Personality - Rogers phenomenological

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
1. emphasises consciousness and subjective experience, we are NOT victims of unconscious processes, concerned with self and different 'selves'
2. PHENOMENOLOGICAL THEORY emphasises the individual's subjective experience, described as a humanistic theory, positive theory, motivation, strivings
3. attempt to integrate moral and ethical matters and science.
SUBJECTIVITY OF EXPERIENCE
1. PHENOMENAL FIELD
  1. people react to perceptions of reality not actual reality, the reality we observe is private experience, phenomenal field subjective construction.
    1. personal needs contribute to how we perceive others , individual perceives their experience as reality. seeing is subjective construct, reflects needs
2. FEELINGS OF AUTHENTICITY
  1. people prone to distinct distress, feeling of alienation / detachment, need the approval of others so tell ourselves their values are our own.
    1. freud suggested instinctive reactions are animal impulses, ROGERS said they were source of wisdom, range of emotions = well adjusted / accepting
3. POSITIVITY OF HUMAN EMOTION
  1. clinical experiences showed that humans core is essentially positive, fundamental motivation towards growth, when functioning freely
    1. some institutions do tell us otherwise but strive for growth when alone
THE SELF - aspect of phenomenological experience, the self / self-concept represents organised pattern of perceptions.
1. the whole person is responsible for actions, not an independent self.
  1. two aspects of the self - actual and ideal. self in present and potential self.
Q-SORT TECHNIQUE - objective way to measure self-concept, set of cards with personality statements, asked to sort cards to how they fit themselves
1. 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
  1. SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL - alternative self-concept measure with scales of polar opposites and have to answer to forced distribution
SELF_ACTUALIZATION - forward looking tendency towards personal growth. not driven by animal drives
1. RYFF (1995) developed a personal growth scale. high growth, continued development.
SELF- CONSISTENCY and CONGRUENCE - maintain consistency, absence of conflict, originally developed by LECKY (1945)
1. maintain own self-structure, reorganise values to preserve self, even if behaviour unrewarding
2. CONGRUENCE: consistency between the self and experience, incongruence leads to distress "not me"
3. anxiety is as a result of discrepancy between experience and perceptions of the self. person then motivated to defend the self, defensive processes...
  1. SUBCEPTION: aware of experience discrepant with self-concept before reaches consciousness,
  2. DISTORTION and DENIAL - distortion of the meaning of experiences and denial of the existence of experience, preserve self-structure from threat
  3. CHODORKOFF (1954) - inconsistent or personality threatening words perceived slower than neutral words
    1. CARTWRIGHT (1956) - person recalls adjectives that suit them better than ones who don't
4. CONSISTENCY ACROSS ROLES - high variability across bad for a person's health, lack of core self.
NEED FOR POSITIVE REGARD - basic psychological need, need to be accepted and respected by others, central to child development.
1. in child development, if respect and prize the child no matter what, unconditional positive regard, if adheres to rules, then conditions of worth
GROWTH - development not confined to early years, people grow towards self-actualisation and maturity, complexity,
1. concern for Rogers is if the child is free to grow or is constrained by conditions of worth which cause defensiveness
ROGER'S APPLICATIONS
1. self-experience discrepancy. rigid defense against experiences that might threaten self-concept
  1. THERAPEUTIC CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE - therapists don't guide therapy, merely summarise / report back. CLIENT-CENTERED THERAPY.
    1. therapeutic climate, interpersonal encounter between therapist and client. THREE conditions critical for change......
      1. CONGRUENT therapists are themselves! REAL interpersonal relationship
      2. UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD for clients, deep caring
      3. EMPATHETIC UNDERSTANDING
2. OUTCOMES OF THERAPY
  1. BULTER & HAIGH (1954) found that Rogerian therapy increased relationship between actual and ideal self, directly after and six months after therapy
    1. KIRCHENBAUM & JORDAN (2005) - no. of publications, professional organisations and research. therapy flourished after rogers death
  2. HUMAN POTENTIAL MOVEMENT - third force in psychology to psychoanalysis and behaviourism.
    1. MASLOW (1968) - social structures that restrict the individual from realising their potential are a root cause of frustration
      1. we have basic needs, physiological at the bottom of triangle, biggest need, self-actualisation at the top, smallest need. along with belongingness etc
3. since Rogers, positive psychology movement, e.g. Seligman, from learned helplessness to learned optimism.
EVALUATION
1. DESCRIPTION - overly optimistic, total description is limited, descrip of conditions of worth useful in evaluating own behaviour
  1. phenomenological theory ignores the unconscious, not a full description, no objective measurements,
2. EXPLANATION - explanation of personality reductionist as ignores historical / social forces that form the self.
  1. overly optimistic explanation that communication will solve societies problems, unrealistic
3. EMPIRICAL VALIDITY - too highly reliant on self-report, not objective measure, therapists might do deliberately positive reports of progress
  1. need standardized tests and objective measurements
4. TESTABLE CONCEPTS - some concepts not easy to define such as unconditional PR so hard to measure, counselling self-directed to hard to measure
  1. therefore hard to measure therapy, Rogers does provide non-verbal cues however.
5. COMPREHENSIVENESS - early work by Rogers not comprehensive such as psychopathology, later work more comprehensive, on education, culture, society
6. PARSIMONY - Roger's uses broad approach, few concepts so fails parsimony criteria, few concepts applied widely, lack precision,
7. HEURISTIC VALUE - Rogers provokes interest and debate, led to re-evaluation of importance of individual and subjective world, therapies re-evaluated
8. APPLIED VALUE - high applied value, defined training for counsellors, successful also in group treatments, to find true selves.

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Personality - Rogers phenomenological

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	Created by becky.waine over 11 years ago