| Childhood/Family Life
Carl Rogers was born January 8, 1902, in
a small suburb of Oak Park, Illinois right outside of Chicago. He
was the fourth of six children (Heppner,
Rogers, & Lee, 1984). His parents
were strict Protestants and worked hard to keep society from corrupting
their
children. When Carl was a teenager his
family moved to a farm in Glen Ellen, Illinois. This
is where he became interested in the
science of agriculture. He decided to go to college at the University of Wisconsin
at Madison
to
pursue a career in farming (Kirschenbaum, 2004). After
his graduation from college, he married
his long time girlfriend Helen, and they had a son and a daughter.
Adult Life
While enrolled at the University of Wisconsin he started attending
Christian
revival meetings and decided to change his major to history instead of
agriculture. He had decided to become a
minister after graduation. During his
junior year he was chosen from ten Americans to spend six months in China
to participate in the international Christian youth conference
(Kirschenbaum,
2004). He was then interested in
studying religion and applied to the Union Theological Seminary in New York City (Heppner,
et al., 1984) and (Kirschenbaum,
2004). It was here where he began taking
psychology classes at the Teachers College of Columbia University. He later transferred completely to the
Teachers College when inspired by such instructors as Watson, Goodwin,
Leta
Hollingworth and William Heard Kilpatrick. He
later went on to pursue a career at Rochester,
Ohio State University,
the University
of Chicago, University
of Wisconsin, and the Western
Behavioral Sciences Institute in California.
Professional Accomplishments
Rogers was
introduced to measurement and testing by
E.L. Thorndike, and he then pursued a clinical fellowship at the
Institute for
Child Guidance (Kirchenbaum, 2004). In
1928, he took a position at Rochester
and became the director of the Child Study Department.
Later, he also became the director of the Rochester Guidance Center. Rogers’
dissertation while attending the Teacher’s College was Personality
Adjustment
Inventory, (1931). The publication was
so popular that in a span of 50 years it sold over half a million
copies. In 1939, he published his first
book called The
Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child. Rogers
then took a full teaching position at Ohio State
University
and subsequently started work
on his second book entitled Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer
Concepts in
Practice, (1942). After only four
years he decided to transfer to the University
of Chicago in which he
started the Counseling
Center,
and he was also a professor in
the psychology department. It was here,
he began working on his new approach to counseling now known as
“client-centered” therapy. Also during
this time, he wrote another book entitled Client-Centered Therapy:
It’s
Current Practice, Implications and Theory, (1951).
Along
with his book he was well known for being the first to record his
therapy
sessions, thus demonstrating his theories and beliefs.
Also with audio recordings he had training
videos made available for other psychotherapists. For
his work with client-centered therapy he
was awarded by the American Psychological Association the first
“Distinguished
Scientific Contribution Award” in 1956 (Kirschenbaum, 2004). He is also well known for his work with the
American Association of Orthopsychiatry and the American Association of
Social
Workers. During the 1940s and 1950s he
was the president of the American Psychological Association as well.
In 1957, however, Rogers
decided to take a position at the University of Wisconsin
as head of
both Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry. During
this time at the University
of Wisconsin,
he wrote
one of the most influential books, in 1961, entitled, On Becoming a
Person:
A Therapists View of Psychotherapy.
Contributions to Psychology
Rogers is well
known for his work in “client-centered”
approach used in psychotherapy. His belief was that the client was in
charge of
their own happiness. The therapist was
just there to guide the client in the right direction. He believed that
in
order for a client/therapist relationship to develop the therapist must
embody
these characteristics unconditional positive regard, empathy, and
congruence
(Kirschenbaum, 2004). He also had a “self-theory” in which he described
how the
client views himself/herself, and how through therapy can help change
their
view and future.
All
of Rogers’
theories and principles put together are better known today as
“humanistic
psychology.” His version of psychology
focused more on helping the individual help himself or herself instead
of
diagnosing. Rogers’ interest in the client
achieving his
or her full potential in life is what we know as “self-actualization,”
and
thus, leading the client to become a “fully-functioning person,” which
in fact
was the ultimate goal. After many
decades of his influential research and publications, Carl Rogers
finished out
the rest of his days in La
Jolla, California
where he worked for a
short time at the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute.
Rogers finished
out his days in his home in La Jolla. In 1987,
he died from complications ensuing from a fall and hip injury that had
happened
earlier in that year.
|
