Carl Rogers and Complexity

In the previous blog I wrote about some of the most common complexity anti-patterns. Here, I would like to talk about the work of Carl Rogers. For those who don’t know, Carl Rogers was one of the most prominent psychologists of the 20th century, albeit not that influential these days. The overall importance of his work is a topic for a different blog. Here I want to explore the relevance of his work in the context of complexity.

Fully Functioning Person

In his writings, Carl Rogers repeatedly described the kind of person that emerges out of the therapeutic change when a certain set of conditions is provided. He referred to that person as ‘fully functioning.’

What is so interesting about it? Let’s read about a fully functioning person in Rogers’s own words (all quotes are from ‘On Becoming a Person’):

…the person increasingly discovers that his own organism is trustworthy, that it is a suitable instrument for discovering the most satisfying behavior in each immediate situation.

…the more respect I feel for the complex processes of life. So I become less and less inclined to hurry in to fix things, to set goals, to mold people, to manipulate and push them in the way that I would like them to go.

…lack of rigidity and permeability of boundaries in concepts, beliefs, perceptions, and hypotheses… tolerance for ambiguity where ambiguity exists… the ability to receive much conflicting information without forcing closure upon the situation.

…would have access to all of the available data in the situation, on which to base his behavior; the social demands, his own complex and possibly conflicting needs, his memories of similar situations, his perception of the uniqueness of this situation, etc., etc… he could permit his total organism, his consciousness participating, to consider each stimulus, need, and demand, its relative intensity and importance, and out of this complex weighing and balancing, discover that course of action which would come closest to satisfying all his needs in the situation.

…desire to be all of oneself in each moment—all the richness and complexity, with nothing hidden from one-self, and nothing feared in oneself…

As you can see the characteristics this person acquires are almost the exact opposite to the majority of anti-patterns I described in the previous blog. This kind of person does not rush for closure, is open to all the data coming in, is not impeded by emotions he or she holds around one’s ideas. This person is more fluent and receptive, hence more apt to deal with the uncertainty and emergence of complex adaptive systems.

The qualities of a fully functioning person are exactly the qualities we need when we are dealing with complex systems. So what do we need to do in order to get them?

Self-concept and The Theory of Personality

To better understand what allows one to become more fully functioning I first want to talk a bit about a lesser-known piece of Carl Rogers’s work, his theory of personality*. It sheds light on why some of the anti-patterns appear in the first place and what allows the movement toward the person portrayed in the quotes above.

According to Carl Rogers, every individual lives in their own field of experience. Only some portion of it is experienced consciously. Early in our lives, a subset of our experiences is conceptualized as self (‘this is who I am’). Forming of our concept of self is influenced by the values and needs as we experience them in our organisms. But also it’s influenced by the values ‘introjected’ from the outside, meaning imposed by others and unconsciously accepted by us as our own. Rogers calls this process a distorted symbolization. For example, if parents are not satisfied with some of a child’s behavior, say being too loud in a public space, the correct symbolization for the child will be ‘my parents are dissatisfied when I’m loud’ but it may be distorted to ‘I’m dissatisfied when I’m loud’ or ‘I don’t want to be loud.’

Through interactions with significant adults, we learn that some parts of our experience and some of our needs and values are worthy and some are not. We develop ‘conditions of worth.’ We are only good and worthy when we fit these conditions.

With time our self-concept becomes more solid. Experiences and actions consistent with the structure of our self are allowed. Those not consistent with its structure are ignored, denied, or distorted. The bigger the divergence between the self and the organismic experiences and needs the more maladjusted the person becomes, meaning that the bigger portion of his or her experiences constitute a threat to the structure of the self. The behavior and perceptions become defensive. They are aimed at eliminating this threat. Here’s an example from Carl Rogers:

For example, a pilot who conceives of himself as a brave and relatively fearless individual is assigned to a mission which involves great risk. Physiologically he experiences fear and a need to escape from this danger. These reactions cannot be symbolized into consciousness, since they would be too contradictory to his concept of self. The organic need, however, persists. He can perceive that “the engine is not running quite properly,” or that “I am ill and have an upset digestive system,” and on these grounds excuse himself from the mission. (Client-Centered Therapy)

What is the relevance of this in the context of complexity? Complexity requires as much of our perceptiveness, access to all the sensory systems, and cognitive capacities as possible. If a significant portion of these is spent on eliminating and avoiding threats and sustaining to some degree inadequate self-concept it means that our ability to deal with complexity suffers. For example, if a leader’s conditions of worth include ‘being smart and being right’ it will be harder to allow into their conscious awareness observations contradictory to their prior conclusions or they may spend too much energy defending their earlier ideas when conflicting ideas are offered.

