else

Question 9

Conditions necessary for ROGERIAN therapeutic change:

Answer 9

Non-directive approach
Person(client) centred therapy
Therapeutic climate

Question 10

Non-directive approach

Answer 10

Allow clients to reflect on thoughts, feelings, and behavior

Question 11

Person-centred therapy

Answer 11

Emphasizes an active role of the therapist; individualized therapy

Question 12

Therapeutic climate

Answer 12

 Client and Therapist equality. “Therapeutic Alliance”
 Three therapist-centred conditions necessary for good therapeutic climate/environment:
1. Genuineness
2. Unconditional positive regard
3. Empathic understanding

Question 13

Therapeutic climate: Genuineness

Answer 13

 Therapist is themselves
 Open and transparent
 Speaks honestly (non-distortive)

 Inter-logic (an absolute truth; “never tell a lie”) vs
Consequential (a truth that would hurt the person; “white lie”)

Question 14

Therapeutic climate: Unconditional positive regard

Answer 14

Therapist communicates a deep and genuine
caring for the client as a person

Question 15

Therapeutic climate: Empathic understanding

Answer 15

Therapist strives to understand how the client
perceives the world through active listening and
empathetic concern

Question 16

Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) Premise

Answer 16

humans do not get emotionally disturbed by unfortunate circumstances but by how they construct their views of these circumstances, based on their language, evaluative beliefs, meanings and philosophies about the world, themselves and others

I.e. The way people feel is largely influenced by the way that they think.

Question 17

Hopelessness

Answer 17

Self-worth and value judgements effected by negative thinking patterns and irrational beliefs

Question 18

Ideal Self

Answer 18

Who we aim to be.
 Distress occurs when there is a large discrepancy (difference) between the Self and the ideal Self
 Therapy must bring these two selves closer together

Question 19

Carl Rogers was the first to…

Answer 19

open psychotherapy up to systematic investigation

Question 20

Evaluating client-centred therapy

Answer 20

 Used Q-Sort before and after therapy
 Can correlate scores given to actual and ideal self ratings
 Correlation, r, (similarity between actual and ideal) should be higher after therapy
 Indicates greater congruence between actual and ideal self
 Perfect correlation is +1 and worst is -1 (opposite) (0 means no relationship)

Butler & Haigh (1954) - Correlation (similarity between actual and ideal)
 Therapy scenario: Subjects that were psychologically distressed…
 Before therapy r = 0 (no relationship)
 After therapy r = 0.34 (“moderate” positive relationship)
 6-month follow-up r = 0.31 (showed consistency and sustainability)
 Subjects that were not psychologically distressed? r = 0.58

Question 21

Human Potential Movement

Answer 21

(positive growth):
 Inner perception of external experience (e.g., REBT)
 People have the capacity to move forward and realize their potentials (Murphy, 1958)

Question 22

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

Answer 22

 People are good or neutral, rather than evil (e.g., not made up of unconscious crude drives)
 Psychopathology results from a twisting or hindering of our natural growth as an organism bysocial structures (critique of the superego)
 People should be free to be themselves and express themselves

Question 23

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Answer 23

Self-actualization
Esteem needs
Belonging and love needs
Safety needs
Physiological needs

Question 24

Maslow: Existential influence

Answer 24

we have personal responsibility due to our free will (choice)
 Psychological needs are our personal responsibilities
 … people need us and rely on us to fulfil our responsibilities (belonging)
 … this brings about esteem
 … bringing purpose, meaning to our lives (and others), hence self-actualization

Question 25

HPM: Self-actualizing individuals…

Answer 25

 Accept themselves and others for who they are (acceptance)
 Can be concerned for themselves and others (compassion and empathy)
 Respond to the uniqueness of situations, not mechanically (psychological flexibility)
 Can form intimate relationships with at least a few people (intimacy)
 Spontaneous and creative (open to experience)
 Resist conformity and be assertive while responding to the demands of reality (authentic)

Question 26

According to Maslow, insight into personality comes from studying:

Answer 26

abnormal people - persons who are unusually high functioning, self-actualizing individuals

Question 27

Positive Psychology Movement

Answer 27

Martin Seligman (leader)
- interested in the nature of human strengths/ virtues
 What are human strengths – how do we identify them?
 It is an enduring quality that is beneficial in a variety of domains
 e.g. wisdom, compassion, honesty, integrity, etc.
 Parents and society foster these “strengths” in children, and, if developed, it is celebrated by one’s community (e.g. wise-man vs. “the fool”)
 The strength is valued in almost all cultures in the world…

Question 28

PPM: Flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)

Answer 28

 Positive state of consciousness with the following characteristics:

 A perceived match between personal skills + environmental challenge (congruence)
 Perception the task is challenging but achievable
 High level of focused attention
 Lack of distractions and irrelevant thoughts
 Intrinsic enjoyment in the activity
 Loss of self-consciousness (self-un-aware; time flies)

Question 29

Existentialism

Answer 29

Overarching concern with existence
 Emphasis on the human condition, having consciousness, existing; thesignificance of the individual
 It involves the search for meaning in human existence…
 What is the purpose of life?
Emphasis on:
 Life as Suffering:
 limited capabilities in a world of infinite complexity
 Life is finite, death anxiety
 Beliefs (and the opposite Nihilism – Nietzsche’s “god is dead”)
 Reduce suffering through action/meaning → having purpose
 Balance Chaos (unknown) and Order (known)
 Phenomenology perspective: Understanding the unique experience of others as sentient beings

