Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- Rogers:
Person−Centered Theory
(^332) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
In many ways, Stage 6 signals an end to therapy. Indeed, if therapy were to be
terminated at this point, clients would still progress to the next level.
Stage 7can occur outside the therapeutic encounter, because growth at Stage
6 seems to be irreversible. Clients who reach Stage 7 become fully functioning “per-
sons of tomorrow” (a concept more fully explained in the section titled The Person
of Tomorrow). They are able to generalize their in-therapy experiences to their
world beyond therapy. They possess the confidence to be themselves at all times, to
own and to feel deeply the totality of their experiences, and to live those experiences
in the present. Their organismic self, now unified with the self-concept, becomes the
locus for evaluating their experiences. People at Stage 7 receive pleasure in knowing
that these evaluations are fluid and that change and growth will continue. In addition,
they become congruent, possess unconditional positive self-regard,and are able to
be loving and empathic toward others.
Theoretical Explanation for Therapeutic Change
What theoretical formulation can explain the dynamics of therapeutic change?
Rogers’s (1980) explanation follows this line of reasoning. When persons come to
experience themselves as prized and unconditionally accepted, they realize, perhaps
for the first time, that they are lovable. The example of the therapist enables them to
prize and accept themselves, to have unconditional positive self-regard. As clients
perceive that they are emphatically understood, they are freed to listen to themselves
more accurately, to have empathy for their own feelings. As a consequence, when
these persons come to prize themselves and to accurately understand themselves,
their perceived self becomes more congruent with their organismic experiences.
They now possess the same three therapeutic characteristics as any effective helper,
and in effect, they become their own therapist.
326 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories
Persons of tomorrow are confident in
themselves and comfortable with change.