In his opening remarks, Rogers outlined the important points to underlie their dialog with the following statement:
Man has long felt himself to be a puppet in life, molded by world forces, by economic forces. He has been enslaved by persons, by institutions, and, more recently, by aspects of modern science. But he is firmly setting forth a new declaration of independence. He is discarding the alibis of “unfreedom.” He is choosing himself, endeavoring to become himself: not a puppet, not a slave, not a copy of some model, but his own unique individual self… To the extent that a behaviorist point of view in psychology is leading us toward a disregard of the person, toward treating persons primarily as manipulable objects, toward control of the person by shaping his behavior without his participant choice, or toward minimizing the significance of the subjective—to that extent I question it very deeply.39
When Rogers ended these opening remarks Skinner began his: “I always make the same mistake. In debating with Carl Rogers I assume that he will make no effort to influence the audience. Then I have to follow him and speak, as I do now, to a group of people who are very far from free to accept my views. In fact, I was just reminded of a story that I once heard about Carl Rogers and I will tell it now.”40
Taken from :PSYCHOLOGY’S GRAND THEORISTS How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas - Amy Demorest