On Becoming a Person

A Therapists View o f Psychotherapy

Carl R. Rogers

Sentry E iition /970

H OUGHTON M IF F L IN CO M PA N Y • BO STO N
 Contents
*

Introduction T o the Reader vii

PART I

S p e a k in g P er so n a l ly

Chapter 1 “ T h is is M e” 3

PART II

H ow C an I Be o f H elp ?

Chapter 2 Som e H ypotheses R egarding the Facilitation of

Personal G row th 31
Chapter 3 T h e Characteristics o f aH elping Relationship 39
Chapter 4 W hat W e K now About Psychotherapy — O b­
jectively and Subjectively 59

PART III
First Sentry Printing R

T h e P r o c e s s o f B e c o m i n g a P e r so n
Copyright © 1961 by Carl R. Rogers
All rights reserved. N o part of this w o r\ may be Chapter 5 Som e o f the Directions Evident in T h erapy 73
reproduced or transmitted in any form by any Chapter 6 W hat It Means to Become a Person 107
means, electronic or mechanical, including
Chapter 7 A Process Conception o f Psychotherapy 125
photocopying and recording, or by any
information storage or retrieval
system, without permission
in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

 C on tents v
iv C on tents
PART V II
PART IV
T h e B e h a v io r a l S c i e n c e s a n d t h e P e r so n
A P h il o s o p h y o f P e r s o n s
Chapter 20 T h e G ro w in g Pow er o f the Behavioral Sciences 363
Chapter 8 “ T o Be T h at Self W hich One T ru ly Is” :
Chapter 21 T h e Place o f the Individual in the N e w W orld
A Therapist’s V iew o f Personal G oals 163
o f the Behavioral Sciences 384
Chapter 9 A Therapist’s V iew o f the G ood L ife: T h e
Fully Functioning Person 183
Appendix A Chronological Bibliography o f the publica­
tions o f Carl R. R ogers. 1930-1960. 403
A cknou'ledgf/tents 413
PART V
Index 415
G e t t in g a t t h e F a c t s :

T h e P l a c e o f R e s e a r c h in P s y c h o t h e r a p y

Chapter 10 Persons or Science? A Philosophical Question 199

Chapter 11 Personality Change in Psychotherapy 225
Chapter 12 Client-Centered T h erapy in its Context o f R e­
search 243

PART VI

W h a t A r e t h e I m p l i c a t i o n s f o r L iv in g ?

Chapter 13 Personal Th oughts on Teaching and Learning 273

Chapter 14 Significant Learning: In T h erapy and in E d u­
cation 279
Chapter 15 Student-Centered T eaching as Experienced by a
Participant 297
Chapter 16 Th e Implications o f Client-centered T h erapy
for Fam ily Life 314
Chapter 17 Dealing with Breakdowns in Communication
— Interpersonal and Intergroup
329
Chapter 18 A Tentative Form ulation o f a General Law of
Interpersonal Relationships 338
Chapter 19 T ow ard a T h eo ry o f Creativity 347

