Rogerian Triad

Originally published November 20th, 2005.

First off I want to say thank you to all my fans. You make blogging so wonderful.

Since I'm studying Psychology, I would like to say a few words about Carl Rogers. For those who do not know Rogers, it is safe to say you have still been affected by him. His humanistic psychology was based upon a triad: unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruence. Unconditional positive regard means appreciating the client for their value as a human being regardless of the state they are in or how much (or little) they change. It is akin to agape, which is Greek, for unconditional love. Empathy means feeling the hurts, fears, frustrations, joy, and wonder of the client. This means that you really enter into the world of the other and try to experience life from the way they see it. Finally, congruence means that you are the kind of person on the outside that you are on the inside. If you feel frustrated then you do not try to hide the feeling but rather you accept it.

Now by no means do I agree totally with Rogers view on psychotherapy or life in general but I do believe that he had it right in terms of how we ought to relate to one another. It should be assumed that those who are friends will be ones that we can share our deepest secrets with and by releasing them to another we are set free. But more importantly is that as friends we treat one another as valuable regardless of what the other does wrong. In psychotherapy this is easier because often the relationship is primarilly unilateral and so the client can be accepted without the therapist feeling personally hurt by the client's failures. In real life this is much more difficult because we need to accept our friends who have done us wrong.

But what I really am getting at is that deep down we long to be loved unconditionally regardless of what we have done. We realize how dark our secrets are and feel alone in our secrets that we must put on a facade to hide. But what we need is to experience someone knowing our darkest secrets and loving us, without wanting to change us, in that moment. That is why one of the most therapeutic ways to minister to others is, when they share something painful, just simply to listen without giving advice. You do talk and let them know they are heard but you simply meet them where they are. You will find they usually already know what they should do.

So how does one become a giver of agape, unconditional love? By accepting our own faults. How bizarre that by simply acknowledging and admitting our own mistakes we are set free from them. And by doing so we find a place in our heart that can love others who are in the same place as we are. That is to say, those who have experienced the worst and admitted it freely and openly, will be the ones that will know how to understand others. It is by accepting that we, in a given moment, might be mad or sad or lethargic or anxious and in that moment we decide not to hide it but to expose it, that is when our own healing begins and we find a place in our heart to accept those around us: those who cut us off on the freeways or who treat us as unimportant or make us feel small. (I think that qualifies as a run-on sentence)

Anyways I think that's all I got. But as a post-script I should note that Rogers believes it is our experience that ought to guide us through lfe, as if the ideal human was simply a capable infant - one that followed every urge it felt. I believe that the post-modern thought of today follows this line in how it emphasizes finding our own truth based upon how we experience the world. But we MUST remember that there is ONE truth that none of us know fully and that we must quest to discover the path to truth. Maybe I'll write more about post-modernity someday if my blog actually is read by more than just a few faithful fans ;)