Carl Rogers' Humanistic Psychology and the Rise of Moral Relativism
Examining the Unintended Ethical Consequences of Client-Centered Therapy and Values Clarification
Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person’s ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me. Neither the Bible nor the prophets — neither Freud nor research — neither the revelations of God nor man — can take precedence over my own direct experience. My experience is not authoritative because it is infallible. It is the basis of authority because it can always be checked in new primary ways. In this way, its frequent error or fallibility is always open to correction.
Carl Rogers
Words 2,192 | Read Time 15 min | Enjoy
Foreword
In the annals of psychology, few names stand as prominently as Carl Ransom Rogers (1902-1987). His pioneering work in humanistic psychology and the development of client-centered therapy revolutionized how we understand and facilitate personal growth, empathy, and human potential. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Rogers’ journey from a small-town upbringing to becoming one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century is both inspiring and illuminating (depending on your worldview).
Rogers’ upbringing, characterized by a strict yet nurturing environment, laid the foundation for his lifelong commitment to understanding the human condition. His academic pursuits took a significant turn during a transformative experience at a student conference in Peking, China. This life-changing moment broadened his worldview and shifted his focus from agriculture to history and, eventually, to psychology. This pivotal experience guided him toward a career that would leave an indelible mark on psychology and therapy, underscoring the power of life-changing moments.
Carl Rogers Early Life and Education
Carl Ransom Rogers, born on January 8, 1902, in Oak Park, Illinois, was the fourth of six children in a family that valued hard work, moral rigor, and self-discipline. His father, Walter Rogers, a civil engineer, and his mother, Julia Cushing, a devout Christian homemaker, instilled a strong sense of responsibility and independence in him. This early environment, shaped by his parents’ values, would significantly influence his future, highlighting the profound impact of upbringing on personal development.
Despite his initial pursuit of agriculture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a life-altering moment at a 1922 student Christian conference in Peking (Beijing), China sparked a profound shift in Rogers’ interests. This exposure to diverse perspectives and ideas inspired him to change his major to history and consider a career in the ministry. This decision would ultimately lead him to his life’s work in psychology. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1924.
While initially enrolled at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City to become a minister, Rogers’ growing interest in psychology led him to take Columbia University’s Teachers College courses. The works of John Dewey and William Heard Kilpatrick particularly influenced his decision to shift his focus to psychology. He earned an M.A. in 1928 and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1931.
Rogers began his professional career at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Rochester, New York, where he worked from 1928 to 1940. Here, he developed his ideas on non-directive therapy, which later evolved into client-centered therapy. His experiences with children and their families highlighted the importance of creating a supportive and non-judgmental environment to facilitate personal growth.
In 1940, Rogers took a position as a professor of psychology at Ohio State University. During this period, he published his seminal work, Counseling and Psychotherapy (1942), which articulated his belief that the client holds the key to their (self) healing and that the therapist’s role is to provide a conducive environment for self-discovery and self-acceptance.
Academic Contributions and Further Developments
In 1945, Rogers joined the University of Chicago, established a counseling center, and conducted extensive research. His 1951 book, Client-Centered Therapy, laid the foundation for his approach, emphasizing the core conditions for effective therapy: empathy, congruence (authenticity), and unconditional positive regard. These principles underscored the importance of a therapist’s genuine and accepting presence in facilitating a client’s growth.
Rogers’ work at the University of Chicago was highly influential, leading to significant developments in psychotherapy and counseling. His approach contrasted with psychoanalysis directives and interpretive methods, advocating for a more egalitarian and client-empowered process.
In 1957, Rogers moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he continued his research and practice. His work expanded beyond individual therapy to education, group dynamics, and conflict resolution. He published On Becoming a Person in 1961, one of his most popular and accessible books, offering insights into his therapeutic philosophy and personal reflections.
In the late 1960s, Rogers became involved with the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla, California. He continued to work on personal growth, education, and social change, increasingly focusing on applying his principles to larger societal contexts. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for promoting global peace through dialogue and understanding.
