Chapter 10 Rogers: Person-Centered Theory 291H
e shared his elementary school days in Oak Park, Illinois, with Ernest Heming-
way and the children of Frank Lloyd Wright, but he had no aspirations for
either literature or for architecture. Instead, he wanted to be a farmer, a scientific
farmer who cared about plants and animals and how they grew and developed.
Although he was from a large family, he was quite shy and lacking in social
skills. A sensitive boy, he was easily hurt by the teasing he received from class-
mates and siblings.
At the beginning of his high school years, his parents—hoping for a more
wholesome and religious atmosphere—moved their family to a farm about 45 miles
west of Chicago. The move met his parents’ purpose. In this isolated atmosphere,
the family developed close ties with one another but not with young people from
other families. Reading the Bible, working hard, and taking care of farm animals
and plants occupied much of his time. Although he believed that his parents cared
very much for their children, he also believed that they were quite controlling in
their child-rearing practices. As a result, the children grew up in a home that
included almost no social life and an abundance of hard work. Dancing, playing
cards, drinking carbonated beverages, and attending the theater were all forbidden.
In this environment, the young man developed a scientific attitude toward
farming, taking detailed notes on his observations. These notes taught him about
the “necessary and sufficient” conditions for the optimal growth of plants and
animals. Throughout his high school years and into his college days, he retained
a passionate interest in scientific agriculture. However, he never did become a
farmer. After two years of college, he changed his life goal from agriculture to the
ministry and later to psychology.
But devotion to the scientific method was to remain with Carl Rogers for a
lifetime, and his research on the “necessary and sufficient” conditions for human
psychological growth was at least partially responsible for his winning the first
Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award granted by the American Psycho-
logical Association.Overview of Client-Centered Theory
Although he is best known as the founder of client-centered therapy, Carl Rogers
developed a humanistic theory of personality that grew out of his experiences as
a practicing psychotherapist. Unlike Freud, who was primarily a theorist and sec-
ondarily a therapist, Rogers was a consummate therapist but only a reluctant theo-
rist (Rogers, 1959). He was more concerned with helping people than with
discovering why they behaved as they did. He was more likely to ask “How can
I help this person grow and develop?” than to ponder the question “What caused
this person to develop in this manner?”
Like many personality theorists, Rogers built his theory on the scaffold pro-
vided by experiences as a therapist. Unlike most of these other theorists, however,
he continually called for empirical research to support both his personality theory
and his therapeutic approach. Perhaps more than any other therapist-theorist,
Rogers (1986) advocated a balance between tender-minded and hardheaded studies
that would expand knowledge of how humans feel and think.