Carl Rogers
Founder of client-centered therapy
Most quoted
"When the other person is hurting, confused, troubled, anxious, alienated, terrified; or when he or she is doubtful of self-worth, uncertain as to identity, then understanding is called for. The gentle and sensitive companionship of an empathic stance… provides illumination and healing. In such situations deep understanding is, I believe, the most precious gift one can give to another."
— from A Way of Being, 1980
"I have found the greater the degree of congruence of experience, awareness, and communication on the part of one individual, the more the ensuing relationship will involve: a tendency toward reciprocal communication; a tendency toward more mutually accurate understanding; improved psychological adjustment and functioning in both parties; mutual satisfaction in the relationship."
— from A Theory of Therapy, Personality and Interpersonal Relationships, 1959
"I believe it will have become evident why, for me, adjectives such as happy, contented, blissful, enjoyable, do not seem quite appropriate to any general description of this process I have called the good life… I believe they would be perceived as by-products of the directions I have described."
— from On Becoming a Person, 1961
All quotes by Carl Rogers (245)
The self is a fluid and changing gestalt, a process, not a fixed structure.
The more I am able to be myself in the relationship, the more the other person will be able to be himself or herself.
The individual has within himself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering his self-concept, attitudes, and self-directed behavior.
When I accept myself as I am, I am freed from the burden of trying to be what I am not.
The creative life is a good life.
The only way to understand another person is to enter his or her world and see it through his or her eyes.
Truth is not something that is handed down to us; it is something that we discover for ourselves.
The universe is friendly, and it is trying to help us.
The self is a process, not a thing.
The organism has one basic tendency and striving – to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism.
In my relationships with persons, I have found that it does not help, in the long run, to act as though I were something I am not.
The greatest need of the human being is to be understood, to be accepted, to be loved.
Man's inhumanity to man is not some kind of 'original sin' but rather the result of a distorted and defensive way of perceiving and relating to the world.
The counselor's function is to help the client achieve a greater degree of independence and integration.
The most potent force in therapy is the client's own capacity for self-healing.
The more the therapist is himself or herself in the relationship, putting up no professional front or personal facade, the greater is the likelihood that the client will change and grow.
The fully functioning person is a person who is continually striving to become more fully himself.
The client is the one who knows what is best for himself.
We are, in fact, dealing with a process, not a product.
The major barrier to mutual interpersonal communication is our very natural tendency to judge, to evaluate, to approve or disapprove, the other person's statement or behavior.
Contemporaries of Carl Rogers
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of Carl Rogers (1902–1987).