3 - Lives Attracted to Shame and Longing

Summary

I can see what is perhaps one overriding theme in my professional life. It is my caring about communication. From my very earliest years it has, for some reason, been a passionate concern of mine [italics added].

Carl Rogers (1974, p. 121)

In his professional life, Rogers was devoted to helping others release their potential for growth and discovery. Individuals whom he treated in psychotherapy found the capacity to achieve growth in the context of the warm, supportive environment that he created. What is less readily recognized is that this same medium satisfied certain longings that Rogers had as well, and that the specifics of client-centered therapy, as an ideology and as a practice, were integrally related to the specifics of his affective organization. One of the more consistent themes in his life revolved around finding and elaborating emotional communion with others, as indicated in the opening quotation. This longing for communication, and the experience of communion that it promises, had very early roots.

Before we begin with the detailed chronology of his life, we should consider the historical context in which he came of age professionally, for it raises a basic enigma about his life and personality.

Overview

When Carl Rogers began to develop what would eventually become client-centered psychotherapy, the only other existing clinical model of therapy was that of psychoanalysis, and its practitioners were almost exclusively medical doctors – psychiatrists.