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Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies
ISSN: 1477-9757 (Print) 1752-9182 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpcp20
Re-visioning Rogers’ Second Condition – Anxiety as
the face of ontological incongruence and basis for
the principle of non-directivity in PCT therapy
Devang Vaidya
To cite this article: Devang Vaidya (2013) Re-visioning Rogers’ Second Condition –
Anxiety as the face of ontological incongruence and basis for the principle of non-directivity
in PCT therapy, Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 12:3, 209-222, DOI:
10.1080/14779757.2013.836128
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2013.836128
Published online: 18 Oct 2013.
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Re-visioning Rogers’Second Condition –Anxiety as the face of
ontological incongruence and basis for the principle of non-directivity
in PCT therapy
Devang Vaidya*
Highbury, London, UK
(Received 5 June 2012; final version received 9 March 2013)
One of Carl Rogers’six “necessary and sufficient”conditions for person-centered
therapy (PCT) is the client’s state of incongruence; the Second Condition. This article
begins with examining the meaning of incongruence in PCT theory. It questions the
adequacy of “conditions-of-worth”as the central explanatory premise for the clients’
states of incongruence and introduces the notion of “condition of un-worth”. The
Second Condition is re-evaluated by examining the PCT formulations of self, orga-
nismic experiencing and incongruence as existential touchstones. Anxiety is located on
the phenomenological ground of being human indicating ontological incongruence in
the face of death. Existential authenticity and PCT congruence are explored compara-
tively and shown as having the potential of mutually fostering one another. Non-
directivity as a guiding principle for PCT practice is reflected upon in the context of
the Second Condition.
Keywords: incongruence; Second Condition; self and organismic experience;
ontological anxiety; authenticity; non-directivity
Neubetrachtung von Rogers’zweiter Bedingung –Angst als ausdruck
ontologischer inkongruenz und basis für das prinzip der nicht-
direktivität in der PCT therapie
Eine von Carl Rogers’sechs “notwendigen und hinreichenden”Bedingungen für
Personzentrierte Therapie (PCT) ist der inkongruente Zustand des Klienten; die
zweite Bedingung. Dieser Artikel beginnt damit, die Bedeutung von Inkongruenz
in der PCT Theorie zu untersuchen. Er stellt infrage, ob die
“Wertschätzungsbedingungen”als die zentrale erklärende Voraussetzung für den
inkongruenten Zustand des Klienten überhaupt adäquat seien und führt den
Gedanken einer “Bedingung für Un-Wert”ein. Die zweite Bedingung wird re-
evaluiert, indem die PCT Begriffe “Selbst”,“organismische Erfahrung”und
“Inkongruenz”als existenzielle Pfeiler untersucht werden. Angst wird lokalisiert
auf der phänomenologischen Basis, Mensch zu sein. Es gibt ontologische
Inkongruenz angesichts des Todes. Existenzielle Authentizität und PCT Kongruenz
werden vergleichend untersucht und es wird gezeigt, dass sie das Potenzial haben,
sich gegenseitig zu stärken. Nicht-Direktivität als ein führendes Prinzip der PCT
Praxis wird im Kontext der zweiten Bedingung reflektiert.
*Email: dev.vaidya@btinternet.com
Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 2013
Vol. 12, No. 3, 209–222, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2013.836128
© 2013 World Association for Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counseling
Re-visando la segunda condición de Rogers –Ansiedad como el rostro de
incongruencia ontológica y como base del principio de no-directividad en
la terapia centrada en la persona
Una de las seis condiciones necesarias y suficientes de Carl Rogers para la terapia
centrada en la persona (TCP) es el estado de incongruencia del consultante; la segunda
condición. Este artículo comienza examinando el significado de incongruencia en la
teoría ECP. Se cuestiona la adecuación de las “condiciones de valor”como la premisa
central para explicar los estados de incongruencia de los consultantes e introduce la
noción de “condición de no-valor.”Se reevalúa la segunda condición examinando las
formulaciones del self del ECP, experiencia organísmica e incongruencia como refer-
entes existenciales. Se ubica la ansiedad en la base fenomenológica del ser humano
indicando incongruencia ontológica frente a la muerte. Se exploran comparativamente
la autenticidad existencial y la congruencia ECP y se muestra su potencial de potencir-
arse mutuamente. Se reflexiona acerca de la no-directividad como principio rector para
la práctica ECP en el contexto de la segunda condición.
