Maybe this approximation is only my own but I found Rogers' view to be similar to that of Zen Buddhism.

Moreover, great consideration is given to the uniqueness of the relationship between client and therapist, culminating in the personal experiences of both. C]lient-centered therapy, with the intense focusing upon self which it involves, has as its end result, not more self-consciousness, but less. This is the original bible for person centred therapists where the basis for this type of therapy is founded. He came to reject the idea that the therapist ought to be a source of authority, a moral reference, a problem solver for the patient; rather, he saw the therapist as one who can assist the client in his exploration and resolution of his inner contradictions. The fundamental and radical belief in a person's self-actualization capacities remains a worthy idea to strive for and to talk about, but not always so easy to actually implement in therapy.

It is not just a formulation of a theory, but (following indications of the full title) is an overview of practice and application of client-centered therapy overall. He received many honors, including the first Distinguished Professsional Contributor Award and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association. The major stumbling blocks of this sort appear to be his concepts of "self" and "self-actualization.

All in all I feel like this book helped me to grow as a counselor and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is seeking a better understanding of client-centered therapy. This was really hard for me to review as on one hand the concept of person centred therapy and what he brought to the field is incredible, but on the other I found it quite hard going in places.If I had some of the bricks for an edifice of a person-centred way of being, I think this provides the mortar.

I'll come back to it at a later time and add the rest of my understanding as well as personal assessment of the material presented. When his ideas were unproven, he had the intellectual honesty to highlight the potential weak spots of his theory. Rogers, Elaine Dorfman, Thomas Gordan, and Nicholas Hobbs, present a synthesis of the basic philosophy of nondirectional counseling.His Client Centered theory was not a top-down theory of the mind, rather a bottom-up set of ideas abstracted out of countless experiences in the therapy office. The commonly known technique of active listening is better viewed this way: echoing back to the person his perception of his inner world. This book exposes the meaning through which personal counseling is achieved through a subtle process of self-realization.

I also feel like the chapter, "A Theory of Personality and Behavior," provided me with a new way of viewing personality that I connected with and will continue to refer back to in future study. I also found the emphasis placed on the importance of the counselor having a genuine attitude of acceptance and empathy, as well as being comitted to achieving a high level of personal awareness and growth to be a refreshing reminder. Inner-external conflicts are when an individual's internal representation of himself and the world is in conflict with his experience of the world.I will most certainly be re-reading sections of the book again and using it to inform my approach to counseling moving forward. One side note that I loved: through the exploration of his unconscious experiences and resolving his conflicts, the client comes to develop a more accurate symbolization of reality, a better representation.