As Thomas Gordon, one of Rogers’s associates, writes in his ‘Group-Centered Leadership’:

Some group members have the ability to perceive most of the psychologically operative elements in a group situation, while others seem peculiarly blind to all but their own personal feelings and internal pressures. The field theorists in psychology would say that some group members respond to only a small area in the total effective psychological field, or that they are responding in terms of a restricted life space. Hence their contributions are likely to be so highly ego-centered as to be inappropriate to the total complexity of the problem or situation facing the group.

Moving Toward Fuller Functioning

Rogers’s research on the therapeutic process suggests that when the proper conditions are met it’s possible to reverse this process of maladjustment. By providing these conditions a therapist helps the person experience erroneously symbolized experiences and denied needs without the threat to the the structure of their self. With time, these denied organismic values and needs are reintegrated into the reorganized concept of self. The condition of worth is dissolved and replaced with a ‘unified organismic, valuing process as the regulator of behavior.’ (A Theory Of Therapy, Personality, And Interpersonal Relationships)

Here’s how Rogers describes this new more resilient organization of the self that allows the qualities of a fully functioning person:

The best definition of what constitutes integration appears to be this statement that all the sensory and visceral experiences are admissable to awareness through accurate symbolization, and organizable into one system which is internally consistent and which is, or is related to, the structure of self.(Client-Centered Therapy)

So what are the conditions that Carl Rogers found crucial for creating an environment where a person can acquire such qualities? Before sharing them I also want to mention that Carl Rogers was very explicit that a therapeutic relationship is only a specific case of a broader dynamic: ‘Good communication, free communication, within or between men, is always therapeutic.’ (On Becoming A Person) The developmental movement to fuller functioning is not limited to a therapist and client relationship it happens whenever and with whomever these conditions are provided. Below I will list them with my comments on their relevance in the context of complexity:
— there is a psychological contact. This point is also very salient in Kurt Lewin’s work and his concept of ‘action research.’ If we are not in contact with the system, we won’t be able to change it or learn from it.
— congruence – being genuine and not hiding behind masks, not pretending to be something one is not. If we suppress or hide some of our reactions when we are in a relationship with a complex system it will mean that we squander our precious resources and also that these reactions are not fed into meaning-making.
— being non-judgemental (‘unconditional positive regard’) – warm acceptance of all the aspects of the client. While dealing with the complexity it means being able to be with all that is there. If we are triggered by some observed aspect of the system we avoid facing it in its fullness. Also other actors in this complex system can start withholding from us what we cannot accept.
— empathetic understanding – continuous effort to understand the client from their own point of view, stepping into their experiential world as much as possible. It is about the desire to understand how the system as a whole works and what it is trying to achieve.

The continuous application of these conditions toward our internal experiences as we face complexity and toward a complex system itself is, I believe, a key to disarming most of the complexity anti-patterns.

Conclusion

After ending his clinical and academic work, Rogers spent the late 60s, 70s, and 80s exploring how his what he learned from his research could be applied in the context of marital relationships, education, politics and international relationships. But his work almost didn’t touch the organizational context even though some of his associates such as Thomas Gordon and Richard Farson worked in that context.

Rogers was convinced and quite explicit that therapy is only a specific case of a more general theory of communication and when the right conditions are provided: better learning happens, marital relations improve, international conflicts are better addressed. I’m confident that his ideas are also as relevant for a better functioning of a human being in the organizational and business context as those contexts.

My assertion is that when we provide these conditions of being in contact, being congruent, accepting, and empathetic, projected toward our internal experiences, toward complex phenomena that we face, and toward people with whom we cooperate while facing it, our ability to deal with them will become significantly more robust.

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*Carl Rogers was not that much of a theorist. Most of his published work is on clinical research. Among his books and articles, only two chapters are dedicated to this theory. For those interested in exploring more, they are ‘A Theory of Personality and Behavior’ from his 1952 ‘Client-Centered Therapy’ and ‘A Theory Of Therapy, Personality, And Interpersonal Relationships, As Developed In The Client-Centered Framework’ in 1959 ‘Psychology A Study Of A Science Volume 3 Formulations Of The Person And The Social Context’ by Sigmund Koch