Values Clarification
Values clarification emerged in the 1960s and 1970s to help individuals identify, understand, and develop their values. This approach is grounded in humanistic psychology, which emphasizes personal growth, self-awareness, and the development of one’s full potential. Values clarification is often associated with educators and psychologists like Sidney Simon, Howard Kirschenbaum, and others who seek to help people articulate their values in a non-judgmental and supportive manner.
Carl Rogers’ contributions to crummy “values clarification” are closely tied to his broader humanistic and client-centered approach to therapy and personal development. While Rogers did not specifically develop the “values clarification” approach as a formal method, his work greatly influenced the field and the principles underlying values clarification practices. Carl Rogers’ influence included:
Client-Centered Therapy: Client-centered therapy emphasizes creating a supportive environment where clients can explore their feelings, thoughts, and values without judgment. This non-directive approach allowed individuals to clarify their values as part of the therapeutic process. Rogers believed that people have an inherent capacity for self-understanding and self-direction when provided with empathy, congruence (authenticity), and unconditional positive regard.
Emphasis on Self-Actualization: Self-actualization involves realizing one’s full potential and aligning one’s actions with one’s true values and beliefs. This process involves clarifying and understanding one’s values as part of personal growth and self-improvement.
Experiential Learning: The educational focus promoted experiential learning, where individuals engage in experiences that foster self-discovery and personal insight. This method aligns with values clarification techniques that encourage individuals to reflect on their experiences to understand their values better.
Values clarification techniques often involve various activities and exercises to help individuals reflect on and articulate their values. Some of these techniques include:
Values Ranking: Individuals rank a list of values in order of importance to them, prompting reflection on why certain values are prioritized over others.
Scenario Analysis: Participants consider different scenarios and decide what actions they would take based on their values, helping them to understand how their values guide their behavior.
Value Conflict Resolution: Individuals explore situations where their values may conflict and work through them to find resolutions that align with their core beliefs.
Reflection and Discussion: Group discussions and reflective writing exercises encourage individuals to articulate their values and hear different perspectives, fostering “deeper understanding.”
Rogers’ influence on values clarification is evident in both therapeutic and educational settings. In therapy, values clarification helps clients identify what is truly important to them, guiding their decision-making and enhancing their sense of purpose and fulfillment. Rogers’ client-centered approach creates a safe space for this exploration. Educators use values clarification techniques to help students develop critical thinking, self-awareness, and moral reasoning. Rogers’ emphasis on experiential learning supports these educational goals by promoting active engagement and personal reflection.
While Carl Rogers did not explicitly develop the values clarification approach, his humanistic principles and therapeutic techniques have profoundly influenced the field. His work creates an environment conducive to values clarification. Rogers’ belief in the individual’s capacity for self-understanding and growth inspires educators, therapists, and practitioners in various fields who aim to help people live more authentic and values-driven lives.
In summary, Carl Rogers’ contributions to the development of values clarification lie in his broader humanistic and client-centered framework, which provides the philosophical and practical foundation for helping individuals clarify and live by their values. Carl Rogers passed away on February 4, 1987, in La Jolla, California. His legacy endures through his contributions to humanistic psychology, which emphasizes the individual’s inherent worth and the importance of personal growth and self-actualization. His client-centered approach has had a lasting impact on psychotherapy, education, and conflict resolution, influencing numerous practitioners and theorists.
Analysis
Values clarification, though intended to help individuals identify and articulate their values, has faced significant criticisms and yielded various negative results. One of the primary concerns is that it can lead to moral relativism, where all values are perceived as equally valid, and there is no objective standard of right and wrong. That can result in students believing that any behavior is acceptable if it aligns with their values, potentially undermining societal norms and ethical standards. Additionally, value clarification does not provide clear guidance on ethical behavior. Instead of teaching universally accepted moral principles, it focuses on individual preferences and subjective feelings, leaving students without a strong moral foundation or the ability to discern right from wrong in complex situations.