Un nouveau regard sur la Deuxième Condition de Rogers –l’Anxiété, la
partie visible de l’incongruence ontologique et fondement du principe de
non-directivité dans la théorie ACP
Une des six conditions “nécessaire et suffisantes”pour la thérapie centrée sur la
personne (ACP) est l’état d’incongruence du client, la Deuxième Condition. Cet article
commence par une analyse du sens du terme incongruence dans la théorie ACP. Il
questionne l’adéquation des “conditions de valeur”en tant que prémisse de l’explica-
tion centrale des états d’incongruence chez les clients, et introduit la notion de
“condition de non-valeur.”La Deuxième Condition est réévaluée : les formulations
ACP de self, d’expériencing organismique et d’incongruence sont analysées en tant
que pierres de touche existentielles. L’anxiété est située dans le champ
phénoménologique, dans le fait d’être humain, ce qui indique une incongruence
ontologique face à la mort. L’authenticité existentielle et la congruence ACP sont
analysées de manière comparative et leur potentiel de se nourrir mutuellement est
démontré. S’ensuit une réflexion sur la non-directivité en tant que principe directeur
pour la pratique ACP dans le contexte de la Deuxième Condition.
ロジャーズの第2条件を再洞察 —
存在論的な不一致の外観とPCTセラピーの非指示性の原則の基礎としての不安
パーソンセンタード・セラピー(PCT)におけるロジャーズの必要十分条件の内
のひとつは、第2条件としてあるクライアントの不一致の状態です。本論文で
は、PCT理論における不一致の意味を検証することから始める。クライアント
の不一致の状態中心的な説明の前提として「価値の条件づけ」の適切性を取
り上げ、「非—
価値の条件づけ」の概念を紹介する。第2条件は、実存的な試金石として、自
身や有機体的経験や不一致のPCTの明確な記述を検証することによって再評価
する。不安は、死に直面して、存在論的な不一致を指摘している人間の存在
の現象学的な立場にある。実存的な確実性とPCTの一致は、比較的に探検さ
れ、相互の育成の可能性を有するものとして示されている。PCTの実践のため
の指針として、非指示性は第2条件の文脈との関係で、反映される。
Positioning incongruence on the map of PCT theory
Carl Rogers’1959 paper charts a number of his formulations on therapy, personality and
interpersonal relationships. Two essential strands in these formulations are distinguish-
able: the theory of personality and the theory of therapy.
210 D. Vaidya
Central to the personality theory is the notion of incongruence in a person between
their self-concept and organismic experience. Rogers postulated that incongruence results
from “conditions-of-worth”acquired from others to secure the positive regard necessary
for psychological maturation. In accordance with the conditions-of-worth, a person denies
or distorts in awareness certain experiences arising within the organism. This results in
estrangement from such experiences without due perception, symbolization, and integra-
tion into their sense of self. However, these experiences, being organismic, exert a force as
palpable feelings –Rogers calls this “tension”and “internal confusion”–that can prompt
awareness of their denial or distortion, and of any discordant or incomprehensible
behavior that arises as a result. Consequently, a person becomes “vulnerable or anxious.”
At the heart of the theory of therapy lies the formulation of the six “necessary and
sufficient”conditions of therapy that lead to a process of change characterized by, on the
one hand, decrease in conditions-of-worth, incongruence, and self-estrangement, while on
the other hand, increase in positive self-regard, integration of threatening experiences into
the self-concept, and “organismic actualization”in the direction of becoming “fully
functioning.”
The concept of incongruence can thus be located at the intersection of these two
theoretical strands. Incongruence emerges and sustains dynamically as a feature in
personality and is signalled in awareness by anxiety. Attempts to avoid anxiety by denial
or distortion of experience do not succeed generally since these render a person in a state
of “vulnerability or anxiousness.”“It is when UPR is communicated by the therapist in
the context of genuine empathic understanding that threatening organismic experiences
can be accurately symbolized and integrated into the self-concept and incongruence
resolved”(Rogers, 1959, p. 230).
