Human Potential and Actualization
Rogers believed that the tendency towards self-actualization is a process that occurs across the life span. It manifests itself as movement towards self-awareness and self-realization, autonomy, and self-regulation. Rogers thought that a huge part of human potential was their natural inclination towards actualization, expansion, growth, and health (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014).
Conditions of Worth
Children's concepts of self worth are shaped through interactions with important people in their lives and the messages they receive through interacting with these people. Children who receive negative messages have the chance of becoming timid, inhibited, conformist, or angry and defensive. Children who receive positive messages are far more likely to become actualizing and fully functioning adults (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014). "The goals of person-centered treatment are to provide that climate of acceptance, free of conditions of worth; counteract negative messages that people have received; and enable them to have complete freedom to be and to choose for themselves and to realize their potential as fully functioning, self actualizing people." (Seligman & Reichenberg, pg. 150.)
Organismic Valuing Process
Rogers defined this as a person's intuitive ability to know what they need in order to feel fulfilled and self-actualized (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014). When people are not being true to themselves and their own internal sense for making value judgments and instead behave in a manner that they think will please other people, they are being incongruent, according the Rogers. Rogers viewed incongruence as the cause of anxiety, adjustment problems, and the need to seek therapy (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014).
The Fully Functioning Person
According to Rogers, the fully functioning person has the following characteristics:
- Openness to experience
- Living with a sense of meaning and purpose
- Trust and congruence in self
- Unconditional positive self-regard and regard of others
- Internal locus of evaluation
- Being fully aware in the moment
- Living creatively
Phenomenological Perspective
Person-centered theory is phenomenological because each person reacts to life events in a way that is consistent with their own reality. Roger's believed that nothing but the client's experience to guide their treatment. Understanding ourselves, our relationships, and our clients depends on our awareness and acceptance of these subjective perspectives (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014).