Created by Brandon J. Webb
Psychopathology
Psychopathology
is defined as the study of origin, development, and manifestations of the
mental or behavior disorder. Rogers has many terms to describe a healthy person or better yet a “fully-
functioning” person. Rogers feels in order to be fully- functioning one’s qualities must consist
of:
1. Openness to experience.
This is the opposite of defensiveness. It is the accurate perception of
one's experiences in the world, including one's feelings. It also means
being able to accept reality, again including one's feelings. Feelings
are such an important part of openness because they convey organismic
valuing. If you cannot be open to your feelings, you cannot be open to
actualization. The hard part, of course, is distinguishing real feelings
from the anxieties brought on by conditions of worth.
2. Existential living.
This is living in the here-and-now. Rogers, as a part of getting in touch with reality, insists that we not live in
the past or the future -- the one is gone, and the other isn't anything at all,
yet! The present is the only reality we have. Mind you, that
doesn't mean we shouldn't remember and learn from our past. Neither does
it mean we shouldn't plan or even day-dream about the future. Just
recognize these things for what they are: memories and dreams, which we
are experiencing here in the present.
3. Organismic trusting.
We should allow ourselves to be guided by the organismic valuing process.
We should trust ourselves; do what feels right, what comes natural. This,
as I'm sure you realize, has become a major sticking point in Rogers' theory. People say, sure, do what comes natural -- if you are a
sadist, hurt people; if you are a masochist, hurt yourself; if the drugs or
alcohol make you happy, go for it; if you are depressed, kill
yourself.... This certainly doesn't sound like great advice. In
fact, many of the excesses of the sixties and seventies were blamed on this
attitude. But keep in mind that Rogers meant trust your real self, and you can only know what your real self
has to say if you are open to experience and living existentially! In
other words, organismic trusting assumes you are in contact with the
actualizing tendency.
4. Experiential freedom.
Rogers felt that it was irrelevant whether or not people really had free
will. We feel very much as if we do. This is not to say, of course,
that we are free to do anything at all: We are surrounded by a
deterministic universe, so that, flap my arms as much as I like, I will not fly
like Superman. It means that we feel free when choices are available to
us. Rogers says that the fully functioning person acknowledges that feeling of
freedom, and takes responsibility for his choices.
5. Creativity. If
you feel free and responsible, you will act accordingly, and participate in the
world. A fully functioning person, in touch with actualization, will feel
obliged by their nature to contribute to the actualization of others, even life
itself. This can be through creativity in the arts or
sciences, through social concern and parental
love, or simply by doing one's best at one's job. Creativity as Rogers uses it is very close to Erikson's generativity.
All
of Rogers terms defining a fully- functioning person conflict with those of a
psychopath. An example of a non-fully functioning individual was Ted Bundy. Ted
Bundy was a notorious serial killer who murdered hundreds of innocent
women. He lacked many qualities of a
fully- functioning individual.
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