Carl Rogers Contributions To Psychology

Carl Rogers was born on January 8, 1902. He was the 4th of 6 children of Walter A. Rogers and Julia M. Cushing. He grew up Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Rogers grew up in a strict, religious house hold. Having friends outside of the family was forbidden. As a result he found his love for reading and gathering knowledge. When he was 12 his family moved to a farm outside of Chicago. It was then he started having an interest in Science. In 1919 he enrolled in the University of Wisconsin to pursue a degree in Agricultural Science.
During his college years, he was asked to attend the World Student Christian Federation Conference in Pecking China. It was there he realized that he no longer wanted to uphold the conservative lifestyle his parents had enforced all his life. He wrote them a letter declaring his independence. Upon his return, he changed his area of study from Agriculture to History. After graduation he still enrolled at Union Theological Seminary but left after two years. He went on to Colombia University, studying in the field of clinical and educational psychology. He obtained MA in 1928 and a PhD in 1931.
In his life and time Rogers accomplished many great things. In 1935 to 1940 he lectured at the University of Rochester and wrote his first of many books ‘The Clinical Treatment

It was his belief that people lived in a subjective world with their own individual experiences, which was the basis for behaviour, as opposed to living in a physical world. This subjective world is known as the Phenomenological Reality. These experiences can potentially become awareness through the process or symbolization. It is then that these experiences are considered to be part of an individual’s Phenomenological Field. It is through these experiences that that human beings are able to determine the concept of “self” which is a pivotal part of the actualization