C497. I think it’s both, and it seems to me that’s a beautiful statement of it. That is, that each person—I don’t care whether they’re neurotic or not—essentially has to write his own prescription. I mean, if anybody could write it for him, why fine—why have him write it himself? But when you get right down to it, who knows what steps you can take and what steps would really improve your situation? Well, you don’t know off-hand, but no
one else can tell you either.

S497. Well, I got a pretty definite conviction there that the budding healthy desire has implicit in it means to its achievement for each of the individuals, and that the fact that they do want to do something about it will give them inklings of means to employ.6 Having found this faith in his own budding healthy desire, Mr. Bryan terminates the therapy himself in the next interview.

The therapy of Herbert Bryan provides a compelling case for the nondirective method Rogers sought to introduce to his students and to the field. Using this method, the counselor apparently was able to free Mr. Bryan from the obstacles that blocked his healthy development. The counselor accomplished this not by trying toinstruct Mr. Bryan, but rather by his solid refusal to instruct.

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest

By the seventh interview Mr. Bryan has made his choice to pursue the “manly” activities of sexuality and initiative even though the struggle may be great. To deal with this struggle his prescription for himself is to force himself into difficult situations and dwell on any improvement he notices in his feelings, valuing the satisfaction he finds. Initially he begins to ask the counselor whether this prescription is a good one, but then he stops to reflect on thecounselor’s technique throughout the therapy. He says:

I was wondering whether your technique might not be to have every neurotic sort of prescribe for himself—that is—then I asked myself, does my prescription mean—does that above prescription that I made—does that mean that the technique would be generally the same for all people, or is it that every neurotic who seeks to do something about it can get an inkling of what to do in his own individual case, since he has a budding healthy desire— does that budding desire give each individual inklings of what to do for his own particular case, or is it sort of a generalized technique?

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest

If there were some cosmic yardstick, some sort of a cosmic absolute, uh—comparable to the religious person’s absolute trust in God, you see, uh—then I could have a philosophic proof that one set of values was definitely better than the other, but this way I know that I cannot have such a philosophic proof, or at least I haven’t run across it. We can never prove values—we always have to assume them. I think as a philosopher you’ll have to agree with me.

C314. I don’t know whether it’s as a philosopher, but I certainly would agree with you that, in situations of this kind, I don’t think there is any proof that could be advanced that would prove one set of values rather than the other. S315. Nothing out in the universe. It all must lie within ourselves. C315. It comes right back to the naked self pretty much, doesn’t it? Here are two general roads; which do you prefer? It comes right down to a personal and probably quite unphilosophical choice.

S316. Yes. In other words, I can’t—I can’t look to the cosmos and say, “Now which of the two roads do you approve of?” I can’t— C316. You can, and some people do, but it’s doubtful if that is what really settles it. S317. Yes, I imagine that when a person does make a change they oftentimes think that they’re doing it for God, but they’re really doing it for themselves. Well (thoughtfully}, perhaps I don’t need anything out in the cosmos, then. C317. Well, there’s just the chance that you’ve got enough within yourself.5

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest

Here’s the way I can perhaps illustrate it diagrammatically. Here (pointing to head) and here (pointing to chest) I am pretty balanced. I know exactly what I want and how to get it. But down here (pointing to lower abdomen) there’s blocking… what it amounts to is—that I’m a pagan intellectually and in my heart,but in my guts I’m a perfect puritan.4

If this, then, is the nature of Mr. Bryan’s trouble, what should the counselor do about it? Should he weigh in to support one side of the struggle and tip the balance in its favor? Although this might be the approach of a directive therapist, it is certainly not the approach this nondirective the rapist would take. What he does instead is to help Mr. Bryan to fully explore his own experience of the two sides of his struggle, stubbornly refusing to judge one side as better or worse during the course of this exploration, and to make clear that it is only Mr. Bryan who can make the choice of which path to pursue based on his own very personal values.

In the beginning of the therapy Mr. Bryan appears to look for external direction from the therapist and to feel frustrated not to get it. But the counselor persists in his unwavering faith in Mr. Bryan’s capacity to direct himself, so that by the end of the therapy Mr. Bryan has been able to develop this faith in himself as well. An important turning point occurs in the fourth interview, as Mr. Bryan muses on his wish to find some kind of external directive for his choice, if not from the therapist then from a sort of cosmic rule. He says:

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest

Later he depicts his father too as harsh and judgmental in the face of his childish explorations: I remember some very old nightmares that might be of interest. When I was very young, I could read at a very early age. I did a lot of reading. I read a book about Pike, the Western explorer after whom the Peak was named, and after I had finished the book I dreamed that I was ascending Pike’s Peak, and when I reached the summit, there was my father, looking very, very stern. His aspect was intensely forbidding.3

Thus, in childhood, Mr. Bryan experienced his parents as forbidding his explorations of sexuality and initiative. His current symptoms of blocking suggest that at some level he has come to adopt his parents’ prohibitions as his own, experiencing a physical blocking when he pursues activities of sexuality and initiative that his parents had previously forbidden.

Yet he reports that, intellectually, he values his sexuality and initiative and rejects his parents’ attitudes. The problem is, this intellectual evaluation on his part does not influence his gut feeling. He experiences an incongruity within himself, and is unable to align his gut feeling with his intellect. At the close of the first interview he tells the counselor:

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest

By using this nondirective approach, the counselor provides from the very start an atmosphere in which Mr. Bryan is able to explore his own experience of his troubles. Turning then to our second concern, what does Mr. Bryan reveal in the first interview about his troubles? As an intelligent individual who had previously tried various kinds of therapy, Mr. Bryan proves to have a sophisticated view both of the nature of his troubles and of their origin.

In his opening account we find him describing a palpable and excruciating blocking, showing itself in childhood in his speech and later in his sexuality. As the interview progresses he identifies this blocking as well in his pursuit of his work as a photographer and in other activities that he characterizes as involving “manly” initiative. Further, he locates the origin of this feeling of blocking in the harsh prohibitions his parents made of his childhood explorations of sexuality and initiative. Talking about his early exploration of sexuality he says:

My mother even whipped me one time for talking with a friend of mine. She thought it was terrible. We had noticed, well, different animals and so forth, and she was very horrified. I remember she worked up to quite a dramatic climax. She said, “Well, did you talk about locusts?” and “Did you mention animals?” and then “Did you mention human beings?” Worked up to a climax, and then she whipped me for, well, for even mentioning the facts. I suppose I assumed that if it were horrible to talk about, it would even be more horrible to do.2

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest

From the very first remark of the therapy, the counselor is taking a nondirective approach. His initial query, asking simply what is on Mr. Bryan’s mind, is very broad and allows Mr. Bryan to choose for himself how to talk about his troubles. A traditional interviewer would have had a list of specific questions to pursue in an initial diagnostic interview and might have begun the inquiry with one of these predetermined questions.

Here, the counselor makes it clear from the outset that what he wants to know is only how Mr. Bryan himself experiences his own situation. Further, when Mr. Bryan in his opening remarks makes a brief pause, the counselor simply encourages his line of thinking with a “M-hm.” This kind of response enables the client to continue to explore his experience without the therapist determining the direction of that exploration.

When a few sentences later Mr. Bryan expresses an excruciating feeling, the counselor speaks to simply reflect that feeling of pain back to him. This gives Mr. Bryan the experience of having this feeling understood without being judged, and this allows him to then go on to report times when he is free of the blocking.

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest

S2. The—in my earlier childhood the symptom of blocking which was emphasized on my consciousness was in speech. I developed a speech impediment along about the sixth grade. Then, as I matured, I noticed a blocking in sexual situations. However, not—not in the voyeuristic situation, only in an intercourse situation; oftentimes I had difficulty there. Also an unpleasant tight feeling in the lower abdomen, as if, to use an analogy, there were some sort of a cold, hard axe or some other such thing pressing against the libido in such a way as to block it.

C3. M-hm … S6. And sometimes it gets very excruciating. I just seem to be held down, as it were, blocked in all realms of life. C7. A feeling of real pain, is that what you mean? S7. Oh yes. C8. M-hm. S8. And then sometimes for short periods it mysteriously goes. I mean, there’s no particular ideology with its going. I get release, and then I’m very active and very happy during these short periods.1

We have two threads to follow in looking at the unfolding case material. On the one hand, we want to understand Mr. Bryan’s situation, to know what gives him trouble and why. On the other hand, we want to understand the process of therapy, to discover what the counselor does to help Mr. Bryan with his troubles. Let us keep an eye toward each as we look at excerpts from this case, pickingup first the thread of the counselor’s method.

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest

More than this, a detailed study of the articulate and sophisticated expressions of this intelligent client would also intimate concepts for Rogers’ yet to be conceived theory of persons. Let us look at the record of the therapy of Herbert Bryan to see how his case provided an illustration of Rogers’ theory oftherapy and the foundation for Rogers’ later theory of persons.

The full account of the case covers almost 200 published pages. Rogers reports each statement by the therapist preceded with a “C” to indicate the counselor, and each statement by Mr. Bryan preceded with an “S” to indicate the subject. He numbers these from Cl and S1 in the first interview to C614 and S614 in theeighth and final interview. The therapy begins as follows:*

Cl. Well, now, we were so concerned yesterday about these various aspects of whether or not we were to go ahead with it, that I don’t know that I have as clear a picture as I’d like to have of what’s on your mind, so go ahead and tell me. S1. Well, as accurately as I can convey the idea, I would termit a blocking which has manifestations in several fields. C2. M-hm.

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest

Herbert Bryan was a young man in his late 20s who had come to the counseling center at Ohio State for help with what he saw as deepseated problems. It was not the first time he had sought help. In high school he had attended a behaviorally oriented institute for speech defects to work on a speech impediment, but he thought the treatment too superficial and found no benefit from it.

In college he went to a psychodynamically oriented university counselor to try to get to the root of his trouble, but this too provided no help. Mr. Bryan, an intelligent man who had read widely in psychology, then tried various techniques of self-therapy, ranging from an analysis of his childhood memories to a technique of behaving as if happy. He came to the counseling center at Ohio State with the feeling that all past methods had failed him and with the hope of finding a new and this time fruitful approach.

The audiotaped recording of the eight sessions of his psychotherapy would put at Rogers’ disposal the word-for-word record of a full case of therapy. A close analysis of the particular remarks made by the counselor and their influence on the course of the therapy would allow Rogers to assess the value of his nascent theoryof therapy.

Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest