example, a therapist observes that Nico is behaving
nervously prior to a test, infers that Nico must be
experiencing threat from the test, and then pro-
ceeds to account for his nervousness by attributing
it to the threat. Such an observation is both the basis
for the inference and the object of the explanation.
A very important concept within phenomeno-
logical theory is thephenomenal self—that part of the
phenomenal field that the person experiences as the
“I.”Obviously, this is not an objective experience.
In addition, phenomenological theory states that
the basic human urge is to preserve and enhanceBOX13-1 Focus on Professional Issues: A Brief Biography of Carl RogersBorn in Oak Park, Illinois, on January 8, 1902, Carl
Rogers was the fourth of six children and grew up in
a financially secure family. When Rogers was 12, his
father, a civil engineer and contractor, moved the
family to a farm outside Chicago. His parents main-
tained a devout, almost dogmatic set of religious
beliefs, and the family became a tight little unit—
perhaps in part because of those beliefs. Rogers had
few friends and spent much of his time alone reading.
He was an outstanding student in high school but was
not really a part of the social scene.
He went to the University of Wisconsin in 1919 to
major in agriculture. He was very active in campus
religious affairs, especially during his first 2 years, even
attending a religious conference in Peking, China,
during this period. He was so impressed by the cultural
and religious diversity he encountered on this trip that
his traditionalist family and religious views were
shaken. As a result, his fundamentalist orientation
began to change noticeably. He graduated from the
university with a degree in history in 1924.
He married Helen Elliott, with whom he had two
children. Moving to New York City, he attended Union
Theological Seminary for 2 years. However, a growing
religious skepticism coupled with a desire to help
others more directly led him to transfer to Columbia
University and pursue training in clinical psychology.
He was awarded the Ph.D. in 1931. He moved on to
Rochester, New York, where he became a staff psy-
chologist in a child guidance clinic.
The beginnings of Rogers’methods are clearly vis-
ible in his bookThe Clinical Treatment of the Problem
Child, which was published in 1939. When he moved to
Ohio State University in 1940, Rogers began to develop
his approach to psychotherapy in earnest (Rogers,
1942). In 1945, he moved to the University of Chicago
and began a period of intensive research as he devel-
oped a theoretical structure to buttress his therapeutic
practices. During this period, the term“client-centered”
began to supplant the older“nondirective”label
(Rogers, 1951). Then, in 1957, Rogers accepted aposition at the University of Wisconsin to extend his
ideas about psychotherapy to more extreme popula-
tions, such as hospitalized schizophrenics (Rogers,
Gendlin, Kiesler, & Truax, 1967). From 1968 until his
death in February 1987, Rogers was a resident fellow
at the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla,
California.
Rogers published numerous books (several of
which are cited in the References at the end of this
book). His autobiography, written in 1967, is included
inA History of Psychology in Autobiography (Vol. 5).
An autobiographical paper,“In Retrospect: Forty-Six
Years,”appeared inAmerican Psychologistin 1974.A
Way of Being, published in 1980, provides some insight
into the changes that occurred in his thinking over the
years. A sensitive and revealing portrait of Rogers—
both as a psychologist and as a person—has been
offered by Gendlin (1988).Photo Courtesy of Natalie Rogers372 CHAPTER 13