Unit 3 Chapter 10 Rogers: Person Centered Theory Flashcards
What is the difference between client-centered therapy and person centered therapy?
We use the label client-centered in reference to Rogers’ therapy and the more inclusive term person-centered to refer to Rogerian personality theory.
What are the two basic assumptions of person centered theory?
Formative tendency and the actualizing tendency
Summarize the formative tendency according to Rogers.
Tendency in all matter to evolve from simpler to more complex forms
Define actualizing tendency
Tendency within all people to move toward completion or fulfillment of potentials
define maintenence (Rogers)
Those basic needs that protect the status quo. They may be either physiological (e.g., food) or interpersonal (e.g., the need to maintain the current self-concept)
Define enhancement (Rogers)
The need to develop, to grow, and to achieve.
What is the difference between the actualization tendency and self actualization according to Rogers?
The actualization tendency refers to organismic experiences of the individual; that is, it refers to the whole person—conscious and unconscious, physiological and cognitive. On the other hand, self-actualization is the tendency to actualize the self as perceived in awareness.
Rogers postulated two self subsystems, what were they?
the self-concept and the ideal self.
What is the self concept?
The self-concept includes all those aspects of one’s being and one’s experiences that are perceived in awareness (though not always accurately) by the individual. The self-concept is not identical with the organismic self.
What is the ideal self?
defined as one’s view of self as one wishes to be
What makes change after developing a firm self concept difficult?
Experiences that disprove or conflict with a persons self concept are often either ignored or distorted.
What is awareness according to Rogers and how many levels of awareness did he identify?
“the symbolic representation (not necessarily in verbal symbols) of some portion of our experience”
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What are the three levels of awareness?
1) First, some events are experienced below the threshold of awareness and are either ignored or denied.
2)experiences are accurately symbolized and freely admitted to the self-structure. Such experiences are both nonthreatening and consistent with the existing self-concept.
3) A third level of awareness involves experiences that are perceived in a distorted form. When our experience is not consistent with our view of self, we reshape or distort the experience so that it can be assimilated into our existing self-concept
Name the 4 main barriers to psychological health
conditions of worth, incongruence, defensiveness, and disorganization
define conditions of worth (Rogers)
“A condition of worth arises when the positive regard of a significant other is conditional, when the individual feels that in some respects he [or she] is prized and in others not”
define incongruence (Rogers)
Psychological disequilibrium begins when we fail to recognize our organismic experiences as self-experiences: that is, when we do not accurately symbolize organismic experiences into awareness because they appear to be inconsistent with our emerging self-concept.
Anxiety and threat emerge when we begin to detect threats to our self concepts
define defensiveness, what are the two main kinds of defensive reactions? (Rogers).
Defensiveness is the protection of the self-concept against anxiety and threat by the denial or distortion of experiences inconsistent with it
Distortion and denial
define disorganization (Rogers)
when the incongruence between people’s perceived self and their organismic experience is either too obvious or occurs too suddenly to be denied or distorted, their behavior becomes disorganized.
Rogerian therapy can be described by three categories, what are they?
conditions, process, and outcomes
What are the conditions that need to be in place for Rogerian psychotherapy?
-Counsellor congruence
-unconditional positive regard
-empathetic listening
Summarize the seven steps for clients in Rogerian psychotherapy. At what point are the positive effects irriversable?
People become more willing to open up to the counsellor and to themselves. They first move towards being able to talk about experinces then be able to feel them authentically. It is irriversable when there is no longer much incongruency, they are able to accept their experiences and themselves.
Summarize the outcomes of person centered therapy (rogers)
The most basic outcome of successful client-centered therapy is a congruent client who is less defensive and more open to experience. Thus they become less defensive or anxious and have a more realistic outlook on their lives.
What kinds of qualities does a psychologically healthy ‘person of tomorrow’ look like to Rogers?
1) adaptable
2) accepting (not denying)
3) Present
4) confident/humble
5) integrated/authentic
6) positive about human nature
7) open to their own experiences
What is Roger’s basic philosophy on science?
People who do science should be fully invested in the thing they are doing the science in. Ie a person who does experiements in therapy should be an active therapist to maintain a science that isn’t disconnected.