T o the Reader
T h o u g h i t sh o c k s m e s o m e w h a t t o s a y so , I have been a psycho­
therapist (o r personal counselor) for more than thirty-three years.
This means that during a period o f a third o f a century I have been
trying to be o f help to a broad sampling of our population: to chil­
dren, adolescents and adults; to those with educational, vocational,
personal and marital problems; to “ normal,” “ neurotic,” and “ psy­
chotic” individuals (the quotes indicate that for me these are all
misleading labels); to individuals who come for help, and those
who are sent for help; to those whose problems are minor, and to
those whose lives have become utterly desperate and without hope.
I regard it as a deep privilege to have had the opportunity to know
such a diverse multitude of people so personally and intimately.
Out o f the clinical experience and research o f these years 1 have
written several books and m any articles. T h e papers in this volume
are selected from those I have written during the most recent
ten o f the thirty-three years, from 1951 to 1961. I would like to
explain the reasons that I have for gathering them into a book.
In the first place I believe that almost all of them have relevance
for personal living in this perplexing modern world. T h is is in no
sense a book o f advice, nor does it in any w ay resemble the “ do-
it-y ou rself’ treatise, but it has been m y experience that readers of
these papers have often found them challenging and enriching.
T h ey have to some small degree given the person more security
in making and following his personal choices as he endeavors to
move toward being the person he would like to be. So for this
reason I should like to have them more widely available to any
T o th e R ead er vii
who might be interested— to “ the intelligent laym an,” as the phrase
goes. I feel this especially since all o f m y previous books have been
published for the professional psychological audience, and have
never been readily available to the person outside o f that group.
It is m y sinccrc hope that m any people who have no particular
interest in the field o f counseling or psychotherapy will find that
the learnings em erging in this field will strengthen them in their
own living. It is also m y hope and belief that m any people who
have never sought counseling help will find, as they read the ex­
cerpts from the recorded therapy interviews o f the m any clients
in these pages, that they are subtly enriched in courage and self
confidence, and that understanding o f their own difficulties will
become easier as they live through, in their imagination and feel­
ing, the struggles o f others toward growth.
Another influence which has caused me to prepare this hook is
the increasing number and urgency o f requests from those who are
already acquainted with my point o f view in counseling, psycho­
therapy, and interpersonal relationships. T h ey have made it known
that they wish to he able to obtain accounts o f my more recent
thinking and work in a convenient and available package. T h ey are
frustrated by hearing o f unpublished articles which they cannot
acquire; b y stumbling across papers o f mine in out-of-the-way
journals; they want them brought together. T h is is a flattering
request for any author. It also constitutes an obligation which I have
tried to fulfill. I hope that they will be pleased with the selection I
have made. T h us in this respect this volume is for those psycholo­
gists, psychiatrists, teachers, educators, school counselors, religious
workers, social workers, speech therapists, industrial leaders, labor-
management specialists, political scientists and others who have in
the past found m y w ork relevant to their professional efforts. In
a very real sense, it is dedicated to them.
There is another motive which has impelled me, a more complex
and personal one. T h is is the search fo r a suitable audience for
what I have to say. F or more than a decade this problem has puzzled
me. I know that I speak to only a fraction o f psychologists. Th e
majority— their interests suggested by such terms as stimulus-re-
sponse, learning theory, operant conditioning— are so committed to
viii T o th e R ead er
seeing the individual solely as an object, that what I have to say
often baffles if it does not annoy them. I also know that I speak to
but a fraction o f psychiatrists. F o r many, perhaps most o f them, the
truth about psychotherapy has already been voiced long ago by
Freud, and they are uninterested in new possibilities, and uninter­
ested in or antagonistic to research in this field. I also know that I
speak to but a portion o f the divergent group which call themselves
counselors. T h e bulk o f this group are prim arily interested in pre­
dictive tests and measurements, and in m ethods o f guidance.
So when it com es to the publication o f a particular paper, I have
felt dissatisfied with presenting it to a professional journal in any
one o f these fields. I have published articles in journals o f each of
these types, but the m ajority o f m y writings in recent years have
piled up as unpublished manuscripts, distributed privately in mimeo­
graphed form. T h e y symbolize m y uncertainty as to how to reach
whatever audience it is I am addressing.
D uring this period journal editors, often o f small or highly
