Phenomenology: Introduction and Application

1. Phenomenology: Introduction and Application

2. Applied Phenomenology: Carl Rogers Personal Background Devout fundamentalist Protestant parents Very early training in scientific agriculture Evangelical outlook: �evangelize the world in our generation� Academic training: Union Theological Seminary What would you expect this background to produce? An empirically-minded thinker with a devout implicit Protestant morality.

3. Rogers as classical Protestant Eradication of the devil, so to speak Evil arises as a consequence of the absence of good (human agency) Vs. Jung�s evil as an �independent entity� (divine temptation)

4. Basic Rogerian Concepts The phenomenal field: reality as fundamentally subjective end of the mind/body problem? Science as intersubjectivity: construction of the object an �as if� game -- we act as though those things we can agree about constitute a �real� world not everything is conscious (labelled?) feelings may not be conscious (labelled) but still experienced symbolic representation vs experience mental and organic realms procedural/episodic/semantic distinction (?) and dissociation (?)

5. �Man lives essentially in his own personal and subjective world, and even his most objective functioning, in science, mathematics and the like, is the result of subjective purpose and subjective choice.�

6. The self (the ego or persona, in Jungian or analytic terms) A differentiated articulation on the ground of the phenomenal field �We may look upon this self-structure as being an organization of hypotheses for meeting life -- an organization which has been relatively effective in satisfying the needs of the organism.� a self-gestalt A symbolic representation of the organism? Guided in construction by social processes? Guided in construction by observation of the organism and consequent symbolic representation? An episodic representation of procedural action?

7. The necessity for accurate symbolization of experience: we must get in touch with our feelings (subception) equivalent to preconceptual experience (presemantic (?)) -- emotional/episodic equivalent to Damasio�s affect? �We may say that freedom from inner tension, or psychological adjustment, exists when the concept of self is at least roughly congruent with all the experiences of the organism.�

8. The organismic valuing process the wisdom of the body socialization vs organismic valuing the need for self-consistency: all phenomena must be rendered devoid of contradictory implications, meanings or affective significances �pragnanz� -- from Gestalt theory: �psychological organization will always be as �good� as the prevailing conditions allow. regular, simple, symmetrical, simplified self-inconsistency as threat why is left somewhat unanswered Consequence of contradiction for action/perception?

9. Motives Organismic enhancement as central motive All living organisms strive to maintain, further and actualize their experience the self and the organism as positive creative striver motivated by (positive) needs �no behavior except to meet a present need� -- little reliance on past for interpretation Anxiety as incongruity needs of the self are not always congruent with the needs of the organism

10. Grounds of pathology Potential for conflict between needs of self (cultural construct?) and needs of organism self needs (popularity) vs organismic needs (to thine own self be true) Incongruence, as root of psychopathology, arises when the personality system: �denies to awareness, or distorts in awareness, significant experiences, which consequently are not accurately symbolized and organized into the gestalt of the self-structure, thus creating an incongruence between self and experience.� This is anxiety; vulnerability is subjugation to anxiety

11. Anxiety disparity between self and total organismic experience motivates �introjection� of non-self values repression as failure to symbolize organismic needs distortion: meaning twist to eliminate disparity rationalization pathological �locus of evaluation� �an internal locus of evaluation, within the individual himself, means that he is the center of the valuing process, the evidence being supplied by his own senses. When the locus of evaluation resides in others, their judgement as to the value of an object or experience becomes the criterion of value for the individual.�

13. Why does this occur? Contradiction of attitudes (the social vs the personal) how things �should� appear, vs how they do? �conditional� love from parents and environment I am only good when I manifest certain needs/behaviors, and not others I am the �good self� and not the bad needs Pathology and anxiety �the state is one of tension and internal confusion, since in some respects the individual�s behavior will be regulated by the [organismic] actualizing tendency, and in other respects by the self-actualizing tendency, thus producing discordant or incomprehensible behaviors.� Threat to goal structure (self) perceived in experiential field (unresolved organismal needs)? Growth in personality as increase in congruence; consequent move towards �self-actualization.�

14. Development Development of self from organismic field Why? Why? Why? Necessity for unconditional positive regard during upbringing: �I can understand how satisfying it feels to you to hit your baby brother and I love you and am quite willing for you to have those feelings. But I am quite willing for me to have my feelings, too, and I feel very distressed when your brother is hurt, and so I do not let you hit him Both your feelings and my feelings are important, and each of us can freely have his own freedom and �I do not let you hit him� and �each of us can freely have his own� ? But at least the possibility of negotiation is left open (?)

15. Psychotherapy: rules and regulations Organismic enhancement (and self-development)as central (instinctive) motives Client-directed developmental process �� we may say that the counselor chooses to act consistently on the hypothesis that the individual has a sufficient capacity to deal constructively with all those aspects of his life which can potentially come into conscious awareness. This means the creation of an interpersonal situation in which material may come into the client�s awareness, and a meaningful demonstration of the counselor�s acceptance of the client as a person who is competent to direct himself.�

16. The pathological personality & transformation first stage fixity and remoteness of experience second and third stages: developing awareness fourth stage: relaxed, objective, more aware of contradictions existing between feelings and everyday experience fifth stage upwelling of feelings of great importance surprising and informative sixth stage working through and �integration� of such feelings seventh stage fully functioning person

17. Procedure of therapy Implicit Axiomatic Preconditions: Necessity for admiration for independence (as a core value) only independent-valuing individuals were suited for client-centered therapy (western protestant values) (?)