Rogers (1957,1959) formally presented the Second Condition of therapy as the
“vulnerability or anxiousness”related to the client’s state of incongruence. Whilst listed
as the second of the six necessary conditions for PCT, I suggest that incongruence is in
fact primary since it is both the sine qua non as well as the raison d’être for therapy.
Incongruence and conditions-of-worth
Earlier, in his “19 propositions,”Rogers (1951, pp. 483–524) had described the same
dynamic process between the organism and the self-concept that he subsequently re-
formulated in 1957 and in 1959. The “propositions”refer to the subjective reality of an
individual as the “field as it is experienced and perceived”and explain behavior as the
goal-directed response of the human organism as an “organized whole”to its “phenom-
enal field”for satisfying its “needs as experienced.”The organism is attributed one basic
tendency, to actualise, enhance, and maintain itself –which includes: “to behave defen-
sively in the face of threat.”These propositions, offered as hypotheses and assumptions,
include an account of how internalization of values received in childhood can lead to
distortion of experience into self-awareness and that a person’s behavior may conse-
quently become inconsistent with the structure of the self. Key aspects of these proposi-
tions were encapsulated within Rogers’(1957,1959) later formulations of “incongruence”
and “conditions-of-worth”, terms that he seldom, if ever, used either before or since.
I think the syntactical and idiomatic modifications of Rogers’(1951) propositions in his
later re-formulations can at times lead PCT to be mistakenly portrayed as a therapy that aims
for self-actualization through dissolution of conditions-of-worth, and closing the gap of
incongruence between “organismic experience”and “self-concept.”Whilst to some extent a
feasible aim in many specific situations, overly concentrating on this formulation of PCT
Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies 211
theory could restrict its applicability to only those cases whichcan be conceptually linked with
incongruence resulting from conditions-of-worth internalized in childhood.
For Rogers, what is fundamental to psychological growth is the provision of UPR for
all of an individual’s experiences. Warner (2000, p. 147) explains this as an environment
of empathic attunement that facilitates the processing of organismic experiences. For her,
(Warner, 2000,2007,2009), congruence emerges as a range of such capacities which
grow in the context of formative relationships.
I therefore propose a shift of emphasis towards congruence to mean adequate capacity
to process specific life experiences. I will later suggest that self and organism are
ultimately irreconcilable, and hence incongruence can be regarded as an “existential
given.”But first I argue that although conditions-of-worth can cause incongruence-related
anxiety, sometimes their lack can lead to a pronounced and intractable “condition of un-
worth”indicated by severely depleted capacities for experiential processing.
Conditions-of-worth and condition of un-worth
Rogers (1959, p. 210) states that “a condition of worth, because it disturbs the valuing
process, prevents the individual from functioning freely and with maximum effective-
ness”, adding that “if an individual should experience only unconditional positive regard,
then no conditions-of-worth would develop….[and]…the individual would continue to be
psychologically adjusted (p. 224)”. I think this can lead to a misunderstanding that since
the presence of conditions-of-worth indicates a lack of unconditional positive regard, the
absence of conditions-of-worth would automatically indicate the presence of uncondi-
tional positive regard. I argue against the case for “conditions-of-worth”as a satisfactory
explanation for client’s incongruence on the basis that distress can often be equally, if not
significantly more, intense or pervasive in the absence of any coherent conditions-of-
worth.