specialized journals, have learned o f some o f these papers, and have
requested permission to publish. I have alw ays acceded to these re­
quests, with the proviso that I m ight wish to publish the paper else­
where at some later time. T h us the m ajority o f the papers I have
written during this decade have been unpublished, or have seen the
light o f day in some small, or specialized, or off-beat journal.
N o w however I have concluded that I wish to put these thoughts
out in book form so that they can seek their own audience. I am
sure that that audience will cut across a variety o f disciplines, some
o f them as far removed from m y own field as philosophy and the
science o f government. Y et I have com e to believe that the audience
will have a certain unity, too. I believe these papers belong in a
trend which is having and will have its im pact on psychology,
psychiatry, philosophy, and other fields. I hesitate to label such a
trend but in m y mind there are associated with it adjectives such as
phenomenological, existential, person-centered; concepts such as
self-actualization, becom ing, grow th; individuals (in this country)
such as G ordon A llport, Abraham Maslow, R ollo M ay. Hence,
though the group to which this book speaks m eaningfully will, I
believe, come from many disciplines, and have many wide-ranging
TO TH E R f \I)F.R 1\
interests, a com mon thread m ay well be their concern about the
person and his becom ing, in a modern world which appears intent
upon ignoring or diminishing him.
Th ere is one final reason for putting out this book, a motive which
means a great deal to me. It has to do with the great, in fact the
desperate, need o f our times for more basic know ledge and more
competent skills in dealing with the tensions in human relationships.
Man’s awesome scientific advances into the infinitude o f space as
well as the infinitude of sub-atomic particles seems most likely to
lead to the total destruction o f our world unless we can make great
advances in understanding and dealing with interpersonal and inter-
group tensions. I feel very humble about the modest know ledge
which has been gained in this field. I hope fo r the day when we will
invest at least the price o f one or two large rockets in the search for
more adequate understanding o f human relationships. But I also
feel keenly concerned that the know ledge we have gained is very
little recognized and little utilized. I hope it m ay be clear from this
volume that we already possess learnings which, put to use, would
help to decrease the inter-racial, industrial, and international tensions
which exist. I hope it will be evident that these learnings, used
preventively, could aid in the development o f mature, nondefensive,
understanding persons who would deal constructively with future
tensions as they arise. If I can thus make clear to a significant num­
ber o f people the unused resource know ledge already available in
the realm o f interpersonal relationships, I will feel greatly rewarded.
So much fo r m y reasons for putting forth this book. L et me
conclude with a few comments as to its nature. T h e papers which
are brought together here represent the m ajor areas o f m y interest
during the past decade.* T h ey were prepared fo r different pur­
poses, usually for different audiences, or form ulated simply for m y
own satisfaction. I have written for each chapter an introductory
• T h e one partial exception is in the area o f explicit theory o f personality.
H aving just recently published a com plete and technical presentation o f my
theories in a book which should be available in any professional library, I
have not tried to include such material here. T h e reference referred to is my
chapter entitled, “A theory o f therapy, personality, and interpersonal relation­
ships as developed in the client-centcred fram ew ork” in K och , S. (ed.)
P sychology: A Study of a Science, vol. Ill, pp. 184-256. M cG raw -H ill, 1959.
X T o t h e R f .a d f .r

note which tries to set the material in an understandable context.

I have organized the papers in such a w ay that they portray a unified
and developing theme from the highly personal to the larger social
significance. In editing them, I have eliminated duplication, but
where different papers present the same concept in different ways
I have often retained these “ variations on a theme” hoping that they
might serve the same purpose as in music, namely to enrich the
meaning o f the m elody. Because o f their origin as separate papers,
each one can be read independently o f the others if the reader so
desires.
Stated in the simplest w ay, the purpose o f this book is to share PART I
with you something o f m y experience— something o f me. Here is
what I have experienced in the jungles o f modern life, in the largely
unmapped territory o f personal relationships. H ere is what I have
seen. H ere is what I have come to believe. H ere are the ways I
have tried to check and test m y beliefs. H ere are some o f the per­
plexities, questions, concerns and uncertainties which I face. I hope Speaking Personally
that out o f this sharing you m ay find something which speaks to
you.
Departments o f Psychology and Psychiatry
The University of W isconsin
April, 1961
/ speak as a person , fro m a con text
o f p erson al experien ce and p erso n al learnings.