On Becoming a Person

On Becoming a Person is a joy, a gem of a book, not because it challenges old concepts and ideas, although it does; not because it departs from Freud, although it does; not because it seems new to a world of psychotherapy inculcated with the mundane, the absolutes of religion or morality, although it is; but because whatever its place in the scheme of psychological learning, it offers fresh and honest ideas in terms which stand on their own validity.

Carl Rogers is valuable as a psychologist because what he says in this collection of articles written over a period of approximately thirty years is so patently sensible in terms which are not arrogant, as they are in Perls, or proselytizing, as they are in Anderson, but rather are reasoned and clearly well thought out. He achieves what so much else of post-Freudian psychology can only aspire to, which is to bridge the gap between the psychological jargon or neo-jargon, into the realm of philosophy. And he is able to make a connection with everyday life. For the first time, when reading Rogers, as opposed to Perls or Anderson, one does not feel the lack of the influences provided by process philosophers or existentialists, despite the fact that the influences themselves are clearly present. The important thing is that Rogers' writing provides its own justification.

How does this come about? The first and most obvi