If you read this intro before…skip to the blue below.
I had this idea in my head. Maybe put three pictures up in my office, each representing something important about what I do. Counseling reminder. A touchstone for the eye of sorts. Well, like I said, it was in my head and as I realized one of the three pictures I wasn’t going to be able to get, and the others were certainly copyrighted, the three sort of evolved as I looked for alternatives. So in looking for a different way to go, in my head, we went from three reminders to 96 reminders. It’s why my wife refers to what comes out of my noggin as ‘cumbersome’ on occasion.
So. I am mostly a counselor, but I have also studied and practiced a bunch of other things including cuisine and photography. I always wanted to have an idea why some folks in every field are wildly successful compared to many of their contemporaries, so I always checked a bunch of them out. So, here come 96 people and quotes attributed to them, if there are any – 24 chefs, 24 photographers, 20 people associated with psychology directly, and then 28 none of the above people whose lives or words remind me what to strive towards as a counselor, a counseling business owner, and a general human being. The only problem was stopping. There have been a lot of people who for one reason or another inspire me, lots more names on the potential list but it had to at least pause somewhere, so here we are.
I don’t rightly know if writing these out and posting them will be of any use to anyone else but I’m reasonably sure codifying the whole thing will drive it home for me and hopefully offer some encouragement and centering for our folks. Hope you get something out of one or two of them too.
Carl Rogers
Unconditional Positive Regard. Client Centered. Congruence. Audit a Theories of Counseling Course and these are the things of will hear of Carl Rogers. Most of my post starting a masters degree notion of the man and his theories seemed more like the “bump on a log” method of counseling. You talk, I nod, you pay, see ya next week. Once again things are more interesting and complicated when you get past what everyone has agreed is the whole story. Here are some words he contributed.
“When I look at the world I’m pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic.”
Carl Rogers
“It is the client who knows what hurts, what directions to go, what problems are crucial, what experiences have been deeply buried. It began to occur to me that unless I had a need to demonstrate my own cleverness and learning, I would do better to rely upon the client for the direction of movement in the process.”
Carl R. Rogers
“In my early professionals years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”
Carl Rogers
“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.” I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”
Carl R. Rogers
“The more I can keep a relationship free of judgment and evaluation, the more this will permit the other person to reach the point where he recognizes that the locus of evaluation, the center of responsibility, lies within himself.”
Carl R. Rogers
“The degree to which I can create relationships, which facilitate the growth of others as separate persons, is a measure of the growth I have achieved in myself.”
Carl R Rogers
“Time and again in my clients, I have seen simple people become significant and creative in their own spheres, as they have developed more trust of the processes going on within themselves, and have dared to feel their own feelings, live by values which they discover within, and express themselves in their own unique ways.”
Carl R. Rogers
“The more the therapist becomes a real person and avoids self-protective or professional masks or roles, the more the patient will reciprocate and change in a constructive direction. Of course, the therapist should accept the patient nonjudgmentally and unconditionally. And, of course, the therapist must enter empathically into the private world of the client.”
Carl R. Rogers
“When a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, “Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it’s like to be me”
Carl R. Rogers
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
Carl R. Rogers
“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”
Carl R. Rogers
“I’m not perfect… But I’m enough.”
Carl R. Rogers
“A person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.”
Carl R. Rogers
“Evaluation by others is not a guide for me. The judgments of others, while they are to be listened to, and taken into account for what they are, can never be a guide for me. This has been a hard thing to learn.”
Carl R. Rogers
“To recognize that “I am the one who chooses” and “I am the one who determines the value of an experience for me” is both an invigorating and a frightening realization.”
Carl R. Rogers
“I believe it will have become evident why, for me, adjectives such as happy, contented, blissful, enjoyable, do not seem quite appropriate to any general description of this process I have called the good life, even though the person in this process would experience each one of these at the appropriate times. But adjectives which seem more generally fitting are adjectives such as enriching, exciting, rewarding, challenging, meaningful. This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one’s potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. Yet the deeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming.”
Carl R. Rogers
Yes, there are clear threads of the things most often associated with his theories and while they might have a simplistic tone compared to some others…for me…if you can’t consistently employ these “quote unquote” simple things, ain’t nobody gonna care ‘bout your fancy ideas. And if I’m being honest, they are only simple in the way real Italian food is simple. You see the ingredient list, the cooking techniques, and somehow the finished dish makes you contemplate reality in novel ways. Let’s call it AWE.
I am self-centered, I am wildly judgmental, I have all kinds of ideas about right and wrong, people annoy me and I am only in the realm of my best when I leave as much of that at the door as possible when walking into the Sanktch (Our awesome office building.) Sounds simple, just like making Cacio a Pepe. That’s just the pasta water?!? No Way. Sadly I’m still trying to be sufficient in that regard, and Carl still looks down on me from a picture frame to reset my focus (somewhere outside of myself)…hopefully he sees me becoming significant and creative in my own spheres.
Learn more about Carl Rogers here:
