How to “Just Be Yourself” — The Congruence of Carl R. Rogers
Several years ago, I attended a six-week training program designed by the religious organization that I was part of to prepare qualified members for leadership responsibilities in the group. It was pretty intense. There was a lot of discussion of Bible doctrine, the organization’s mythology, as well as operational policy.
But there was also a lot of talk about personality. For example, we were told to have the “mind of Christ” from 1 Corinthians 16. And to put on the new self of Ephesians 4:24, which “in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (New American Standard). Regrettably, these verses were used to promote submission and obedience to the organization. Extrapolations were made to the kind of TV shows we would watch, how we would use social media, and how we would dress and groom ourselves.
At the end of the six weeks, we were given a small stipend and an assignment in a different state where we would assist with a congregation. Naturally nervous about the upcoming assignment, I remember I was told by one of my instructor: “Just be yourself”.
Just be yourself. I know that I’m neither the first to have received such banal advice, nor will I be the last. But after the lengths to which the curriculum had just gone to conform our thinking and behavior to Biblical theology, it felt particularly inadequate. “Just be yourself” is not sufficiently complex for me to use as a strategy for existence.
What he meant, of course, was to be genuine, authentic. These are personality styles that are valued in Western society, both inside and outside the microcosm of my religious group. Genuineness is a quality that we can easily spot when it’s present in a person. And yet, if a person is not genuine, it would be very difficult to precisely define the quality, let alone provide a framework to help the individual manifest it. This is where Carl Rogers comes in, the father of person-centered psychotherapy, and his theory of congruence.
It’s Hard to “Just Be Yourself”
Emerging from a collectivist group characterized by uniformity of thought tends to leave ex-members with a heightened awareness of social influence and thought conformity, not only within the religious institution itself, but also in society as a whole, and the infrastructures that make up society at large. The response to the trauma of losing oneself in a total environment is often a dogged rejection of attempts to influence your thinking, however benign they may be. In this state of hypervigilance to manipulation, it is not easy for an individual to explore oneself, and to understand what genuineness means for them.
Confounding the situation is the selflessness that can be attained through mindfulness practice; perceiving and experiencing the self as an illusion and consciousness. Going one step further is the ego death experience during psychedelic trips, wherein many report the dissolution of the self into a feeling of universal oneness. Deconstructing the illusory self in these ways can have the beneficial effect of loosening one’s grip on a rigid self-concept. But it doesn’t do much to answer the question of how to be genuine or authentic and real-time.
Also, there is the paradox of assuming that you know yourself and then basing self-representation decisions on those assumptions, communicating them by way of conceptual labels to others, only to find that the assumptions are just self-fulfilling prophecies. The illusory self-identifiers don’t allow for the factor of time and the development and maturation of the self across the lifespan. In the face of such change, previous assumptions of the self, now plastered on a bumper sticker, or worse yet (my biggest fear) tattooed on my neck, can actually become a restriction on genuine self-expression in light of the plasticity of the self.
You understand my confusion.
Carl R. Rogers & Existential Humanism
This quandary sets the stage nicely for the congruence of Carl Rogers. Rogers’ theory of congruence and its criteria are refreshingly precise. I have found that they can be applied in real time and provide a useful framework even during challenging social interactions.
Carl Rogers was a humanist psychologist, popular to laypeople and therapists alike back in the 50s and 60s because of his popular writings on the subject of client-centered therapy. Even today, his views are well esteemed among therapists and clinical professionals. I have the book On Becoming a Person by — A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy by Carl Rogers. The introduction, written by Peter D. Kramer, says “it’s ironic that while Rogers ideas are in the ascendant, so much so that they are now attacked as powerful cultural assumptions in need of revision. His writings are in eclipse. This is a shame because a culture should know where its beliefs originate. And because Rogers writing remains lucid, charming, and accessible” (Kramer, 1995). Kramer is right. When you go back and read Rogers’ work today, you’ll notice that a lot of the themes that he popularized are part of the cultural zeitgeist today, particularly in self-help and conversations around mental well-being.
Rogers’ philosophical approach is referred to as existential humanism, a branch of existentialism that was popular in the 1940s and 1950s. According to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Dictionary of Psychology, “existentialism represents a turning away from systematic philosophy, with its emphasis on metaphysical absolutes and principles of rational certainty, and towards an emphasis on the concrete existence of a human being thrown into a world that is merely given and contingent. Such a being encounters the world as a subjective consciousness, condemned to create its own meanings and values in an absurd and purposeless universe” (APA, 2020).
