On Becoming a Person Summary (5/10)

On Becoming a Person is a book by Carl Rogers about the third psychological paradigm. There were two psychological worldviews that dominated the way the human mind was understood. The first was Freud’s idea of the unconscious and the view that human beings were by nature impulsive and aggressive, and that their behavior has their roots in unconscious desires and compensatory fantasies. This worldview sees man as dangerous and sees the exercise of will power necessary to contain the dark forces that lurk within the individual. Aggression and sexuality are emotions that have been repressed to ensure the proper functioning of society.

The Skinner world view is that humans are essentially no different from any other physical object. The difference between men and animals is not that men have magical privileges that animals do not have, but that man’s brain is significantly more complex. Due to this complexity, human behavior is more difficult to predict, but it is not impossible to predict. Several experiments have proved that the human mind can subconsciously be influenced by environmental cues. This puts a dent on the theory of free will. It is difficult to imagine that a creature that is so heavily influenced by its environment and biology can claim to have any choice at all. The brain contains chemical processes that when acted upon by environmental triggers will react predictably. Thus, the individual’s thoughts and feelings are directly the result of his experience of reality. If you can change the reality, then you can change the individual. There is no point in thinking about the human being as autonomous. Whatever way the human mind chooses to behave, it does so without its own consent, without its own will.

Carl Rogers offers a third way of thinking about the human being, and that is as a subject rather than an object. He does not deny that the environment and biology can influence the individual but maintains that each person is endowed with at least a modicum of freedom. In Auschwitz, as documented by Victor Frankl and others, people were forced to go through the most gruelling forms of mental and physical torture, yet they were free to decide how to live the remaining days of their lives. Some found meaning in writing a book and communicating their experience to others, while some lived for the possibility of seeing their wives again. Rogers believes that instead of only thinking of the individual as a destructive force of nature, it is better to think of him as a constructive force in nature – that like other things, human beings converge towards more complexity, more order, and more harmony. It is possible for people to change their behavior and to become more integrated, to speak more honestly, to confront their own feelings, and to live with dignity.

The human being is not fully autonomous nor all powerful, but his future is not predetermined. Further, the human being is not merely an object but a subject. Even if you were to grant that people were greatly influenced by their environments, you should remember that much of that environment was constructed by individual decisions. What you decide to do today will affect who you will become tomorrow, perhaps in ways you cannot predict or understand, but you are an active agent in this process. It is self-defeating and unhelpful to think that no free will exists. Yes, an objective reality clearly exists, and there are many forces that operate without our control and they are highly deterministic. But as subjects, as beings that can think, feel, and plan, we can influence to some degree what these forces are. We can to some degree determine our destinies, and in his practice, Rogers has found that this thinking has led to transformative results in his patients. It is not only useful to think in this way, but it is true.

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