|
This post is reprinted from the February 8, 2008 post.
Coaching is all of what Carl Rogers thought therapy should be. Carl Rogers was an Esalen psychotherapist who was a leader in humanistic psychology and the Human Potential Movement. His greatest influence on the coaching field was his client-centered approach, though he died in 1987 just before coaching took root.
His approach was about the client’s goals, the client leading much of the process and not about treating mental illness or seeing clients as having problems. He believed that people were perfect and he was there to serve the client. His philosophy was that the client is the only one that can heal themselves – love, support, and unconditional positive regard in an environment of total acceptance, without judgment, allowing them to speak and we listen more than we talk.
Sounds like coaching to me! What do you think? Does this tieback to the therapy world surprise you? Or is it more a commentary on therapy that therapy isn’t what coaching now is?
If you know his body of work, what else would you say Carl contributed to the coaching field?
Vikki G. Brock, PhD, EMBA, MCC
Team Lead, Coaching History
Tweet This
Email to a friend
There is 1 Response so far...
I think that Carl Rogers’ contributions are so fundamental that we don’t even realize that many of the core principles of coaching come from him. In his 1970 book, On Becoming a Person, he wrote about being transparent, holding yourself whole, and unconditional positive regard. One thought of his that I particularly like is this: “The more open I am to the realities in me and in the other person, the less do I find myself wishing to rush in to “fix things”.