Quote of the Day: Psychologist Carl Rogers on Self-Acceptance, Change and Personal Growth

Known as “one of the founders of humanistic psychology,” per the American Psychological Association (APA), Carl Rogers developed the person-centered, or client-centered, approach to psychotherapy. This type of therapy is probably what most of us are used to, as it’s therapy where “the therapist acts as a facilitator in sessions, per VeryWellMind. And not only did Rogers create client-centered therapy, but he also believed that therapists should accept clients without judging them, which is called “unconditional positive regard.” And for Parade’s quote of the day, Rogers’s words about self-acceptance really hit on a good therapeutic approach. 

Rogers was born in 1902 in Oak Park, IL, as the fourth child of six children. His father was a civil engineer, and his mother was a housewife. Rogers went on to do very well in school, even skipping two grades—kindergarten and first grade. Initially, he was going to go to college for theology, enrolling in a seminary college. However, he started to question his faith after attending a student seminar on religion, and was inspired to make the move over to psychology after taking a course taught by Leta Stetter Hollingworth, who is best known for researching “gifted” children and studying the psychology of women.

That switch made history, as Rogers went on to become one of the most distinguished minds in psychology, even becoming APA President in 1947. In addition to client-centered therapy and unconditional positive regard, some of his most influential theories included self-actualization, the development of self, congruence and the “fully-functioning person,” per VeryWellMind. Similar to Erik Erikson’s stages of development, Rogers believed that developing a “health self-concept” was an ongoing process that was molded by someone’s life and what they experience.

So in today’s quote, Rogers speaks about the concept of accepting yourself where you’re at in that growing process. And in doing so, you’re able to continue evolving and changing.

Related: Quote of the Day: Psychologist Abraham Maslow on Personal Growth, Success and Stepping Out of Our Comfort Zones

Quote of the Day by Carl Rogers

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

This quote comes from Rogers’s book On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. It’s in the first chapter, called “This Is Me,” under Part I, “Speaking Personally.” In this chapter, he talks about the “development of [his] professional thinking and personal philosophy,” and it combines two of his talks that he considers “very personal.”

This work was first published in 1961 and is one of his best-known books. It’s a collection of “essential essays” by Rogers and touches on several of his main theories. 

Related: Quote of the Day: Psychologist Angela Duckworth on Effort, Talent and ‘Unmet Potential’

Deeper Meaning of Carl Rogers’s Quote—Self-Acceptance and Personal Growth

Before this quote, in the book, Rogers shares a “learning,” or lesson: “I find I am more effective when I can listen [acceptingly] to myself, and can be myself.” In listening to himself more, he is better at figuring out how he feels in any given situation or moment. Essentially, he’s better off and can accept himself more easily when he lets himself “be what I am,” Rogers writes. 

Right before the above quote, he writes that “this must seem to some like a very strange direction in which to move.” But he then explains that it “seems” to him “to have value,” because: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

He then says that, thanks to his clients and through his own experiences, he learned: “That we cannot change, we cannot move away from what we are, until we thoroughly accept what we are. Then change seems to come about almost unnoticed.”

So, with his beliefs and the meaning behind his main theories as context, this quote means exactly what it says: you can’t continue to learn and grow if you can’t accept yourself for where you are right now. With all your flaws and failures, in your incompleteness and humanity, you need to accept yourself for every bit of it. Because once you’re honest with yourself about where you are and who you are, you’ll know what work you need to do to transform. You can change and evolve into a better version of yourself once you know what you need to work on.

Related: Quote of the Day: Psychologist B.F. Skinner on Perseverance, Reframing and Never Giving Up

More Quotes from Carl Rogers

• “People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a bit on the right-hand corner.’ I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”
• “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”
• “What is most personal is most universal.”
• “What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly.”
• “a person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.”
• “I’m not perfect… But I’m enough.”

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