Who was Carl Rogers?
Carl Rogers (1902 – 1987) was the father of Humanistic Psychology. He believed that for a personal to grow psychologically then three conditions were
necessary. These conditioner are genuine, acceptance and empathy – which form the basis for how we can engineer increased success and happiness at work and home. But beyond this, Rogers believed that all organisms were motivated by the tendency to ‘self-actualise’, or maintain and enhance our experience in increasingly complex ways and that this was made possible by these 3 conditions. The wonderful thing about what Rogers was arguing is that all organisms, including humans, naturally want to move in this direction, and that we only need to create these conditions for this development towards our fullest potential to happen naturally. Another way to think of this is in terms of development – every organism grows through certain states of development as it moves through it’s lifespan, both physically and mentally (this being especially true of humans). Empathy is one of the key generators of this development; on our journey to become, what Rogers called, ‘fully functioning people.’
3 Conditions of Growth
Genuineness – being open and and honestly trying to communicate who we truly are in the world.
In modern life, there is an increasing emphasis on being guarded, on not representing who we truly are to either ourselves or others. By wasting energy on maintaining an unrealistic and inaccurate ‘mask’ to the world, we stop ourselves from developing and achieving success. We have all met people who genuinely live happily within their own skin. We usually think of them as charismatic and content individuals, that exude an easy kind of magnetism. Genuineness is the path to this experience.
Acceptance – of ourselves and others.
We cannot genuinely be ourselves if we fundamentally reject who that person is. When we waste our time on convincing others that we are someone we’re not, we run into all kinds of problems. It’s difficult to trust someone who doesn’t trust themselves. Once we accept ourselves, it’s much easier to accept others. And people recognize this level of self-acceptance in others – it’s something that is clearly communicated with our body language, eye contact and other physical mannerisms.
Empathy – communicating the experience of being listened to, ‘seen’ and understood.
Understanding that the challenges of accepting ourselves and living genuine lives as the people we truly is at the heart of empathy. Empathy is the turning outwards of these first two conditions. The basic formula is that once we genuinely accept and live as who we are, we then create the conditions for others to do the same. And this is at the heart of happiness and success with other people.
“I’d rather be whole than good.” – C. G. Jung
As we live increasingly become ourselves we can enable others to become more authentically themselves too, by alignment of the 3 conditions, living empathically becomes a source of increasing hope as we look out into the world:
”When I look at the world I’m pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic.” – Carl Rogers
Recent Comments