On Becoming a Person
The necessary and sufficient conditions, and the book that made them common currency.
How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?
On Becoming a Person collects Carl Rogers' papers from the 1950s into a single argument about what makes therapeutic change possible. Rogers holds that a client moves toward growth when the therapist offers three things: congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding. Where a psychodynamic reader works from interpretation and the transference, Rogers sets those aside and stakes everything on the quality of the relationship itself, treating the client as the agent of their own change rather than the object of technique.
The book gathers case material, transcripts, and research notes alongside Rogers' account of his own practice, so the claims stay tied to what happens between two people in a room. It reaches past the consulting room into education, family life, and the conditions under which anyone learns to trust their own experience. First published in 1961, it gave the person-centred position its clearest single statement and set terms that later schools still argue with.
About the author
Carl Ransom Rogers
Carl R. Rogers (1902 to 1987) was an American psychologist and one of the founders of humanistic psychology. Trained during the era of psychoanalytic dominance, he developed client-centered therapy, which located the work of change in the relationship rather than the clinician's interpretations. He argued that congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathy form the conditions under which people grow. His writing shaped how many clinicians, across orientations, think about the therapeutic alliance and the practitioner's own presence in the room.
Details
- 1961
- English
- Robinson
- Robinson, 1961
- 432
- 9781780332857