In many cases an absence of conditions-of-worth can point to a severe lack of positive
regard leading to a profound and intractable sense of “condition of un-worth,”or as
Proctor (personal communication, 10th January, 2012) suggests “unconditional un-worth”
or “unconditional lack of positive regard.”This is evident in clients who have experienced
sinister levels of neglect or abuse in childhood or later on in life, for either being born
with “wrong”physical characteristics such as gender, skin colour, disability, or for merely
being “in the wrong place at the wrong time”as in the case of children conceived in
socially condemned relationships. Other instances include children raised by “care-givers”
with seriously depleted capacities for providing empathic care. Such factors, marked by a
severe paucity of positive regard, can lead to poorly developed capacities in a person for
processing experience in tune with their organismic valuing, and this in turn can result in
susceptibility to intense levels of anxiety. Tendencies to experience intense levels of
emotional fragility as well as a generalized sense of futility, despair, defeat, or distress,
are often actualized in persons who are persistently deprived of minimal levels of positive
regard from significant others. Psychological services in the statutory and community
sectors are accessed regularly by clients who carry a diagnostic label of “borderline
personality disorder”or similar, whose early chaotic life experiences are characterized
by a profound lack of positive regard alongside an absence of conditions-of-worth. In
comparison, “realistic”conditions-of-worth accompanied by a measure of positive regard
would seem like a life-line to them.
212 D. Vaidya
Incongruence as insufficient capacity to process experience
I think it is necessary to direct the focus away from conditions-of-worth as the central
explanation for incongruence since neither their absence nor presence can assure the
presence of positive regard, and it is the latter which Rogers (1959) associates with an
ability to function effectively –i.e. process experience with congruence.
A number of PCT theorists support a view of incongruence as being rooted in an array
of interplaying factors; a view that renders incongruence an ongoing “process”of
psychological maturation as well as a “state”. Warner (2000) provides a model of adaptive
strategies in terms of “fragile”and “dissociative”processes for explaining ways of
compensating for deficiencies in processing capacities. She (Warner, 2000,2007,2009)
writes about empathic failure in childhood as a causal factor, and explains (2009, p. 119)
that an “environment of evolutionary adapted-ness”characterized by UPR and empathy
fosters the growth of capacities for holding experiences in attention, moderating their
intensity, and meaningfully taking in an external view point. Without adequate socio-
environmental provision, growth of these processing capacities can be impeded not only
by conditions-of-worth, but also through vulnerabilities of childhood trauma, severe early
neglect, and biological or temperamental factors (Warner, 2009).
Speierer (1996, p. 300) regards person-centred therapy as the “treatment for incongruence”
suggesting that incongruence is at the root of all psychological distress. He introduces the
“differential incongruence model”comprising the social-communicative strain (including
conditions-of-worth), genetic or injury-related physiological vulnerabilities, and traumatic
life-events such as crimes and accidents. I would add to these, “impersonal”socio-political,
global and ecological events that affect populations across the planet whose representatives
increasingly seek counseling as victims of violent conflict, torture, terrorism, and natural or
technological disasters. Few human beings can remain fully congruent whilst facing –or
having once faced –experiences of such magnitude.
Given the dynamic complexity that can impinge upon the capacity to process orga-
nismic experience, the relevance of PCT could be unduly constricted if uncovering hidden
conditions-of-worth and dismantling them as though they were a structural hindrance
to personality development were to be considered intrinsic to practice. Such a meta-
psychology would potentially undermine PCT’s relational and phenomenological basis,
deviate from the client’s frame of reference, and bring into question its effectiveness to
address all forms of human distress.
Most PCT practitioners would attest that although loosening the stranglehold of
limiting beliefs and values learnt in childhood, and indeed throughout one’s life, is of
therapeutic relevance to clients, in practice the six conditions of therapy are “necessary
and sufficient”for many a client situation that cannot be fully explained in terms of
incongruence resulting from “conditions-of-worth.”In view of the foregoing, I contend
that no person, regardless of their history of conditions-of-worth, or receiving UPR and
empathy, can be defined as congruent or incongruent in general and for all times since
congruence is always experience-specific and context-bound. It would be more precise to
say that a person is more or less congruent –or incongruent –in any given situation
relative to other situations, or relative to other persons in any given situation, and over a
period of time. The very next situation that arises in any person’s life might involve
experiences that could well be within their capacity for tolerance, or it might be too severe
to cope without denial or distortion.
Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies 213
Self and organismic experience –existential touchstones
Rogers is seldom proclaimed as a philosopher or an existentialist. However, throughout his
writings on therapy we find a consistent theme that is deeply existential. This theme is the
twinned notions of self and organism, which also serves to set PCT distinctly apart from other
humanistic therapies, as well as psychoanalysis and its two main offshoots, namely object-
relations and self-psychology. Rogers’notion of self-as-process dovetails with some Eastern
and Western philosophies and I suggest that re-evaluating the meaning and significance of the
Second Condition in this light can open exciting possibilities for PCT.
