Carl Rogers 1902-1987
Carl Rogers, one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy research has always been a name I have known. However, it was not until a discussion during my interview for a job at the wonderful Rainbow Horses, (a wholly child led animal assisted centre that allowed me to follow my dream to work with Equine facilitated Learning) that I was introduced to a concept he popularised, that of “unconditional positive regard.”
This idea, introduced by Stanley Standal in 1954, was expanded and popularised by Carl Rogers and underpinned his person centred approach to psychotherapy. Unconditional positive regard is, according to Rogers, “an atmosphere which simply demonstrates ‘I care’; not ‘I care for you if you behave thus and so,’ (Rogers.C, On Becoming a Person, 1967). Every day is new and fresh, every day starts again and we never stop loving the child, whatever might have happened yesterday. We don’t ignore what happened, we talk about it reparatively when the time is right, we repair and move on, but we always show unconditional positive regard.
When I heard this, it was a real light bulb moment for me, because this was exactly what I had always aimed at throughout my teaching career, but I didn’t know it had a name. It was wonderful to me to find that somebody of international renown, with a much bigger brain than me, had given a name to the thing that I had always done as part of my daily life.
Carl Rogers is there in Thrive too, so when I started training as a Thrive Practitioner in 2022, I found so much in it that made me nod, smile, shout “Yes!”and generally say to myself “absolutely,” that it has been a delightful journey for me.
