Carl Rogers was born January 8, 1902 in Illinois.
His father was a civil engineer and his mother was a housewife and also
a
dedicated Christian, he had five brothers and sisters. He learned to
read
before kindergarten and so he skipped ahead and started his education
in the
second grade. When he was 12 his family moved to a farm that was 30
miles west
of Chicago. He attended
the University of Wisconsin
and began as an
agriculture major but later switched to religion. On a trip to Beijing
he said that his experiences there challenged his belief of his
religious
views. He married Helen Elliot after graduation and moved to New
York where he began the clinical psychology
program
at Columbia University
where he received his Ph.D. in 1931.
He was a
professor at Ohio State
beginning in 1940 and wrote his first book, Counseling and
Psychotherapy in
1942. In 1945 he established a counseling center at the University
of Chicago and while there
he
published Client-Centered therapy which outlined his theory in 1951 and
was
perhaps his most important work. He accepted a research position in
LaJolla California
in 1964 where he gave speeches, wrote and provided therapy until he
died in
1987.
Roger’s
theory is a simple one built around what he called the actualizing
tendency
which is the motivation of living things to develop to the fullest
extent
possible. He believed that all people and animals strive to make the
very best
of their life. His theory is based on his experience with his clients
and is
therefore clinical. He began the move from psychoanalysis and began
client-centered psychotherapy. He is also seen as a pioneer in
Humanistic
psychology and the most influential American psychologist.
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