Theories_of_Personality 7th Ed Feist

Feist−Feist: Theories of

Personality, Seventh

Edition

III. Humanistic/Existential

Theories

11. Rogers:
    Person−Centered Theory

(^346) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009

• An individual becomes a person by making contactwith a caregiver whose
  positive regardfor that individual fosters positive self-regard.


• Barriers to psychological growthexist when a person experiences
  conditions of worth, incongruence, defensiveness, and disorganization.


• Conditions of worth and external evaluationlead to vulnerability, anxiety,
  and threatand prevent people from experiencing unconditional positive
  regard.


• Incongruencedevelops when the organismic self and the perceived self do
  not match.


• When the organismic self and perceived self are incongruent, people will
  become defensiveand use distortionand denialas attempts to reduce
  incongruence.


• People become disorganizedwhenever distortion and denial are
  insufficient to block out incongruence.


• Vulnerable people are unaware of their incongruence and are likely to
  become anxious, threatened,and defensive.


• When vulnerable people come in contact with a therapist who is congruent
  and who has unconditional positive regardand empathy,the process of
  personality change begins.


• This processof therapeutic personality change ranges from extreme
  defensiveness, or an unwillingness to talk about self, to a final stage in
  which clients become their own therapists and are able to continue
  psychological growth outside the therapeutic setting.


• The basic outcomes of client-centered counseling are congruent clients
  who are open to experiences and who have no need to be defensive.


• Theoretically, successful clients will become persons of tomorrow,or fully
  functioning persons.

340 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories