Rogers' self theory.

Abstract

Rogers' Self Theoryroughout the long history of man's curiosity about the causes of his conduct, and the shorter span of years since 1860 when psychology officially became a science, the question of a psychic agent which regulates, guides, and controls man's behavior has been repeatedly raised and discussed. Perhaps the most popular concept of an inner entity which shapes man's destiny is that of the soul. According to soul theory, mental phenomena are thought to be the manifestations of a specific substance which is entirely different from material substance. In the context of religious thought, the soul is considered to be immortal, free, and of divine origin. With the rise of scientific psychology, the idea of a soul or any other psychic agent such as a mind or an ego or a will or a self has tended to be firmly rejected.Within recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest among psychologists in the concept of the self. William James in his famous chapter on the self in Principles of psychology (1890, Chapter X) set the stage for contemporary theorizing, and much of what is written today about the self and the ego derives directly or indirectly from James. James defined the self or the Empirical Me in its most general sense as the sum total of all that a man can call his-his body, traits, and abilities; his material possessions; his family, friends, and enemies; his vocation and avocations and much else. James discusses the self under three headings, to wit, (1) its constit-467