Buddhist philosophy takes a process view of human beings by its disavowal of the
notion of a fixed self. Accordingly, being human entails a confrontation with the reality of
impermanence and uncertainty, of no-self (self which is not a fixed-self), and no-body
(body which is not a fixed body). These go hand in hand with mortality and its harbingers:
illness and infirmity, and deterioration of physical and mental faculties with the advance
of old age. The vital process of living includes dying; this is emotionally and psycholo-
gically incongruous with the self-concept that sustains in time through memory and
appears to seek its own prolongation. The experience of self has an adhesive quality; it
tends to stick to time, and winces in its ongoing coming-apartness. For Buddha, this is the
ground for the First Noble Truth: There is suffering. I find that Rogers’notion of self/self-
concept parallel the Buddhist view, thus aligning the Second Condition with the First
Noble truth. An underlying implication in both “theories”is: Regardless of circumstances,
favourable or unfavourable, it is essential for a person to aim for building a capacity to
bear experiences that arise out of not being able to hold on to a fixed self in the context of
bodily (organismic) life. For this, both point in the direction of congruence between self
and organism through cultivating a (relatively) never-changing attitude towards the ever-
changing nature of human experience. Far from this being a case for the Aristotelian
“unmoved mover”or the Cartesian ego hovering above its affairs, striving for congruence
becomes a commitment to a way of living that involves embodying a self-concept that
emerges out of, and flows in the stream of organismic experiencing.
Rogers conceptualized two processes –experiencing (what the organism does) and
symbolizing of experience (what the self does) –which entail a form of synthesis that we
might term as “embodied understanding”or to borrow another Buddhist phrase “Right
Mindfulness,”sammasati, as mindfulness rooted in the body. Gendlin (1978) puts it as
“implicit experience that is carried forward into meaning.”Warner (2007, p.156) draws
upon Rogers’and Gendlin’s ideas to “generate a more consistently phenomenological and
process-oriented understanding of the congruence between self and experience.”
Given that symbolization of any experience involves apprehension of its content
(thoughts, feelings) as well as comprehension of its form (environment, context) and
function (behavioral response), it necessarily involves a narrative. And since narrative is a
linguistic process, it involves time. This means that between organism and self there is not
merely a gap as discrepancy, but there is also a gap as the necessary time lag. Further,
neither the organism nor the self are static; they move in relation to each other, as subject
and object, as experience and meaning, or in Rogerian terms, as phenomena of experience
and symbolization of experience.
In Western existentialism this is stated as “existence comes before essence”(Sartre,
1948, p. 26) and in PCT this could be phrased as “experience comes before self”to
convey that since the symbolizing self emerges from an experiential field it must follow
the experience itself. This would explain how even the most fluid self-concept falls behind
organismic experience. There is invariably a time lag; brief or interminably long. It might
214 D. Vaidya
take me a few minutes to process my irritation towards an errant cab-driver, weeks to
process my anger at the callousness of a friend, and years to process my grief at losing a
loved one. The time taken for integrating these experiences –at the levels of organism and
self-concept –could be regarded as periods of incongruence, marked by varying levels of
“vulnerability or anxiousness.”
A case for ontological incongruence
If it is in the very nature of the processes of self and organism to be at some variance, then
it follows that incongruence is an inevitable aspect of being human. But how do we
experience incongruence? I will now attempt to explore the phenomenology of incon-
gruence, i.e. experience in relation to the phenomena of incongruence for establishing a
case for incongruence as ontological.
Rogers (1959, p. 204) states that even when a person is unaware of incongruence,
there is yet vulnerability to anxiety, threat or disorganization, adding (p. 227) that “an
experience which is incongruent with the self-structure (and its incorporated conditions of
worth) is subceived as threatening.”This implies that incongruence, even when out of
awareness, is still experienced, at least minimally and subliminally as anxiety, in response
to the emergence of some other experience prior to it. We might say that anxiety indicates
the proximity of another experience, actual or imagined, but perceived as real, which feels
threatening to the self-concept. One is anxious always about something, no matter how
well-defined or inchoate.
If it is not always and only the conditions-of-worth, or even the lack of UPR and
empathy, then what might be construed as the ground of incongruence? What might
reliably explain the Second Condition as an existential given? I suggest that a person is
always susceptible to feelings of vulnerability and anxiousness due to the very differing
natures of process of self-concept and organismic experience as discussed above. This
raises the possibility of all anxiety as being rooted in the eventuality of death as a definite
milestone towards which every person continually advances. The absolute certainty of
dying reflects across the horizon of one’s life-time incalculable probabilities of subjective
and intersubjective contexts within which infinite permutations of unique experiential
phenomena can occur. It seems unthinkable how, given the hyper-complex matrix of
uncertain potentiality, incongruence and anxiety could ever be erased out of a person’s
experiential field. Rather, I propose, that such magnitude of pervasive uncertainty is the
source of all incongruence, rendering incongruence as ontological. Defined by mortality,
every person “actualises,”i.e. emerges, exists, and dies in the vast expanse of the Second
Condition within which other narrower, experience-specific and context-bound versions
of “day-to-day”congruence and incongruence are encountered.
Viewed thus, incongruence can be regarded as something we are thrown into by the
dint of being a person –self-concept and organismic experience –existing in time, with
anxiety (vulnerability or anxiousness) as its vital concomitant. With such pervasiveness of
incongruence, congruence can at best be conceived of as a range of capacity for proces-
sing specific organismic experiences, with greater or lesser degrees of fluidity of self-
concept. In spite of this, I suggest, a person may, following their thrust for actualization,
commit to an attitude of living congruently and recognizing instances of incongruence as
they arise. It is pertinent to note that although Rogers did not explain the origin of
incongruence, apart from the conditions-of-worth hypothesis, he did offer corresponding
formulations which concur with the ontological view of incongruence. Almost pre-
emptively he had cautioned against the view of actualization process as operating
Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies 215
“smoothly,”qualifying that “the organism moves through struggle and pain towards
enhancement and growth”(Rogers, 1951, p. 490). Rogers’(1961) process view of
psychotherapy contains a description of the shift in clients towards increasing levels of
congruence. In this, Rogers did not assert either that a person ever becomes fully
congruent or free from anxiety. Even the hypothetical fully-functioning person is regarded
as merely having “the capacity and tendency to keep his self-concept congruent with his
experience”(Rogers, 1959, p. 234).
Incongruence and existential authenticity
I now turn to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger for drawing upon his concept of
authenticity to explicate the notion of incongruence. I do this with trepidation for two
reasons. One is Heidegger’s active involvement with the Nazi movement during the
Second World War. The second is Emmanuel Levinas’s thinking on ethics which reveals
the limits of Heidegger’s ontology (Worsley, 2006). Both reasons have tempered my
enthusiasm with which I initially greeted Heidegger’s notion of authenticity.
Yet, Heidegger continues to strike a chord with my understanding of Rogers’writings
on the psychotherapy process and the notions of congruence and incongruence. Both
thinkers allude to the capacity for being genuinely one’s self in their experiential world.
Heidegger’s(1962) account of authenticity provides a critical context in which Rogers’
fully-functioning person crystallizes as a way of being rather than some transcendent,
super-human ideal. In this, neither living authentically nor being fully-functioning implies
always being fully congruent, and I think I am in agreement with both Heidegger and
Rogers when I say this. For Heidegger (1962, p. 251), every Dasein –his term that comes
close to the PCT notion of person –is “thrown towards its end.”Being authentic thus
involves “being-towards-death”. Heidegger regards death as “one’s own-most possibility”.
Only I can die my death; it cannot be delegated and it cannot be outwitted. In other words,
nothing is more mine than my death. By turning away from the world of inauthenticity,
(the world of “They,”or “das Man”) that is filled with superficiality, distractions, and
banter, one necessarily confronts the reality of being mortal that is already taking its
toll. For Heidegger (1962, p. 294), death characterizes the “impossibility of further
possibility.”Inauthenticity cannot protect us indefinitely from “Angst”which Heidegger
considers a proper response since we care about our existence.
