Carl Rogers at a 1964 symposium

Wow, I love this man. It was when I read his seminal work "Client Centered Therapy" in '95 that I first was really able to see myself as a therapist -- all previous models I'd found just didn't suit me at all. In CCT I found a well-researched and practiced model of psychotherapy that was perfectly consistent with and expressive of my personal beliefs and ethics. Moreover, Rogers was a lovely, down-to-earth, understandable and funny guy. I've always felt good about being the grand-student of such a one. (Too bad he died in the '80s. :-( )

I'm doing some background reading for a paper I need to write for my counselling course. Currently it's a collection of papers given at a 1964 symposium titled "Behaviorism and Phenomenology: Contrasting Bases for Modern Psychology." Rogers wrote a paper arguing that phenomena of internal experience were appropriate, nay exciting, matters of rigorous scientific study (contra behaviorism). At the end of each paper is a paraphrase of the Q&A session that followed after the paper was first delivered. Two of Rogers' responses made me laugh out loud and I want to share them here.

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More Rogers: an unexpected research result

Here's another Rogers excerpt from his symposium paper. I love hearing about unexpected results in psychology, especially ones so heartwarming as this.

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