Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 - February 4, 1987) was a psychologist who was instrumental in the development of non-directive psychotherapy (Rogerian psychotherapy, also known as Person centred psychotherapy). His basic tenets were unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathic understanding demonstrated by the counselor are necessary and sufficient to create a relationship conducive to allowing the client to fully experience their phenomenological field, or self.

Born in Oak Park, Illinois. His father was an engineer, his mother a housewife and devoted Christian. Following an education in an strict, religious and ethical environment, he became a rather isolated, independent and disciplined person, and acquired a knowledge and an appreciation for the scientific method in a practical world. His first career choice was agriculture, followed by religion. At age 20, following his 1922 trip to Beijing for an international Christian conference, he started to doubt his religious convictions; to help him clarify his career choice, he attended to a seminar entitled 'Why am I entering the ministry?', after which he decided to change career.

He signed-up to the psychology program in Chicago, and obtained his Ph.D. in 1931. He taught and practiced at Ohio State (1940), the University of Chicago (1945) and the University of Wisconsin (1957). However, following several internal conflicts at the department of psychology of Wisconsin, Rogers became disillusioned with academia. He received an offer at La Jolla for research, where he remained, doing therapy, speeches and writing until his sudden death.

Rogers also made a significant impact upon Education Psychology, a field in which his views are generally regarded as Humanist. He also developed a theory of experiential learning, which he contrasted to what he called "cognitive learning."

Rogers' idea of the 'fully functioning person' involved the following qualities, which show marked similarities to Buddhist thinking.

• Openness to experience
  • The accurate perception of one's feelings and experience in the world.
• Existential living
  • Living in the present, rather than the past (gone) or the future (yet to come).
• Organismic trusting
  • Trusting one's own thoughts and feelings as accurate. Do what comes naturally.
• Experiential freedom
  • To acknowledge one's freedoms and take responsibility for one's own actions.
• Creativity
  • Full participation in the world, including contributing to others' lives.

Computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum's famous 1966 computer program, Eliza tried to simulate a therapy session with a human Rogerian therapist. It works by applying simple transformation rules to the users input in order to construct questions and reflect the content of the statements that the user makes. Some people are impressed by Eliza's performance in such situations , especially when this performance is compared to the simplicity of the program. Others have noted that Eliza's responses become noncoherent when users make nonstandard statements, and that Eliza does not understand anything of what the user says. Weizenbaum described Eliza as providing a "parody" of "the responses of a nondirective Rogerian psychotherapist in an initial psychiatric interview.

Rogers and some colleagues are also the founders of "Group Encounter" (for young people, managers etc.) and of Marriage Encounter (ME).

See also:

• Buddhism
• Christianity
• Communication
• Person centred psychotherapy
• Humanistic psychology