Carl Rogers--dialogues: Conversations with Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, B.F. Skinner, Gregory Bateson, Michael Polanyi, Rollo May, and others

260 Pages·1989·8.995 MB·English

by  Carl R Rogers

The Library
of the
School of Theology
at Claremont
1325 North College Avenue
Claremont, CA 91711
CARL
ROGERS:
DIALOGUES
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ROGERS:
DIALOGUES
Conversations with Martin Buber,
Paul Tillich, B. F. Skinner, Gregory Bateson,
Michael Polanyi, Rollo May, and Others
Edited by
Howard Kirschenbaum and
Valerie Land Henderson
Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston 1989
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SCHOOL OH THEOLOOt
AT CLAREMONT
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Copyright © 1989 by Howard Kirschenbaum
and the Estate of Carl Rogers
All rights reserved.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from
this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
2 Park Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02108.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rogers, Carl R. (Carl Ransom), date.
Carl Rogers — dialogues: conversations with Martin Buber,
Paul Tillich, B. F. Skinner, Gregory Bateson,
Michael Polanyi, Rollo May, and others I edited by
Howard Kirschenbaum and Valerie Land Henderson.
p. cm.
isbn 0-395-51089-9
isbn 0-395-48356-5 (pbk.)
1. Rogers, Carl R. (Carl Rogers), date. 2. Humanistic
psychology. 3. Philosophical theology. 4. Client-centered
psychotherapy. I. Kirschenbaum, Howard. II. Henderson,
Valerie Land. III. Title.
BF109.R63A5 1989 89-31062
150.19'8 — dcig cip
Printed in the United States of America
d 10 98765432 1
The editors are grateful for permission to reprint the following material:
“Client-Centered Therapy,” by Carl Rogers, from American Handbook of Psy­
chiatry, First Edition, vol. 3, edited by Silvano Arieti. © 1959 by Basic Books, Inc.,
Publishers. Second edition © 1966. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
“Dialogue between Martin Buber and Carl Rogers,” from Psychologia, i960,
vol. 3, pp. 208—221.
Dialogue Between Paul Tillich and Carl Rogers, Parts I and II, San Diego
State University, 1966. Used by permission of San Diego State University and
Western Behavioral Sciences Institute.
“A Dialogue on Education and the Control of Human Behavior,” by Carl
Rogers and B. F. Skinner. Used by permission of B. F. Skinner.
“A Dialogue: Michael Polanyi and Carl Rogers,” from Man and the Science of
Man, Charles Merrill Publishing Co.. 1968, pp. 135-139, 154-163, 193—210.
Copyright © 1968 by W. R. Coulson and Carl Rogers.
“Dialogue Between Gregory Bateson and Carl Rogers.” Used by permission
of Mary Catherine Bateson, executor of Gregory Bateson’s literary estate.
Correspondence between Gregory Bateson and Carl Rogers used by permis­
sion of Mary Catherine Bateson and the Gregory Bateson Archive, Special Col­
lections. University of California, Santa Cruz.
“Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Self and the Dramas of History — A Review,” by Carl
Rogers, from Chicago Theological Seminary Register, January 1956, pp. 13-14.
Used with permission.
“Reinhold Niebuhr and Carl Rogers: A Discussion by Bernard M. Loomer,
Walter M. Horton, and Hans Hofmann,” from Pastoral Psychology, 1958, vol. 9,
no. 85, pp. 15—17. Published by Human Sciences Press, Inc. New York, NY.
"The Way to Do Is to Be,” by Carl Rogers, from Contemporary Psychology, vol.
4> !959> PP- 196“198-
“Notes on Rollo May,” by Carl Rogers, from Perspectives, vol. 2, no. 1, 1981.
Used with permission of the Saybrook Institute.
“The Problem of Evil- An Open Letter to Carl Rogers,” by Rollo May, from
Journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 22. no. 3, 1982. Copyright © 1982 by Rollo
May. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc., and by Rollo May.
“Reply to Rollo May’s Letter to Carl Rogers,” by Carl Rogers, from Journal of
Humanistic Psychology, vol. 22, no. 4, 1982. Copyright © 1982 by Carl Rogers. Re­
printed by permission of Sage Publications, Inc.
Acknowledgments
We sincerely thank the following individuals for their gracious
assistance: B. F. Skinner, Rollo May, Mary Catherine Bateson,
and William Coulson, for their permission to publish four of the
dialogues or written exchanges; Professor Gerald Gladstein, for
his help on the Rogers-Skinner dialogue; Neil Kramer, Rita Bot­
toms, and Gregory Williams, for their help in locating the Rog­
ers-Bateson dialogue and correspondence; Mary Catherine
Bateson, for reviewing the Rogers-Bateson dialogue: Virginia
Conard for transcribing the Skinner and Bateson dialogues;
Natalie Rogers and David Rogers, for their support of this entire
project; Ruth Hapgood and Chris Jerome, for their editorial as­
sistance; and our agent, Donald Cutler.
Howard Kirschenbaum
Valerie Land Henderson
Contents
11 Carl Rogers and His Work
i. Introduction 3
2. Client-Centered Therapy, by Carl Rogers 9
III The Dialogues
3. Martin Buber 41
4. Paul Tillich 64
5. B. F. Skinner 79
6. Michael Polanyi 153
7. Gregory Bateson 176
III I Reviews, Symposium, and Correspondence
8. Reinhold Niebuhr 205
Rogers’s Review of Niebuhr’s The Self and the
Dramas of History 208
Discussion by Bernard Loomer, Walter Horton,
and Hans Hofmann 212
Rogers’s Concluding Comment 223
x Contents
g. Rollo May 229
The Way to Do Is to Be. Rogers’s Review of
Rollo May et al.’s Existence: A New Dimension
in Psychiatry and Psychology 232
Notes on Rollo May, by Carl Rogers 237
An Open Letter to Carl Rogers, by Rollo May 239
Reply to Rollo May, by Carl Rogers 251
I/carl ROGERS
AND HIS WORK
Introduction
Carl Rogers’s entire professional life was devoted to enhancing
human communication. He strove to understand and promote
“the characteristics of helping relationships” throughout a sixty-
year career, from the mid-1920s until his death in 1987 at age
eighty-five. In our introduction to The Carl Rogers Reader,1 we
summarize his most significant achievements:
He pioneered a major new approach to psychotherapy, known
successively as the “nondirective,” “client-centered,” and “per­
son-centered” approach.
He was the first person in history to record and publish com­
plete cases of psychotherapy.
He carried out and encouraged more scientific research on
counseling and psychotherapy than had ever been undertaken
anywhere.
More than any individual, he was responsible for the spread
of professional counseling and psychotherapy beyond psychiatry
and psychoanalysis to all the helping professions — psychology,
social work, education, ministry, lay therapy, and others.
He was a leader in the development and dissemination of the
intensive therapeutic group experience, sometimes called the
“encounter group.”
He was a leader in the humanistic psychology movement of the
1960s to 1980s, which continues to exert a profound influence on
society and the professions.
He was a pioneer in applying the principles of effective in­
terpersonal communication to resolving intergroup and inter­
national conflict.