A Therapist’s View of Personal Goals

2021 Reprint of the 1960 Edition. Facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. In this essay, delivered as an address at Haverford College, Pennsylvania in 1959, Rogers discusses man’s purpose and goal in life. In his therapeutic work Rogers sees clients take such directions as: away from facades; away from 'oughts'; away from meeting expectations; away from pleasing others; toward being a process; toward being a complexity; toward openness to experience; toward acceptance of others; toward trust of self. Given a therapeutic climate of warmth, acceptance, and empathic understanding, the client moves from what he is not toward 'being,' toward becoming that which he inwardly and actually is.  Quoting Kierkegaard, 'to be that self which one truly is.' A worthy goal indeed.