Question

Describe Rogers’ concept of defensiveness and the two chief defenses he believed people use.

Describe Rogers’ “person of tomorrow.”

Describe Rogers’ client-centered therapy research known as “the Chicago studies.”

Answer 1

(1)Defensiveness:

- the protection of the self-concept against anxiety and threat by the denial or distortion of experiences inconsistent with it

Two chief defenses:

1. Distortion

- Misinterpret an experience in order to fit into some aspect of our self-concept

2.Denial

- We refuse to perceive an experience in awareness

(2)

Carl Rogers’ person centred therapy was the core approach used throughout my counselling training. He believed that for a positive therapeutic relationship to be formed, it was necessary to have three core conditions: empathy, congruence (being authentic) and unconditional positive regard (non-possessive liking and appreciation) for the client. Of course, all these qualities occur in the loving relationship too – and ideally not just in your relationship with others but in the one you have with your self too. This is why personal development is so important, and not just from a ‘healer, heal thyself!’ point of view. All of us can benefit from healing our emotional wounds by learning to give ourselves empathy, discovering our authentic selves and improving our self regard.

The qualities of the person of tomorrow

1. Openness. These persons have an openness to the world – both inner and outer. They are open to experience, to new ways of seeing, new ways of being, new ideas and concepts.

2. Desire for authenticity. I find that these persons value communication as a means of telling it the way it is. They reject the hypocrisy, deceit, and doubletalk of our culture. They are open, for example, about their sexual relationships, rather than leading a secretive or double life.

3. Scepticism regarding science and technology. They have a deep distrust of our current science and the technology that is used to conquer the world of nature and to control the world’s people. On the other hand, when science – such as biofeedback – is used to enhance self-awareness and control of the person by the person, they are eager supporters.

4. Desire for wholeness. These persons do not like to live in a compartmentalized world – body and mind, health and illness, intellect and feeling, science and common sense, individual and group, sane and insane, work and play. They strive rather for a wholeness of life, with thought, feeling, physical energy, psychic energy, healing energy, all being integrated in experience.

5. The wish for intimacy. They are seeking new forms of closeness, of intimacy, of shared purpose. They are seeking new forms of communication in such a community – verbal as well as non-verbal, feelingful as well as intellectual.

6. Process persons. They are keenly aware that the one certainty of life is change – that they are always in process, always changing. They welcome this risk-taking way of being and are vitally alive in the way they face change.

7. Caring. These persons are caring, eager to be of help to others when the need is real. It is a gentle, subtle, non-moralistic, non-judgemental caring. They are suspicious of the professional ‘helpers’.

8. Attitude towards nature. They feel a closeness to, and a caring for, elemental nature. They are ecologically minded, and they get their pleasure from an alliance with the forces of nature, rather than in the conquest of nature.

9. Anti-institutional. These individuals have an antipathy for any highly structured, inflexible, bureaucratic institution. They believe that institutions should exist for people, not the reverse.

10. The authority within. These persons have a trust in their own experience and a profound distrust of external authority. They make their own moral judgements, even openly disobeying laws that they consider unjust.

11. The unimportance of material things. These individuals are fundamentally indifferent to material comforts and rewards. Money and material status symbols are not their goal. They can live with affluence, but it is in no way necessary to them.

(3)

Client-centered theraphy

1)client centered therapy focuses on the role of the client rather than the therapist,as key to the healing process

2)rogers believed that each person experiences the world differently and known his or her experience best.

3)according to rogers clients do the work of healing

3- central concepts therapist to promote client self-esteem:

1.unconditional positive regard

2.genuiness

3.empathetic understanding