Carl Rogers

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Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers was born January 8. 1902 in Oak Park, Illinois. His father was a successful civil engineer and his mother was a housewife. He did not start school until the second grade because he was able t o read before kindergarten. When Carl was 12, his family moved to a farm about 30 miles west of Chicago where he spent the rest of his adolescence. His parents were strict on him and made him do many chores. This is how he became rather isolated and self-independent.
Carl went on to the University of Wisconsin as an agriculture major. Then, later, he switched his studies to religion to become a minister. During this time, he went to Beijing for the “World Student Christian Federation Conference” for six months. There he decided that with all his new experiences and broadened thinking that he began to doubt some of this basic religious views.
After he graduated, he married Helen Elliot, moved to New York City, and began attending the Union Theological Seminary, a famous liberal religious institution. While there, he took a student organized seminar called “Why am I entering the ministry?” which caused him to “think his way right out of religious work.”
Rogers switched to the clinical psychology program at Columbia University, and received his Ph. D. in 1931. He had already began his clinical work at the Rochester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. At this clinic, he learned about Otto Rank’s theory and therapy techniques, which started him on the road to developing his own theory.
He was offered a full professorship at Ohio State in 1940. In 1942, he wrote his first book, Counseling and Psychotherapy. Then, in 1945, he was invited to set up a counseling center at the University of Chicago. It was while working there that in 1951 he published his major work, Client-Centered Therapy, in which he outlines his basic theory.
In 1957, he returned to teach at the University...