This approach weakens respect for established moral and ethical guidelines, eroding authority from societal and parental figures and leading to conflicts within societal and familial structures. Students might also become confused and indecisive when faced with moral dilemmas, as values clarification encourages exploring multiple perspectives without offering definitive answers, resulting in moral ambiguity. In a classroom setting, the exercises might inadvertently pressure students to conform to the dominant values of their peers, undermining the goal of fostering individual autonomy.
Furthermore, values clarification can sometimes emphasize self-interest and personal satisfaction over communal and classical values, decreasing empathy and concern for others and negatively impacting social cohesion and community spirit. The approach may not adequately equip students to resolve conflicts from differing values, as it lacks a framework for negotiating and reconciling these differences. Finally, values clarification can lead to superficial engagement with moral issues, where students only skim the surface of ethical questions without deeply considering the broader implications of their values and actions. These criticisms highlight the challenges of implementing values clarification in educational settings, suggesting a need for a balanced approach that incorporates individual reflection and an understanding of universal ethical principles.
Conclusion
While Carl Rogers’ contributions find an honored spot in the annals of psychotherapy for emphasis on empathy, authenticity, and unconditional positive regard, his work faces critique for inadvertently (depending on your worldview) promoting moral relativism. Rogers’ client-centered approach, which prioritizes the individual’s feelings and perspectives, can lead to the perception that all values and beliefs are equally valid. This emphasis on personal experience and self-actualization, absent a definitive framework for distinguishing right from wrong, has contributed to a societal shift towards moral relativism.
In educational and therapeutic settings, values clarification techniques inspired by Rogers’ humanistic principles encourage individuals to explore and articulate their values. However, these methods’ lack of emphasis on universal ethical standards can result in moral ambiguity. Students and clients may struggle with decisiveness when faced with ethical dilemmas, as the approach does not provide clear guidance on ethical behavior, focusing instead on subjective experiences and personal preferences.
Parting Shot
Understanding the influence of luminaries such as Carl Rogers, John Dewey, and George Brock Chisholm clarifies how and why society has gone off the rails. Today, it is in warp drive with nonsense such as gender manipulation of children. It is a poke in the eye with my tax dollars and insurance premiums headed to such Frankenstein-like malpractice. Indeed, it is Beyond Birds and Bees.
It is incomprehensible how “we the people” (the royal we, that is) sit back and watch as the government (all levels), media, education, academia, and the medical-industrial complex (the machine) work to castrate youngsters with smiling faces. Many parents have faced dire consequences for resisting this juvenile-like form of mental masturbation and the resulting euphoria hell-bent on reducing the population. The putrid-perverted Pavlovian players and puppets in the machine mentioned above can all go pound sand. Nicely, that is. 📕
Sources
Frederick R. Smith Library
Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating Morality Through Education ~ B. K. Eakman, 600 pages, Huntingdon House Publishers, August 1998
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America ~ Charlotte Thomson, 462 pages, Conscience Press, 1999
Child Abuse in the Classroom ~ Phyllis Schlafly, 445 pages, Pere Marquette Press, January 1984
Online
Carl Rogers Psychologist Biography ~ verwellmind.com
Carl Rogers, PhD ~ apa.org
Carl Rogers Humanistic Theory And Contribution To Psychology simplypsychology.org
Carl Rogers: American psychologist ~ britannica.com
Carl Rogers: Founder of the Humanistic Approach to Psychology ~ thoughtco.com
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I remember the TRS-80. It was an expensive piece of hardware, relative to the 2 jobs I had while working my way through pharmacy school, so I never got to buy one. We had a supercomputer we could use at USC, other than our computer pharmacies, community, we played Star Trek on it.
One Friday afternoon, Chris and I spent about 4 hours on it, playing Star Trek exclusively. As we logged off, it flashed a message that we had used 2.3 seconds of computer time. I didn't think about it again until one lawyer at the club I bartended at was discussing it with another of his kind and he mentioned it was somewhere around 5.8 thousand dollars a second.
Wow, I thought, and there isn't any place you could insert a quarter.
Thanks for the memories being resurrected by your discussions.
And thanks for the excellent article on Carl Rogers.
-Edwin
Yes... Moral Relativism is at the root of many of the world's problems... Thanks for calling it out!