Personality - Rogers phenomenological

Personality - Rogers phenomenological

1. person-centered approach, focus on the nature of the self, tension between wanted to be liked by others and wanting to be yourself. rejects psychodyna

   • emphasises consciousness and subjective experience, we are NOT victims of unconscious processes, concerned with self and different 'selves'
   • PHENOMENOLOGICAL THEORY emphasises the individual's subjective experience, described as a humanistic theory, positive theory, motivation, strivings
   • attempt to integrate moral and ethical matters and science.

2. SUBJECTIVITY OF EXPERIENCE

   • PHENOMENAL FIELD
     • people react to perceptions of reality not actual reality, the reality we observe is private experience, phenomenal field subjective construction.
       • personal needs contribute to how we perceive others , individual perceives their experience as reality. seeing is subjective construct, reflects needs
   • FEELINGS OF AUTHENTICITY
     • people prone to distinct distress, feeling of alienation / detachment, need the approval of others so tell ourselves their values are our own.
       • freud suggested instinctive reactions are animal impulses, ROGERS said they were source of wisdom, range of emotions = well adjusted / accepting
   • POSITIVITY OF HUMAN EMOTION
     • clinical experiences showed that humans core is essentially positive, fundamental motivation towards growth, when functioning freely
       • some institutions do tell us otherwise but strive for growth when alone

3. THE SELF - aspect of phenomenological experience, the self / self-concept represents organised pattern of perceptions.

   • the whole person is responsible for actions, not an independent self.
     • two aspects of the self - actual and ideal. self in present and potential self.

4. Q-SORT TECHNIQUE - objective way to measure self-concept, set of cards with personality statements, asked to sort cards to how they fit themselves

   • e.g. most to least. least cards have to go to extremes, so carefully thought out. done more than once to assess actual and ideal
     • SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL - alternative self-concept measure with scales of polar opposites and have to answer to forced distribution

5. SELF_ACTUALIZATION - forward looking tendency towards personal growth. not driven by animal drives

   • RYFF (1995) developed a personal growth scale. high growth, continued development.

6. SELF- CONSISTENCY and CONGRUENCE - maintain consistency, absence of conflict, originally developed by LECKY (1945)

   • maintain own self-structure, reorganise values to preserve self, even if behaviour unrewarding
   • CONGRUENCE: consistency between the self and experience, incongruence leads to distress "not me"
   • anxiety is as a result of discrepancy between experience and perceptions of the self. person then motivated to defend the self, defensive processes...
     • SUBCEPTION: aware of experience discrepant with self-concept before reaches consciousness,
     • DISTORTION and DENIAL - distortion of the meaning of experiences and denial of the existence of experience, preserve self-structure from threat
     • CHODORKOFF (1954) - inconsistent or personality threatening words perceived slower than neutral words
       • CARTWRIGHT (1956) - person recalls adjectives that suit them better than ones who don't
   • CONSISTENCY ACROSS ROLES - high variability across bad for a person's health, lack of core self.

7. NEED FOR POSITIVE REGARD - basic psychological need, need to be accepted and respected by others, central to child development.

   • in child development, if respect and prize the child no matter what, unconditional positive regard, if adheres to rules, then conditions of worth

8. GROWTH - development not confined to early years, people grow towards self-actualisation and maturity, complexity,

   • concern for Rogers is if the child is free to grow or is constrained by conditions of worth which cause defensiveness

9. ROGER'S APPLICATIONS

   • self-experience discrepancy. rigid defense against experiences that might threaten self-concept
     • THERAPEUTIC CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE - therapists don't guide therapy, merely summarise / report back. CLIENT-CENTERED THERAPY.
       • therapeutic climate, interpersonal encounter between therapist and client. THREE conditions critical for change......
         • CONGRUENT therapists are themselves! REAL interpersonal relationship
         • UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD for clients, deep caring
         • EMPATHETIC UNDERSTANDING
   • OUTCOMES OF THERAPY
     • BULTER & HAIGH (1954) found that Rogerian therapy increased relationship between actual and ideal self, directly after and six months after therapy
       • KIRCHENBAUM & JORDAN (2005) - no. of publications, professional organisations and research. therapy flourished after rogers death
     • HUMAN POTENTIAL MOVEMENT - third force in psychology to psychoanalysis and behaviourism.
       • MASLOW (1968) - social structures that restrict the individual from realising their potential are a root cause of frustration
         • we have basic needs, physiological at the bottom of triangle, biggest need, self-actualisation at the top, smallest need. along with belongingness etc
   • since Rogers, positive psychology movement, e.g. Seligman, from learned helplessness to learned optimism.

10. EVALUATION

    • DESCRIPTION - overly optimistic, total description is limited, descrip of conditions of worth useful in evaluating own behaviour
      • phenomenological theory ignores the unconscious, not a full description, no objective measurements,
    • EXPLANATION - explanation of personality reductionist as ignores historical / social forces that form the self.
      • overly optimistic explanation that communication will solve societies problems, unrealistic
    • EMPIRICAL VALIDITY - too highly reliant on self-report, not objective measure, therapists might do deliberately positive reports of progress
      • need standardized tests and objective measurements
    • TESTABLE CONCEPTS - some concepts not easy to define such as unconditional PR so hard to measure, counselling self-directed to hard to measure
      • therefore hard to measure therapy, Rogers does provide non-verbal cues however.
    • COMPREHENSIVENESS - early work by Rogers not comprehensive such as psychopathology, later work more comprehensive, on education, culture, society
    • PARSIMONY - Roger's uses broad approach, few concepts so fails parsimony criteria, few concepts applied widely, lack precision,
    • HEURISTIC VALUE - Rogers provokes interest and debate, led to re-evaluation of importance of individual and subjective world, therapies re-evaluated
    • APPLIED VALUE - high applied value, defined training for counsellors, successful also in group treatments, to find true selves.