This paper will begin with a brief overview of the life and contributions of Carl Rogers, psychologist and scholar. It will focus specifically on the way he transformed the practice of psychotherapy. It will then turn to a central analysis of one of Rogers' most famous and influential works, On Becoming A Person. Finally, the paper will conclude with an analysis of the implications of Rogers' works and speculate on the trends established by this prolific writer, scholar, and intellectual.
The entire professional career of Carl Rogers was devoted to enhancing human communication. In his work, he strove to understand and promote human relationships and was an active professional from the mid 1920s until his death in 1987. As a psychologist, Rogers accomplished an extraordinary number of things. He pioneered a major new approach to psychotherapy, known as the client centered, or person centered approach. Rogers was the first person to record and publish complete cases of psychotherapy, and he carried out and encouraged more scientific research on counseling and psychotherapy than anyone previously. He was actively responsible for the spread of professional counseling and psychotherapy beyond psychiatry and psychoanalysis to all the helping professions psychology, social work, education, ministry, and lay therapy (Lopez, 1987). Rogers was also a leader in the development and dissemination of group therapy, known today as the encounter group, and was a leader in the humanistically oriented psychological movements. Finally, Rogers was one of the helping professions' most prolific writers, publishing 16 books and more than 200 scholarly articles (Kirschenbaum and Henderson, eds., 1989, pp. 3 4).
Rogers was born in 1902 and grew up a shy child in suburban Illinois. Biographers note that his family life was neither gregarious or particularly pleasant, and teasing was the norm within the family structure. As a child and yo...