On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

In these final chapters, Rogers makes a two-part argument about the power of the behavioral sciences and the ethical choices this power creates, to make a concluding refutation of the use of psychology for social engineering. First, in Chapter 20, he lays out a detailed case that disciplines like psychology and sociology can increasingly predict and control human behavior. He organizes his evidence to show an escalating level of control, beginning with statistical predictions about career success, moving to the management of group dynamics, and ending with the direct manipulation of individual beliefs and personality. By citing recent research, such as the psychologist Solomon Asch’s experiments on group conformity, Rogers first identifies the type, scope and effects of the research to which he is referring. This methodical list of examples seeks to show that the ethical problem is a current social reality, not a future possibility, and that the “frightening aspects” (379) of behavioral science deserve serious attention.

In Chapter 20, Rogers selects examples that show that psychological knowledge can be used for both positive and negative ends. He contrasts studies that improve worker morale with those that create psychological rigidity through threats. The most significant contrast is between the Core Conditions for Human Growth in his own client-centered therapy and the reversal of those conditions in coercive “brainwashing” techniques. By framing this knowledge as a neutral tool that can “build or to destroy persons,” (376) Rogers establishes the central choice he will explore in Chapter 21: By including the work of B. F. Skinner on operant conditioning (a method of shaping behavior through reinforcement), Rogers introduces the psychologist whose ideas he will challenge directly. The examples of animal conditioning, like training pigeons to guide missiles, serve as simplified illustrations of a power that Roger considers a danger when extrapolated to humans.

In Chapter 21, Rogers directly confronts the worldview of B. F. Skinner, who is the main oppositional figure to Rogers’s views and approach in the field of psychology. Rogers frames the debate ethically and holistically as a choice between two possible futures: A scientifically managed society, like the one in Skinner’s utopian novel Walden Two, or an “open society” that values individual freedom. He explains that Skinner’s position comes from scientific determinism, the view that free will is an illusion and all behavior is caused by external forces. From this perspective, it is logical to design environments that produce desirable behaviors, such as happiness and productivity. Rogers challenges this argument by contending that every scientific project begins with a “prior personal subjective choice of the purpose or value” (391) it is meant to achieve. According to this logic, if science can determine how to reach a goal, but cannot determine which goals are worth pursuing, that choice of values lies outside the scientific method itself. In making this point, Rogers asserts that Skinner and his fellow behavioralists are seeking work outside the proper—and safe—purview of the scientist as traditionally perceived. His argument that subjective values must guide science draws on his points in Part 5 that even scientific “objective” findings are located “in” the person. 

In conclusion, Rogers proposes an alternative to the values of a controlled society, making his final statements a form of public exhortation. Instead of aiming for fixed goals like happiness propounded by Behavioralists, Rogers suggests valuing fluid processes like creativity and personal growth. This vision of Becoming a Person Through Experience shifts the purpose of behavioral science from controlling outcomes to facilitating development. Rogers offers his client-centered therapy as a model for this alternative. In therapy, the therapist establishes the core conditions of genuineness, acceptance, and empathic understanding. In contrast to behavioralist goals, these conditions do not seek produce a specific, predetermined behavior in the client but reliably release the client’s own capacity for self-direction and change. In this model, Rogers agues, scientific knowledge is used to create conditions that foster an “essentially ‘unpredictable’ freedom” (396), which Rogers considers more innately respectful of human rights and choices. Rogers reframes the goal of psychology: instead of engineering conformity, it should liberate individual potential, leading him towards an individualist, libertarian argument. This opinion is part of his interest in The Democratization of Psychological Knowledge, empowering individuals rather than conferring powers on a small group of behavioral controllers.

In these final chapters Rogers therefore returns to the central ethical question posed at the outset: What should psychological knowledge be for? Rogers’s answer is that increased knowledge of the self and others should help create conditions in which people can become more open, creative, and responsible.