Carl Rogers was a humanistic psychologist who added to the work of Abraham Maslow and suggested that the human being required an optimum environment for growth. This environment would entail genuineness, acceptance and empathy. Rogers believed in every person’s ability to reach their goals in life in a process called self-actualization. This paper discusses the self-actualization and the various parts of the self-concept and how they interact with each other.
Rogers believed in the humanistic motive to achieve self-actualization. This was considered as the state of achieving one’s potential while still being human. This means that environmental conditions will largely affect the performance of the person to produce one’s uniqueness and empower different personalities to effectively deal with situations (McLeod, 2014). Human capacity to become destructive only comes as a result of poor self-concept or too many environmental constraints that force one to act unethically or discard the one’s values. Therefore, self-actualization according to Rogers occurs when one’s ideal self is similar to the actual self through one’s behavior.
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Rogers equally expressed that a human being required being regarded by others. Human beings crave to be valued, respected, loved and treated with affection. Positive regard was therefore one of the areas of discussion in Rogers’ research. Positive regard was considered from childhood, where one’s life and self-actualization journey begins. Unconditional positive regard describes a situation where parents and significant other persons in one’s life accept and love the person for what they are. This positive regard is not withdrawn when the person makes a mistake. Thus, the person feels free to become experimental without fear of failure. This is compared to conditional positive regard where parents accord praise to the child based on ‘correct’ behavior. Hence, the love is conditional based on the child’s action and behavior.
A development of congruence between self-image and the actual self is dependent upon unconditional positive regard. Here, the person will feel loved regardless of their character in their journey to become a more balanced person. In conclusion, the ethics behind Rogers’ research is considered. Dealing with people’s personal lives required permission from the client. Rogers made this ethical principle in the course of his research, thereby opening up a new area of ethics.
References
McLeod, S. (2014). Carl Rogers . Retrieved December 17, 2016, from Psychology Today: http://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html .