18. Explicit Axiomatic Preconditions, continued �Assuming a minimal mutual willingness to be in contact and to receive communications, we may say that the greater the communicated congruence of experience, awareness and behavior on the part of one individual, the more the ensuing relationship will involve a tendency toward reciprocal communication with the same qualities, mutually accurate understanding of the communications, improved psychological adjustment and functioning in both parties, and mutual satisfaction in the relationship.�

19. Provision of therapeutic environment Modification of experiential space shared with therapist Understanding verified by process of dialectic labelling: facilitation of congruence between organic and mental realms Uselessness of diagnostic categories No sense construing subjective processes �intersubjectively� or objectively Therapist as healing personality (attitude of therapist) honesty (openness; genuineness) empathy unconditional positive regard congruence

20. The importance of �insight� establishment of relationship between feeling and labelling, or between feeling and action, or labelling and action (or even, dare it be said, all three) (?)

21. Unconditional positive regard as prerequisite for substantive change Necessity for comprehension of alternative phenomenal field �Real communication occurs, and [the] evaluative tendency avoided, when we listen with understanding. What does this mean? It means to see the expressed idea and attitude from the other person's point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference in regard to the thing he is talking about.

22. Stated so briefly, this may sound absurdly simple, but it is not. It is an approach which we have found extremely potent in the field of psychotherapy. It is the most effective agent we know for altering the basic personality structure of an individual, and improving his relationships and his communications with others. If I can listen to what he can tell me, if I can understand how it seems to him, if I can see its personal meaning for him, if I can sense the emotional flavor which it has for him, then I will be releasing potent forces of change in him.

23. If I can really understand how he hates his father, or hates the university, or hates communists - if I can catch the flavor of his fear of insanity, or his fear of atom bombs, or of Russia - it will be of the greatest help to him in altering those very hatreds and fears, and in establishing realistic and harmonious relationships with the very people and situations toward which he has felt hatred and fear.

24. We know from our research that such empathic understanding - understanding with a person, not about him - is such an effective approach that it can bring about major changes in personality. Some of you may be feeling that you listen well to people, and that you have never seen such results. The chances are very great indeed that your listening has not been of the type I have described. Fortunately I can suggest a little laboratory experiment which you can try to test the quality of your understanding. 

25. The next time you get into an argument with your wife, or your friend, or with a small group of friends, just stop the discussion for a moment and for an experiment, institute this rule. "Each person can speak up for himself only after he has first restated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately, and to that speaker's satisfaction." You see what this would mean. 

26. It would simply mean that before presenting your own point of view, it would be necessary for you to really achieve the other speaker's frame of reference - to understand his thoughts and feelings so well that you could summarize them for him. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But if you try it you will discover it is one of the most difficult things you have ever tried to do.

27. However, once you have been able to see the other's point of view, your own comments will have to be drastically revised. You will also find the emotion going out of the discussion, the differences being reduced, and those differences which remain being of a rational and understandable sort.

28. Courage as prerequisite for empathic understanding �If you really understand a person in this way, if you are willing to enter his private world and see the way life appears to him, you run the risk of being changed yourself. You might see it his way, you might find yourself influenced in your attitudes or personality.

29. This risk of being changed is one of the most frightening prospects most of us can face. If I enter, fully as I am able, into the private world of the neurotic or psychotic individual, isn�t there a risk that I might become lost in that world? Most of us are afraid to take that risk....

30. The great majority of us can not listen; we find ourselves compelled to evaluate, because listening is too dangerous. The first requirement is courage, and we do not always have it.�

31. Maturity �The individual exhibits mature behavior when he perceives realistically and in an extensional manner, is not defensive, accepts the responsibility of being different from others, accepts responsibility for his own behavior, evaluates experience in terms of the evidence coming from his own senses changes his evaluation of experience only on the basis of new evidence, accepts others as unique individuals different from himself, prizes himself, and prizes others.�

32. The Fully Functioning Person Look out, here he comes �� more able to live fully in and with each and all of his feelings and reactions. He makes increasing use of all his organic equipment to sense, as accurately as possible, the existential situation within and without. He makes use of all the information his nervous system can thus supply, using it in awareness, but recognizing that his total organism may be, and often is, wiser than his awareness.� a reasonable summary of Rogers himself

33. Measurement of improvement Experimental evaluation of therapy an indication of implicit Rogerian hard-headedness and pragmatism despite explicit goody-two-shoeness Rogers as Ned Flanders Correlation between self and self-ideal if correlation improves, therapy has worked

34. Everyone as therapist the healing potential of the (honest) interpersonal relationship the healing potential of the (encounter) group �In an encounter group I love to give, both to the participants and to myself, the maximum freedom of expression ... I do trust the group, and find it often wiser than I in its reactions to particular situations.� the risky shift phenomenon, however polarization of group attitudes increased cohesiveness tends to mean increased ethnocentrism

35. Unclarified issues: Where�s God - source of wisdom? basis for organismic valuing: the wisdom of the body Teleological view of evolution phylogenesis and ontogenesis: things move towards the (implicit) ideal

36. Comparability with Freud Rogers�s anti-Id organismic needs as �all-good� Rogers� nasty SuperEgo don�t tell anybody what to do much less emphasis on sexuality much less emphasis on procedure dream work, free-association shared concern for clients similar attitude with regard to possibility and even etiology of repression

37. Comparability with Jung difference in emphasis on shadow similarity in teleology implicit �collective unconscious� - ? little formal evaluation of religion (due to implicit religiosity?)

38. Comparability with behaviorists and behavior therapists less direction more explicit reliance on teleology more comparable to Gray in terms of field theory more particular stress on nature of organismic valuing process

39. Conclusion Rogers� definition of health Love of thy neighbour, as thyself, constitutes precondition for positive personality growth And: a note on the necessity of tyranny: �By 1970 Rogers was prepared to be as open as his organismic valuing process spontaneously suggested, to the point of venting great anger and irritation to other members of the encounter group.