In PCT terms we can regard this existential anxiety as the ground of overarching
incongruence in the face of death. The organismic experience of one’songoing process of
dying that is entwined with the process of living, demands a capacity for integration that
invariably falls short to some extent. This is not least due to our unceasing, nascent, self-
awareness of death, evoked as a sense of foreboding, as a hum of anxiety that we can
sometimes hear in solitude.
Once we grasp that only we can die our death, it becomes clear that only we can live
our life. When we recognize that we can only be ourselves and none other, our concern
with the world alters radically from living as others do, to living with concern for our own
possibilities. But living authentically is a precarious enterprise since our possibilities are
not unrelated to others, for we not only emerge out of, but also remain embedded in a
social context. For Heidegger, we exist not just within but also as the world with others
and their potentialities. The authentic way to meet this situation is with “anticipatory
resolute-ness.”It implies being firm in taking responsibility for our existence in the
anticipation of death and with an attitude of surrender to our irrevocably finite and
temporal nature.
216 D. Vaidya
Tudor and Worrall (2006, p. 156) state that, for Rogers, authenticity and congruence
are synonymous. I think the nuances of these terms are worth delving into for not merely
semantic but also substantive reasons. In PCT, clients are not deemed “inauthentic”
because they are in a state of incongruence. Rogers (1959, p. 207) summed up congruence
as “openness to experience”which implies both an attitude of inclusiveness towards
organismic experiences and capacity for integrating these into self-awareness. But attitude
does not always match capacity. A person who copes with difficult experiences by “being
incongruent”may yet be regarded as “authentic,”especially when being “vulnerable or
anxious”in therapy. We might say that client incongruence often reveals a concern for
living authentically.
Heidegger suggested that we fall into an inauthentic way of being to avoid existential
angst. He points to the possibility of retrieving authentic being from this fallen state,
which is similar to the PCT notion of becoming congruent from a state of incongruence.
Neither Heidegger nor Rogers claim respectively that authenticity and congruence are a
once-and-for-all matter. Cohn (2002, p. 88) has suggested that it is misunderstanding
Heidegger to regard authenticity as genuineness and inauthenticity as falseness.
In PCT also, clients who are “in a state of incongruence”are not viewed as false, ill or
morally deficient. Grafanaki and McLeod (2002) and Grafanaki (2003) propose that
congruence can vary both in intensity and consistency, elaborating that depending on
the social context, a person may even deliberately act incongruently for concerns of safety
or fear of condemnation (Grafanaki, 2003, p. 286). Speierer (1996) suggests that “PCT
includes as its aims the reduction of experienced incongruence and increased tolerance of
incongruence alongside an improved capacity for self-congruent experiencing”(p. 300,
italics added). For Rogers too, “one of the fundamental directions taken by the process of
therapy is the free experiencing of the actual sensory and visceral reactions of the
organism without too much of an attempt to relate these experiences to the self”
(Rogers, 1961, p. 80, italics added).
Equally, congruence in PCT therapists is also circumscribed by the context; the
genuineness pointing to the quality of empathy and UPR extended to clients. Grafanaki
(2003, p. 285) reports an interesting finding gleaned from client and counselor narratives:
counselor incongruence is present even in strong therapeutic alliances and that even
experienced therapists do not always feel congruent in their interactions with clients.
Grafanaki adds, citing Barrett-Lennard (1962), that congruence is “more a process, rather
than a product”and reminds us that “congruence is a complex phenomenon”(Grafanaki,
2003, p. 285). I think the complexity can be explained by the fact that the therapy
relationship is neither purely dialectical nor purely dialogical. What is shared between
therapist and client is invariably mediated by the different individual and cultural norms of
reality which are never fully reconciled. Therefore, both, incongruence in clients and
congruence in therapists, whilst necessary conditions of therapy, are not absolute qualities
by which we can evaluate the moral character of either person. It is perhaps for this reason
that the person-centred approach emphasises the non-judgemental stance so strongly.
