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Guidance and Counseling

Notes 14.5 Roger’s Theory Postulates about Non-Directive Counseling

Rogers postulated his theory of personality in a series of 19 propositions in his book, Client-Centered
Therapy (1951), which may be summarized as :
1. The individual exists in a constantly changing world of this own experience of which he is the
centre.
2. The individual’s private world of experience (the internal frame of reference can only be known
in any genuine and complete sense to the individual himself. Hence, the individual is the best
source of information about himself. The individual reacts to the field as it is perceived by him.
The reality for the individual is his own perceptual field. A knowledge of the stimulus alone
is not enough to predict the response. It is necessary to know how the individual perceives the
stimulus which explains why individuals react differently to the same stimulus.
3. The individual reacts as a whole to the phenomenal field. The significance of this is that organism
is always a total organized system and change in any part could affect the whole.
4. The individual has the basic tendency to actualize, maintain and enhance himself. This is
called the undifferentiated ongoing tendency which is the basis for self-actualization.
5. Behaviour is fundamentally goal-directed and it is the expression of the individual who strives
to satisfy the needs as they are perceived.
6. Feelings and emotions accompany goal-directed behaviour and facilitate the expression of it.
Feelings and emotions are significant for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism.
Thus emotions are not disruptive (as commonly believed) but are useful and beneficial. They
have survival value for the organism.
7. The best way of understanding the significance of any behaviour is from the internal frame of
reference of the individual himself.
8. The self is differentiated from the total phenomenal field.
9. The differentiation of the self is the result of interaction between the individual and the
environment. It is through this interaction that a consistent conceptual pattern of perceptions,
which is organized but fluid, emerges. It serves to discriminate ‘I’ or ‘me’ from the values
attached to the self which may have been taken from others and perceived as if they are
experienced directly. This is introjection of values.
10. The values attached to experiences and self-structure taken form others may be perceived in a
distorted fashion. Conflict arises when the introjected values are in disagreement with the
genuine or true values. The self, in this instance, will become a ‘house divided’. The individual
will feel as if he does not really know what he wants. A soundly structured self is one in which
there is no distortion of experience.

Why listing technique is most important in nondirective councelling?

Self Assessment
2. Fill in the blanks :
(i) Non directive approach is also called ......................... .
(ii) ......................... proposed the client centered approach.

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