Person-centred counselling

Carl Rogers

pp. 75-86

in: Ray Colledge, Mastering counselling theory, Berlin, Springer, 2002

Abstract

Carl Rogers was born in Illinois in 1902. He was the fourth of six children in a deeply religious family. His father was a civil engineer and owned a construction business. When Rogers was 12 the family bought a farm, where he lived until he went to college. At first he studied agriculture, but changed to history after two years with the intention of entering the Church. While at the Union Theological Seminary he realised that his beliefs were not suitable for a religious career and he became a student at Columbia University. After graduating he worked for 12 years as a psychologist at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Rochester, New York, during which time he developed an interest in social work. In 1940, soon after completing his book Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child (1939) he became a professor at Ohio State University. In 1945 he became professor of psychology and a director of counselling services at Chicago University. He was a professor at Wisconsin University from 1957–62 and a fellow at Stanford University from 1962–63. In 1964 he became a resident fellow at the Western Behavioural Sciences Institute at La Jolla, California. In 1968 he and a group of colleagues set up the Center for Studies of the Person at La Jolla, where he was a resident fellow until he died in 1987.