Carl Rogers’s Quiet Revolution: Therapy for the Masses

One of America’s most revolutionary figures is an elderly, bespectacled Midwesterner whose conversation is liberally sprinkled with “my goshes” and “by gollys”—not the kind of talk one expects from a world shaker. Carl Rogers is, nonetheless, one of the most important social revolutionaries of our time. He is the father of the human potential movement and is arguably the world’s most influential living psychologist.

If the name of Carl Rogers is not a household word to you, it may be because, true to his philosophy, Rogers tends to play the role of an enhancer or, to use his own favorite term, a “facilitator.” His job, as he conceives it, is to bring out the best in you, to provide the accepting climate in which your undeveloped potentials can emerge.

He seems content to remain in the background, an unassuming figure of encouragement and support. Yet there is hardly an American alive who hasn’t been bathed in the waters of human potentialism. Bookshelves across the country are stocked with self-help and popular psychology manuals that are merely variations on themes that Rogers developed in books such as Client Centered Therapy, On Becoming a Person, Freedom to Learn, and Carl Rogers on Encounter Groups. Likewise, in recent years a number of magazines dedicated to the propositions of growth psychology have entered the market. Typical of these is Self, billed as “a new magazine for the woman who hasn’t stopped growing.” Such popular TV programs as “The Phil Donahue Show” display a clear bias toward the human potential agenda.

Beyond that, the language of professional caring that Rogers pioneered has become embedded in everyday conversation. Terms such as “whole person,” “awareness,” “potentials,” “growth,” “self-concept,” “realness,” “spontaneity,” and “process” have become staples of the vocabulary we use to describe personal states. More than any other individual, Rogers is responsible for the popularity of such concepts. He was really the first psychologist (as long ago as 1940) who gave written permission for the rest of us to be completely free, to be the persons we were meant to be, to grow according to our own inner patterns. And more than anyone, as writer Richard Farson has observed, “he made psychology the business of normal people and normal people the business of psychology.”

Counseling In A Therapeutic Society

In 1973, in an address to the American Psychological Association, Rogers gave a modest accounting of the impact his work had had: “It turned the field of counseling upside down. It opened psychotherapy to public scrutiny and research investigation. It has made possible the empirical study of highly subjective phenomena. It has helped to bring some change in the methods of education at every level. It has been one of the factors bringing change in concepts of industrial (and even military) leadership, of social work practice, of nursing practice, and of religious work. It has been responsible for one of the major trends in the encounter group movement. It has, in small ways at least, affected the philosophy of science. It is beginning to have some influence in interracial and intercultural relationships. It has even influenced students of theology and philosophy.”

Then, a little later on, Rogers added:

“To me as I try to understand the phenomenon, it seems that without knowing it I had expressed an idea whose time had come … as though a liquid solution had become supersaturated, so that the addition of one tiny crystal initiated the formation of crystals throughout the whole mass.”

This listing is altogether too humble—too humble in the sense that the scope of his impact is much broader and goes much deeper than his assessment would indicate; too humble in the sense that Rogers professes to have played only a part in the unfolding drama, while it could be argued that he has written much of the script.

That one phrase, “turned the field of counseling upside down,” is telling, for the field of counseling is, in a sense, the paradigm for the whole culture. Philip Rieff, an eminent sociologist and social historian, states that ours is the age in which the therapeutic has triumphed over all other modes of cultural and personal organization. Rieff gives the credit to Freud, but it was Rogers’s work that made it possible for all Americans to taste the food that previously only an elite had dined on. Rogers’s is the much more democratic version of the therapeutic.

In more specific terms, Rogers is a past president of the American Psychological Association and the recipient of its first Distinguished Professional Contribution Award. He was the first person to establish a practicum in clinical psychology as a part of academic training, the first person to use the word “client” to substitute for “patient,” the first psychologist to attack the Freudian concept of interpretation, and a recipient of the 1967 Distinguished Contribution Award of the American Pastoral Counselors Association. His books, which have sold in the millions, have been translated into a dozen languages. A documentary film on his work won an Academy Award. And when a fitting opponent was sought to confront B. F. Skinner in a series of debates, Rogers was the obvious choice. He is the founder of the most widely used of all counseling techniques. The spread of the encounter group movement probably owes more to Rogers than to any other single individual; so does the spread of liberal ideas about schooling in the sixties and seventies. Partly because of Rogers and his popularizers, our ideas about marriage have been profoundly changed. And then, of course, there is the women’s movement: Rogers’s psychology primed the pump for sex-role liberation and provided a repertoire of words and concepts in which it could be framed.

Revolution Of The New Mutants

Exactly what business has Rogers been about these many years? To free people from their ruts? To make them more feeling, more self-aware, more caring? Well, yes. But it does not stop there. He is frankly interested in the creation of a new type of human being, a new and better strain of human nature, a person as different from our present race as we are different from Australopithecus Africanus. He is quite literal about this and quite determined. To fail to recognize this radical motif is to completely misread him. Here are some sample thoughts of the man Farson calls “the quiet revolutionary”:

“I believe,” writes Rogers, “that in our decaying culture we see the dim outlines of a new growth, of a new revolution, of a culture of a sharply different sort. I see that revolution as coming not in some great organized movement, not in a gun-carrying army with banners, not in manifestos and declarations, but through the emergence of a new kind of person, thrusting up through the dying, yellowing, putrifying leaves and stalks of our fading institutions.” This “new mutant” will “change the fundamental nature of our society,” and so Rogers concludes (in the articles from which these quotes are taken), “I simply say with all my heart: power to the emerging person and the revolution he carries within.”

In view of his radical ideas and in view of the sweep of his influence, a good case can be made that Rogers is one of the key figures in the intellectual history of the last 25 years. The fascinating thing about intellectual history, however, is that at some point it comes down from the level of intellect and starts walking around the streets, occasionally bumping into people and even knocking them down. Locke was intellectual history until the Battle of Lexington Green; Marx was intellectual history until the October Revolution.

Of equal interest is the way in which ideas once translated into social change take on entirely unexpected shapes and forms. From time to time in the course of intellectual history, the bread that is cast upon the waters comes back moldy. We are now beginning to feel the repercussions of the Rogerian revolution on our society. But what accounts for that greenish tinge around the edge of culture? Is it mold, as his critics claim, or is it, as his supporters believe, the sprouting of new and verdant life?

Born Again With Carl Rogers

It is a strange irony that Rogers, who long ago disavowed Christianity, has since had such a profound effect on it. He began his career of helping people by entering Union Theological Seminary in the hope of becoming a minister, and actually assumed the pastorate of a rural Vermont parish one summer in 1925 as part of his training. But a year later he left Union for Columbia University across the street, and a career in psychology. Since then he has had no kind words for Christianity. In fact, the characteristics of “the emerging person … run strongly counter to the orthodoxies and dogmas of the major Western religions.”

Nevertheless, his theory has a strong appeal for Christians. His philosophy seems to echo many attractive themes—not merely broad themes of loving and trusting, but more specific ones such as the idea that personal experience is the ultimate appeal from every question; or the idea that the letter of the law kills while the spirit gives life; or the idea that we should not judge others; or the idea that the path of wisdom is to become like little children.

Reading Rogers is a secular invitation to be born again. Rogers’s students used to refer to his book On Becoming a Person as “the Bible.” In this secular religion, being born again does not mean receiving the Spirit or “putting on Christ.” Rather, it means being baptized in the fluid waters of your own self. Who needs a God above when there is one within? The self, according to Rogers, is, in its unlimited potential, virtually a god. The most sublime sacrament is then the actualization of self. So widespread has this belief become that many people can no longer frame an answer to the question of life’s purpose except in terms of their own self-development.

Since Rogers’s theory is a particularly good mimic of Christianity, huge chunks of humanistic psychology have been imported wholesale into Christian churches and schools. Droves of nuns, priests, ministers, and laymen have been busy translating Christian ideas into spirit and forms that are unmistakably Rogerian—sometimes with direct aid from Rogers himself.

In 1967, for instance, Rogers and his colleagues at the Western Behavioral Science Institute (WBSI) were invited by the Immaculate Heart Order of Nuns to revitalize their extensive school system in the Los Angeles area. For the next two years the system, which included the Immaculate Heart College, several high schools, and a string of elementary schools, became the scene of intensive encounter and marathon group activity. Within a short time the nuns had become humanized, feminized, and revolutionized. Not long after the departure of the WSBI people they cut their ties with the official Catholic church.

At A Seminar

This Rogerian seminar, like a prayer meeting, begins with meditation. Rogers is a healthy looking 75 years old, almost completely bald. His head inclines forward at a permanent angle, the result perhaps of years spent hunching forward to hear his clients better (most of his life has been spent as a practicing psychotherapist). His eyes are magnified by thick glasses, which could account for the fact that Rogers always appears to be peering intently at you. It is a look of concern, though, not aggression. His smile also shows concern. It is not the practiced smile of the fellow who wants to convince you of his sincerity, but a kindly smile. He is the picture of a kind and patient grandfather.

Rogers has a mental reserve of statistics and research studies to back his theories, but he obviously prefers to relate grassroots testimonials and endorsements. “It’s interesting,” he says, “I had a letter just a few days ago from a woman who was in one of our groups.…” And the room takes on a church-meeting atmosphere. Somehow one is reminded of a radio preacher—the kind who says, “I had a letter the other day from a woman in Memphis who had suffered from rheumatism for 30 years until she put her life in the hands of the Lord Jesus!” Rogers is quite low-key in comparison with the average mass-media evangelist, but he recognizes the importance of the personal testimony in inspiring faith. Letters from thankful followers are a mainstay of all his recent books.