Existential humanism is based on this foundation and is an approach that places greater weight on the inner subjective human experience. After all, if we cannot determine an overarching meaning to the world, then it is up to the individual to self create meaning and purpise. Existential humanism is also based on the assumption (you might even call it a belief) that each person has a predilection towards psychological maturation, self-understanding, and ultimately, self-actualization (attaining the fullness of one’s potential and talents). So despite its association with existentialism, humanism really is quite a positive, optimistic theory and is particularly useful in the therapy room.
Client-Centered Psychotherapy
Rogers is best known for developing person-centered psychotherapy; which later came to be called client-centered psychotherapy. This was a paradigm shift for psychotherapy at the time and is the reason why now, when you go to a therapist’s office, you’re referred to as a client, and not as a patient. Rogers acknowledged and took accountability for the power differential that occurs between the clinical professional and the individual seeking help and addressed this dynamic by asking that therapeutic professionals be genuine rather than appeal to authority as had been done in the past by helping professionals.
In fact, on page 30, of my copy of On Becoming a Person, there’s a chapter titled, “How Can I Be of Help? — I have found a way of working with individuals, which seems to have much constructive potential” (Rogers, 1995). This is the classic modest language of Carl Rogers, addressing himself as a human, just like his clients.
I know what that feels like to be asked in a therapeutic room, how can I be of help? When I finally mustered the courage to seek psychiatric help for the first time, I remember being extremely apprehensive in the office. The psychiatrist looked me in the eye and said, “how can I help”? It was incredibly refreshing at the time. Although I was struggling and everybody in my life knew it, this was the first time anybody had asked how they could help.
Rogers puts it this way in On Becoming a Person. He says, “Thus, we can say with some assurance, that a relationship characterized by a high degree of congruence or genuineness in the therapist, by a sensitive and accurate empathy on the part of the therapist, by a high degree of regard respect liking for the client by the therapist. And by an absence of conditionality in this regard, will have a high probability of being an effective therapeutic relationship” (Rogers, 1995).
You will notice in that passage three criteria that would go on to become the foundation for Rogerian therapy or client-centered therapy.
- A sensitive and accurate empathy
- Universal positive regard — a liking for the client by the therapist absent of any conditionality in this regard.
- A high degree of congruence or genuineness in the therapist.
Defining Congruence
Interestingly, congruence is not identified as a goal of therapy, but rather a requirement for the therapist. Rogers explains that when a therapist seeks to understand the challenges of the client and truly absorb them at the experiential level, he or she will be changed psychologically. In a sense, the therapeutic relationship becomes an opportunity for the therapist to develop their own genuineness. Being truly present in the therapy room will lead to psychological maturity in the helping professional and deepen their ability to be congruent in every interaction, whether it’s therapeutic or otherwise. In sum, performing psychotherapy with congruence leads to greater congruence in both the therapist and the client.
This is the magic of Rogerian therapy (by magic, I mean social-affective neuroscience). Being a scientist as well as a therapist, Rogers removed himself from his humanist beliefs and tested his theory time and time again to show the effectiveness of these three elements of psychotherapy. He wrote extensively about how this framework could be applied to creativity, education, and even foreign policy. In fact, Rogers goes so far as to title chapter 18, in his book On Becoming a Person, “A Tentative Formulation of a General Law of Interpersonal Relationships”.
Fortunately, when it comes to genuineness, Rogers doesn’t just tell us to be ourselves, but rather provides a robust definition of congruence. He puts it this way:
“With one individual, we recognize that he not only means exactly what he says, but that his deepest feelings also match what he is expressing. Thus, whether he’s angry or affectionate or ashamed or enthusiastic, we sense that he is the same at all levels, in what he is experiencing at an organismic level. In his awareness at the conscious level, and in his words, and communications, we know exactly where he stands. And we tend to feel comfortable and secure in such a relationship” (Rogers, 1995).
Did you notice there the three criteria of congruence?
- The experience at the organismic level. Our sensation of affect, emotion, and essence of the mind.
- Our awareness at a conscious level. One would have enough psychological sophistication to be able to notice emotional sensations and interpret them accurately.
- Bodily and linguistic communication would be in harmony with the organismic experience (1), and the interpretation of that experience in consciousness (2).
To explain the concept further, Rogers gives two examples.
