Carl Rogers’ 19 Propositions – ‘A Theory of Personality and Behavior’ (1951) is one of the most essential capturings of a person-centred view of personality dynamics and behaviour, but can also be one of the hardest bits of Rogers theory to get your head around!
Rogers wrote this theory at a time when he was still trying to build the validity of client-centred theory and for the most part, to an analytical and scientific field, interesting in human psychology and development.
Rogers is usually known for his human and relatable writing, but with the 19 propositions, we see quite a scientific and complex theory and wording, which, granted, he does try to explain in a more simplistic way for each point, but many readers can be put off or confused by the initial statements that Rogers presents for each proposition.
Through providing Tony Merry’s own simplified version of each proposition and also through my explainer videos on YouTube (see links below), I am hoping to make the theory a little more accessible and understandable.
As well as helping people in their studies, practice and understanding, I also believe that once this theory is grasped, it does offer an extremely robust capturing of nearly all elements of both the person-centred view of human development and behaviour, but also gives great grounding for why we practice in the way that we do.
I have included each proposition below, followed by Tony Merry’s “translation” of each to make the propositions easier to digest. I have also included my own YouTube videos which hope to go through each proposition with an explanation and examples to help you try and get a grasp and deeper understanding of each of the 19 propositions.
As always, any questions or comments, please feel free to get in touch through the website or leave a comment on the YouTube videos and I will reply to each one ASAP 🙂
The 19 Propositions with Merry’s Explanation
The words in bold print are Roger’s own ‘A Theory of Personality and Behavior’ (1951: 481-533); those in italics are Tony Merry’s version (Merry, 2020: 40–43).
- Every individual exists in a continually changing world of experiencing of which he is the centre.
- The organism reacts to the field as it is experienced and perceived. This perceptual field is, for the individual, ‘reality’. We see ourselves as the centre of our ‘reality’; that is, our ever- changing world around us. We experience ourselves as the centre of our world, and we can only ‘know’ our own perceptions.
- The organism reacts as an organised whole to this phenomenal field. The whole person works together rather than as separate parts.
- The organism has one basic tendency and striving – to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism. Human beings have a basic tendency to fulfil their potential, to be positive, forward looking, to grow, improve, and protect their existence.
- Behaviour is basically the goal-directed attempt of the organism to satisfy its needs as experienced in the field as perceived. The things we do (our behaviour in everyday life) in order to satisfy our fundamental needs. If we accept proposition 4, that all needs are related, then all complex needs are related to basic needs. Needs are ‘as experienced’ and the world is ‘as perceived’.
- Emotion accompanies and in general facilitates such goal-directed behaviour, the kind of emotion being related to the seeking versus the consummatory aspects of the behaviour, and the intensity of the emotion being related to the perceived significance of the behaviour for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism. Feelings are associated with, and help us to get, satisfaction and fulfilment. Generally speaking, pleasant feelings arise when we are satisfied, unpleasant feelings when we are not satisfied. The more important the situation, the stronger the feelings.
- The best vantage point from which to understand behaviour is from the internal frame of reference of the individual himself. To understand the behaviour of a person, we must look at the world from their point of view.Â
- A portion of the total perceptual field gradually becomes differentiated as the self. Some of what we recognise as ‘reality’, we come to call ‘me’ or ‘self’.
- As a result of interaction with the environment, and particularly as a result of evaluational interaction with others, the structure of the self is formed – an organised, fluid, but consistent conceptual pattern of perceptions of characteristics and relationships of the ’I’ or the ‘me’ together with values attached to these concepts.
- The values attached to experiences, and the values which are part of the self structure, in some instances are values experienced directly by the organism, and in some instances are values introjected or taken over from others, but perceived in a distorted fashion, as if they had been experienced directly. As we go about our everyday life, we build up a picture of ourselves, called the self-concept, from relating to and being with others and by interacting with the world around us. Sometimes we believe other people’s version of reality and we absorb them into our self-concept as though they were our own.
- As experiences occur in the life of an individual, they are either a) symbolized, perceived and organized into some relationship to the self, b) ignored because there is no relationship to the self-structure, c) denied symbolization or given a distorted symbolization because the experience is inconsistent with the structure of the self. There are several things we can do with our everyday experience: we can see that it is relevant to ourselves or we can ignore it because it is irrelevant; or if we experience something that doesn’t fit with our picture of ourselves we can either pretend it didn’t happen or change our picture of it, so that it does fit.
- Most of the ways of behaving which are adopted by the organism are those which are consistent with the concept of the self. Most of the time we do things and live our lives in ways which are in keeping with our picture of ourselves.
- Behaviour may, in some instances, be brought about by organic experiences and needs which have not been symbolised. Such behaviour may be inconsistent with the structure of the self, but in such instances the behaviour is not ‘owned’ by the individual.  Sometimes we do things as a result of experiences from inside us we have denied, or needs we have not acknowledged. This may conflict with the picture we have of ourselves, so we refuse to accept it is really us doing it.Â
- Psychological maladjustment exists when the organism denies to awareness significant sensory and visceral experiences, which consequently are not symbolized and organised into the gestalt of the self-structure. When this situation exists, there is a basic or potential psychological tension. When we experience something that doesn’t fit with our picture of ourselves and we cannot fit it in with that picture, we feel tense, anxious, frightened or confused.
- Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of the self is such that all the sensory and visceral experiences of the organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic level into a consistent relationship with the concept of the self. We feel relaxed and in control when the things we do and the experiences we have all fit in with the picture we have of ourselves.
- Any experience which is inconsistent with the organization or structure of self may be perceived as a threat, and the more of these perceptions there are, the more rigidly the self-structure is organized to maintain itself. When things happen that don’t fit with the picture we have of ourselves, we feel anxious. The more anxious we feel, the more stubbornly we hang on to the picture we have of ourselves as ‘real’.
- Under certain conditions, involving primarily complete absence of any threat to the self-structure, experiences which are inconsistent with it may be perceived, and examined, and the structure of self revised to assimilate and include such experiences. When we are in a relationship where we feel safe, understood and accepted for who we are, we can look at some of the things that don’t fit in with our picture of ourselves and, if necessary change our picture to fit our experience more accurately. Or we can accept the occasional differences between our pictures of ourselves and our experience without becoming anxious.
- When the individual perceives and accepts into one consistent and integrated system all his sensory and visceral experiences, then he is necessarily more understanding of others and is more accepting of others as separate individuals. When we see ourselves more clearly and accept ourselves more for what we are than as how others would like us to be, we can understand that others are equal to us, sharing basic human qualities, yet distinct as individuals.
- As the individual perceives and accepts into his self-structure more of his organic experiences, he finds that he is replacing his value system – based so largely upon introjections which have been distortedly symbolized – with a continuing organismic valuing process.  We stop applying rigid rules to govern our values and use a more flexible way of valuing based upon our own experience, not on the values we have taken in from others.
Merry, T (2020) Learning and Being in Person-centred Counselling. 3rd edition Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.
Rogers, C (1951) Client-centred Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications and Theory. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.