Carl Rodgers was a great psychologist who studied humans and gave his assessment of how they need to behave for them to grow. Rodgers client-centered therapy aimed at understanding the client’s feeling and meanings as he experienced them and then communicating them to him/her (Rogers 22). He pointed out that they need a surrounding that provides them with genuineness or openness, acceptance and being heard and understood. Carl believed that a person is capable of attaining his goals and desires if a number of factors are to be satisfied.
Self-Actualization – Is the desire to fulfill one's potential and become what they want to be in life. Rodgers elaborated that human beings main motive is the tendency to self-actualize; the urge to reach one’s full potential and attain the highest point of human-beingness. For a person to reach their full potential, they should be creative inherently good which means that they should be who they like to be and in line with their actual behavior (Hall & Gardner 5).Rodgers understood self-actualization can only be realized if the individual is in a state of congruence.
Fully Functioning Person-Rodgers in his assessment of personality, those individuals who are able to self-actualize are termed as functioning persons. People do not always attain this fully functioning status which Rodgers regarded as ideal but it is a process of becoming and changing and not a journey. A fully functioning person has the following characteristics according to Rodgers; they are open to experience, very creative in their life, always satisfied with life and looking for new experiences and they always trust themselves in terms of the decisions they make. In the society, those people who always prosper in life Rodgers regarded them as fully functioning (Hall & Gardner 16).
Personality Development-a personality is virtue where a person behaves in a predictable manner and is always identified with that behavior. According to Rodgers, people will always want to act in ways that are uniform with their self-image and which will always depict what they want to be like life. If our self-Image is related to normal ideal-self, then we are regarded as congruent and having a high sense of self-worth and if a difference exists between a person actual experience and ideal-self then Rodgers termed that as incongruence (Rogers and Abraham 56). The idea of self-image is composed of several concepts. First, we have Self-esteem. This is what we think about ourselves and Rodgers believed that this is developed during early childhood interaction between the child and the mother. Self-Image is how we see ourselves and is important to a perfect psychological health. In simpler terms we may perceive ourselves as good or bad, and this may affect what a person thinks and behaves in the world. Finally, Ideal-self is what a person wishes or wants to be in life. This is always determined by goals and ambitions that a person has in life (Hall & Gardner 57). These goals are forever changing as we progress in life.
In conclusion, good life is not something programmed, and for us to be successful, we must act in that way. But life is a learning process and a direction that is not fixed. A person must be able to self-actualize and understand his full potential.
Works Cited
Hall, Calvin S., and Gardner Lindzey. "Theories of personality." (1957): p. 1-60.
Rogers, Carl R. "The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change." Journal of consulting psychology 21.2 (1957): 95: p. 17-75.
Rogers, Carl, and Abraham Maslow. "Carl Rogers." Information Theory (2008): 214: p. 55-61.
