Introduction:
Why are so many of us are not open to hearing and following
our "inner organismic valuing processes"? Rogers suggested that due to years
of receiving conditional (rather than unconditional) regard, most of us are
insecure about meeting our needs for positive regard. And Abe Maslow
suggested that when we are insecure about meeting our “lower needs” (such as
needs for security and positive regard from others), those needs take
precedence over our “higher needs” (such as needs for self-actualization).
Thus, needs for positive regard overwhelm our needs for self-actualization,
causing us to act in ways that are incongruent with our true selves, our
positive potentials. Rogers believed that we could help heal this
incongruence—that is, we could help each other become more whole and fully
functioning—by communicating empathy, unconditional positive regard, and
genuineness. Such a relationship would empower people to live in congruence
with their own true feelings and actualize their own unique potentials.
Rogers' model of what prevents versus promotes us becoming fully functioning
persons is the subject of this next lesson.
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