Something revealing and novel happened at one workshop I attended. Rogers had mentioned his wife Helen’s recent death, and now a woman, Lynn, wants to tell him how deeply she felt on hearing it. At this Rogers begins to sob. Several group members rush over, hug him, and kneel at his feet. Through his sobs he tells the story of his relationship with his wife: their long happy marriage, the unhappiness of the last five years, her illness, her strange dreams of devils, her bitterness over other women who were no more than friends of his, his decision to lead his own life separate from Helen.

During this recounting, small tableaus of crying people begin to form across the room. In one group the crying is particularly audible. When Rogers pauses ten minutes later, a young woman from this group tearfully tells of her brother’s death and how she missed her opportunity to say good-bye. Now it’s too late.

Or is it? A number of group members crowd around her, and one young man assures her that it’s not too late: “Do you want to say good-bye to him right now? Say it now.” She has clammed up now, however; this is perhaps more than she was prepared for. Rogers offers his personal encouragement: “Three years ago I would have thought this was stupid, but now I would say that he can hear you.” These last words are spoken slowly and with emphasis.

Rogers continues: “I never used to believe in immortality, but now all the evidence shows that there’s something to it. I used to believe that death was the end, but now it seems that there is another side.” Has Rogers given second thoughts to his discarded Christianity? No. This is an experientially based learning. Rogers discovered the “other side” three years ago in the company of Helen and a medium in Brazil. At the seance, Helen Rogers had made contact with her dead sister, tables moved, voices were heard, names were spelled out, the table hit Helen in the stomach. It was extraordinary, to say the least. Rogers is convinced now that there is another world, and that it is possible to contact those on the other side of the veil.

He is all the more convinced because he has been “in contact” with Helen. It came about this way: At the time of Helen’s death, he had coincidentally formed a new relationship, but the juxtaposition of the two events had left him with a powerful sense of guilt. He knows rationally that he should not have felt guilty, but he did. He was miserable with guilt. Then the strange thing happened.

One day he was consulting a Ouija board—now he never believed in Ouija boards before, mind you, and he knows this will sound strange—and suddenly letters began to form (or he hears a voice—this part is not clear). It is Helen, and her message is one of complete absolution: “Enjoy, Carl, enjoy! Be free! Be free!”

“Well, by gosh!” says Rogers, and he wipes his hand upward across his brow. “What a wave of relief swept over me when I heard that.”

From the group, exclamations of awe can be heard: “That’s incredible!” “Fantastic!” And now it seems everyone in the group has had their mystical, and quasi-mystical, experiences: coincidences surrounding death, premonitional dreams, poltergeists, and encounters with something known as “the white light.” Whenever the latter is mentioned there are nods of familiarity, as though the white light were an old friend or a new General Electric product.

Slouching Toward La Jolla

Rogers’s growing spiritual interest is recorded in his most recent book, A Way of Being. Here he adds a few more details about Helen’s closing days, how she “had visions of an inspiring white light which came close, lifted her from the bed, and then deposited her back on the bed,” and how on the evening of her death friends made contact with Helen through a medium and learned how she had experienced spirits coming for her, and how she now had the form of a young woman.

“I now consider it possible,” he writes, “that each of us is a continuing spiritual essence lasting over time, and occasionally incarnated in a human body.”

While all this hankering after the spirit world may seem more in keeping with the religion of Mary Baker Eddy than with the psychological profession, Rogers can hardly be called out of place. The truth is that psychologists have never been able to keep their noses out of religion. Carl Jung’s work was nothing less than an attempt to create a new religion; and even Freud, who dismissed Jung as a “messiah,” was unable to refrain from writing about Moses and Monotheism or The Future of an Illusion. Wilhelm Reich was mainly interested in “Cosmic Life Energy” and considered himself to be in the same league as Jesus Christ. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the psychiatrist whose work created for psychology the brand new field of thanatology (the study of death), has also, like Rogers, become interested, indeed mainly interested, in contacting those who have gone beyond.

The list goes on and on. What is noteworthy about it is that almost to a man the type of religion they are plumping for is some form or other of Eastern religion or at best (as in the case of Jung) a vague kind of gnosticism. Most Eastern religions are, of course, forms of pantheism. And pantheism, paradoxically, is a particular temptation to individualistic democracies like America, since it tends to relieve somewhat the chief burden of such societies—the burden of being an individual. Pantheism, so to speak, lets you melt into the crowd. Tocqueville, who had noted accurately that Americans had more of a passion for equality than for liberty, also observed that pantheism was the philosophy “most fitted to seduce the human mind” in a democracy.

The seemingly bizarre eruption of spirituality during the workshop turns out to be, then, not an aberration, but the logical working out of themes long present in American psychology and American democracy. The real problem in this working-out process does not lie in accepting some form of spirituality. That part is surprisingly easy. The difficulty lies in reconciling the search for transcendence with the search for equality. Like any other humans in any other society, we want something more than the humdrum of daily existence. We want to live intensely, and above all we want to be in touch with the cosmic forces. We seem to need a religion. And since psychology is in the business of fulfilling needs, it has given us a religion. If it is not yet a full-grown religion, it is certainly in the process of slouching toward La Jolla to be born.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.