Question 30

Jean-Paul Sartre: Consciousness, Nothingness, Freedom and Responsibility

Answer 30

 Humans differ from animals in that we are free from simple deterministic drives
 We have conscious (and abstract) action
 We can imagine alternatives (non-reality; scenarios; predictions)
 and we can imagine things not existing – “nothingness” (space and matter)
 Because we have freedom of alternatives – we have the freedom to choose actions
 “With freedom comes responsibility”
 “I had no choice”… (no, we must take responsibility for our actions)
 Morality and incongruence

Question 31

Nothingness

Answer 31

“Nothingness is really like the nothingness of space, which contains the whole universe.” – Alan Watts. (1915 – 1973)

 Without space we can’t have solids (i.e., matter)
 Solid and Space are inseparable
 We know things only by comparison…
 So, first, if we have conscious thought then we must have unconscious thought
 What does this mean for you and your personality?
 How am I defining my Self as a comparison… and if I am… then am I truly being me, or the alternative/comparison of what I don’t want to be? Or what I think I should be based on my comparisons… now what if your comparisons are limited by your experience …which they are ;

Question 32

Mortality salience

Answer 32

tests the hypothesis that the more death anxiety one faces
the more one will commit to one’s cultural and political beliefs
 Increases in mortality salience (aka the fear of death) produce:
 Greater fondness for members of one’s own ‘group’ and rejection of
members of different groups
 Greater anxiety about blasphemous attitudes towards one’s own groups’ cultural ‘group’ icons
 Greater physical aggression towards those that attack ones ‘group’
 Increased donations to charities that benefit one’s ‘group’

Question 33

Terror Management Theory (TMT)

Answer 33

 (1) people’s desire to live
 (2) people’s awareness that death is inevitable
 How do we cope with knowing we are going to die?
 Once life’s fragility becomes a personal truth instead of a philosophical concept that
happens to “other people,” we become more capable of celebrating whatever days and
experiences remain to us instead of focusing on everyday hassles.

Question 34

Discrepancies amongst parts of self

Answer 34

Specific research looking at discrepancies not between ideal and actual but among parts of the self
 Ideal self and the “ought” self
 Ideal self concerned with hopes, ambitions and desires
 Ought self concerned with duties, responsibilities and obligations
 “Things I ought to do”
 Discrepancies with the actual self:
 Ideal: leads to disappointment, sadness, depression (e.g., cant live up to ideal – perfectionism video)
 Ought: leads to fear, threat, anxiety; avoidance and social isolation → neg. reinforcement + incr.control)
 Research shows discrepancies between:
 Actual - Ideal (leads to depression) (feelings of hopelessness?)
 Actual - Ought (leads to anxiety disorders) (feelings of global anxiety?)

Question 35

Phenomenological Theory: Scientific Observation

Answer 35

The Database
 Some data based on clinical observations …but made these open to public scrutiny
 Allowed himself to be put under the spotlight; judged
 Rogers and colleagues sought objectivity
 Q-Sort technique
 Semantic Differential
 Only used explicit methods, e.g. self-report
 No implicit (unconscious) measures (e.g. dream analysis, symbolism, free-association,etc.)
 Lack of cultural diversity

Question 36

Phenomenological Theory: Systematic?

Answer 36

Little systematic theorising in general.
 However, parts are logical and systematic
 Formal personality theory is cogent and logical
 Parent-child interactions and how those influence the development of a self-concept
 Rogers didn’t like to theorise
 Thought he was too subjective
 Thought his theory was immature
 Would have liked a model that would stand mathematic rigour
 Overall it is systematic, but perhaps less so than others we will cover

Question 37

Phenomenological Theory: Testable?

Answer 37

 Some aspects of the Rogerian theory are testable
 Particularly the actual and ideal self concept (but self report)
 Overall the “self-concept” is testable
 Necessary and sufficient conditions for psychological change are among the very
best in psychotherapy and are still used today
 But Self is often derived through Trait theory – Big 5 factor model for example.
 However,
 A universal motive towards self-actualisation?
 Another way to think about “actualisation” is that we are moving towards our
actual-ideal Self
 …and the pursuit of an ought, should-ideal (i.e, perfectionism) or ought-ideal
(societies “perfection”) is dropped
 Only the path (aiming with purpose) to a “true” Self is taken

Question 38

Phenomenological Theory: Applications?

Answer 38

Simply Profound.
 (1) Interpersonal relationship between therapist and client
 Therapeutic alliance (contemporary terminology)
 Most important element
 (2) Developed methods to objectively test effectiveness of therapy (the first!)
 (3) Person-centred approach
 Empowered clients to improve their own lives
 It was up to them in the end – aim was to instil and support a sense of personal
responsibility in the client
 Only you can self actualise you and there is no manual for that…
 You are your internal thoughts and the only thing you are in control of is what
you do with them

Question 39

Major Contributions

Answer 39

Rogerian theory and the Client-Centred approach:
 Strengths:
 Focuses on aspects of human existence that are neglected by most
 The self concept and human potential for growth
 Provides concrete therapeutic strategies and settings
 First person to do this and the strategies remain today
 Brought scientific objectivity to personality psychology
 Limitations:
 Does not attend to phenomena that lies outside conscious experience (…but?)
 Little attention to cross-cultural differences and situational differences