“Perhaps the simplest example is an infant. If he’s experiencing hunger at the physiological and visceral level, then his awareness appears to match this experience. And his communication is also congruent with this experience. He is hungry and dissatisfied. And this is true of him at all levels. He is one unified person all the way through whether we tap his experience at the visceral level, the level of his awareness, or the level of communication” (Rogers, 1995).
Conversely, to demonstrate incongruence, Rogers gives the example of a group of men having a discussion and one man getting angry because his point of view is not accepted by the rest of the group. A friend says to the man, “You don’t have to get angry about it”. The man replies with surprise, “I’m not getting angry. I don’t feel anything at all about this!” It’s obvious that this person is out of congruence. If tapped at multiple levels of his experience, we will not find harmony.
Rogers firmly seats his theory of congruence in the existential foundation; an important part of being congruent and genuine in a practical sense. He says:
“If an individual is at this moment entirely congruent, his actual physiological experience being accurately represented in his awareness and his communication being accurately congruent with his awareness, then his communication could never contain an expression of an external fact. If he was congruent, he could not say that rock is hard, he is stupid, you are bad, or she is intelligent. The reason for this is that we never experience such facts. Accurate awareness of experience would always be expressed as feelings, perceptions, meanings from an internal frame of reference, I never know that he is stupid or you are bad, I can only perceive that you seem this way to me. Likewise, strictly speaking, I do not know that the rock is hard. Even though I may be very sure that I experienced it as hard if I fall down on it. If the person is thoroughly congruent, then it is clear that all of his communication would necessarily be put in a context of personal perception” (Rogers, 1995).
The beauty and magic of congruence is reiterated by Rogers himself when he says, “the greater the congruence of experience awareness and communication on the part of one individual, the more the ensuing relationship will involve a tendency toward reciprocal communication with a quality of increasing congruence; a tendency toward a more mutually accurate understanding of the communications, improved psychological adjustment and functioning in both parties, mutual satisfaction in the relationship” (Rogers, 1995).
Should I Always Be Congruent?
These are surely worthy relationship goals. But lest we get too romantic about this concept, Rogers does go on to identify a natural roadblock to congruence — self-defense. Rogers puts it this way. He asks:
“Do I dare to communicate myself as I am? Or must my communication be somewhat less than or different from this? The sharpness of this issue lies in the often vividly foreseen possibility of threat or rejection, to communicate one’s full awareness of the relevant experience is a risk in interpersonal relationships, it seems to me that it is the taking or not taking of this risk, which determines whether a given relationship becomes more and more mutually therapeutic, or whether it leads in a disintegrative direction” (Rogers, 1995).
This is the existential responsibility of each individual — the choice as to whether their communication will be congruent, or whether they must use defense.
I like Rogers’ theory of congruence. And I don’t find it too Pollyanna for use in real life. Pragmatically, speaking, there are some relationships where truth-telling and genuineness are not to our benefit. Anybody who has worked in business and negotiation or sales knows that this is the case. However, just because one holds back from communicating the full expression of their personal experience doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not congruent. It is possible to be fully present with effective sensations and essences of mind, and have an accurate understanding of these experiences and awareness, and then choose to communicate in a way that is out of harmony with those two facts. This is the existential choice that Rogers mentions in his theory. This has value when it comes to pragmatic self-defense, for example, if one is using power tactics to strategically advance oneself in an arena. This is a context where the existential choice to be less than harmonious could have some pragmatic benefit in the short term.
But Rogers’ theory is most useful in the therapeutic relationships and other human relationships that we would like to nurture and heal us; our closest human interactions. The relationships in which we desire to be our truest selves must have high levels of congruence. Rogers’ theory also allows for the benefits of mindfulness in attaining the first two levels of congruence. During meditation, a mindfulness practitioner has the opportunity to focus their awareness on the center perception of emotional experience. Distance from this emotional perception can be attained during meditation so that the individual can more accurately interpret it in consciousness. The mindful approach can be extended beyond meditation to our normal waking consciousness and incorporated with Rogers’ framework for congruence when interacting in real-time with others. Also, congruence doesn’t deny the necessity of social pragmatism. It allows for the use of silence and assertive communication skills to effect meaningful outcomes in our social environment.
Congruence requires a daring willingness to explore our psychological defenses, the depth of our emotional experience, and to analyze the honesty of our communication with others.
It turns out that there’s a little bit more involved in “just being yourself”. Thanks to Carl Rogers for breaking it down.
References:
American Psychological Association (2020) APA Dictionary of Psychology. Retreived from: https://dictionary.apa.org/
Rogers, Carl (1995) On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. Huffton Miflfin.
