The degree to which I can create relationships, which facilitate the growth of others as separate persons, is a measure of the growth I have achieved in myself.
Carl RogersRead
In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the shift from trying to 'fix' others to fostering supportive relationships that enable personal growth.
Carl Rogers, a prominent psychologist, reflects on the evolution of his approach to helping others. Initially focused on treatment and change, he recognizes that the true value lies in creating meaningful relationships that empower individuals to grow and develop. This perspective highlights the importance of connection and support in the healing and personal development process, advocating for a more collaborative and relational approach to personal growth.
Themes
GrowthRelationshipSupportPersonal DevelopmentCounseling
In practice
Example use cases
In a therapy session, to emphasize the need for supportive interactions.
More from Carl Rogers
All quotes →The kind of caring that the client-centered therapist desires to achieve is a gullible caring, in which clients are accepted as they say they are, not with a lurking suspicion in the therapist's mind that they may, in fact, be otherwise. This attitude is not stupidity on the therapist's part; it is the kind of attitude that is most likely to lead to trust.
Carl RogersRead
I prize the privilege of being alone.
Carl RogersRead
Though modern Marriage is a tremendous laboratory, its members are often without preparation for the partnership function. How much agony and remorse and failure could have been avoided if there had been at least some rudimentary learning before they entered the partnership.
Carl RogersRead
I have come to think that one of the most satisfying experiences I know — and also one of the most growth-promoting experiences for the other person — is just fully to appreciate this individual in the same way that I appreciate a sunset.
Carl RogersRead
In a person who is open to experience each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system, without being distorted by any process of defensiveness.
Carl RogersRead
Similar quotes
Nobody listens anymore. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me, I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read.
Ray BradburyRead
People with mental problems are our neighbors. They are members of our congregations, members of our families; they are everywhere in this country. If we ignore their cries for help, we will be continuing to participate in the anguish from which those cries for help come. A problem of this magnitude will not go away. Because it will not go away, and because of our spiritual commitments, we are compelled to take action.
Rosalynn CarterRead
If women will not accept marriage with subjection, nor men proffer it without, there is, there can be, no alternative. The women who will not be ruled must live without marriage. And during this transition period... single women make comfortable and attractive homes for themselves.
Susan B. AnthonyRead
She gathers my half of the blankets around her and curls up against the wall. She will sleep for hours more, dreaming endless landscapes and novas of colour both gorgeous and frightening. If I stayed she would wake up and describe them to me. All the mad plot twists and surrealist imagery, so vivid to her while so meaningless to me. There was a time when I treasured listening to her, when I found the commotion in her soul bitter-sweet and lovely, but I can no longer bear it.
Isaac MarionRead
Somebody's little girl- how easy it is to make a sob story over who she once was and who she now is.
Carl SandburgRead
Experience has taught me that I connect best with others when I connect with the core of myself. When I allow God to liberate me from unhealthy dependence on people, I listen more attentively, love more unselfishly, and am more compassionate and playful. I take myself less seriously, become aware that the breath of the Father is on my face.
Brennan ManningRead