According to Heidegger, to be authentic is to turn our face towards death even if it
means at times bearing acute anxiety. Contrary to the lay view of existentialism as the
philosophy of the morbid or the absurd, Heidegger points us to the possibility of being
resolute and self-possessed. It is by facing anxiety that we can realize our freedom to press
ahead with particular possibilities. Since there are no hierarchies in Heidegger’s notion of
authenticity, freedom necessarily entails making a choice from amongst a number of
uncertain possibilities. Only human beings can possess the capacity to make real what is
merely possible. I think this capacity links closely with Rogers’(1951)notion of the
Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies 217
actualizing tendency as being directional (pp. 487–491) and facilitative of growth in the
climate of the six conditions.
The thrust of this paper is that every person exists as an embodied being in a
continuously altering “state of incongruence.”I propose that relative to such overarching
incongruence, degrees of experience-specific and context-bound congruence may yet be
gained. Potential for realizing congruence is indicated by any current lack in capacities to
process both, incongruence-related anxieties as well as the incongruence/anxiety-provok-
ing experiences themselves. For instance, if a student is anxious about failing an exam and
not getting into law school, she can choose to “process”any of: (1) taking or not taking
the exam; (2) passing or failing; (3) getting or not getting into law school. Thus, despite
the ontological nature of incongruence, a person can attempt to actualize specific possi-
bilities in accord with their organismic valuing process.
Incongruence and existential guilt
Heidegger (1962) has more to say about authenticity which I think can open radically new
vistas of clinical relevance for the concept of incongruence in PCT practice. He presents a
notion of guilt (Schuld)as“indebtedness”to one’s being, as a call of conscience (pp. 325–327).
We face existential guilt as we begin to acknowledge that we owe ourselves taking responsi-
bility for fulfilling our authentic possibilities. Guilt can be experienced as a form of anxiety
upon realizing that we have not acted in good faith, been irresolute, or defied “Being”itself.
Guilt tends to have negative connotations in all forms of humanistic therapy. Since
PCT practice is governed by considerations of “frame of reference,”“locus of evaluation”
and “conditions-of-worth,”guilt arouses suspicion of some undesirable, extraneous value
in a person. From an existential perspective, however, guilt emerges in the context of
one’s finitude. It indicates an urgency to make amends, to take responsibility for realizing
one’s authentic potential. In PCT terms, existential guilt can be construed as anxiety,
signalling that distortion of one’s organismic experience has led to disavowal of personal
freedom and responsibility.
Re-evaluation of the Second Condition and implications for theory and practice
of PCT
Worsley (2006, p. 209) acknowledges the criticality of the philosophical roots for main-
taining the identity and purpose of PCT. Although Rogers did not cast his theory explicitly
in terms of existential philosophy, I suggest that taking an ontological view of incon-
gruence gears the practice of PCT closer to his vision. Besides distinguishing PCT more
clearly from other forms of psychotherapies oriented towards “treating mental disorders,”
regarding incongruence as ontological serves three other purposes:
First, it broadens the scope of the Second Condition beyond its customary meaning of
incongruence as a discrepancy between organismic experience and self-concept resulting
from childhood conditions-of-worth. Proctor (personal communication, 10 January 2011)
emphasizes that “conditions-of-worth”is merely a hypothesis; Rogers never intended it to
be an exhaustive explanation. She suggests that acute distress can result from abusive and
unethical power structures that set up “conditions-of-worth”in larger spheres of social
life. Proctor (2002) and Proctor and Napier (2004) offer a compelling re-formulation of
the concept through writing about politically disempowered and socially marginalized
clients, highlighting that distress can exist for reasons entirely beyond personal control.
Proctor (2008) goes on to show, for example, how feminist theories demonstrate that
218 D. Vaidya
socialized gender roles are in fact gender-based conditions-of-worth which ultimately
limit the potential of both men and women in society.
Proctor (2002,2008) and Proctor and Napier’s(2004) enlargement of the concept to
include societal levels of conditions-of-worth, Warner’s(2007,2009) critique of condi-
tions-of-worth as well as her formulations of “fragile process”and “dissociative process”
(Warner, 2000), Speierer’s Differential Incongruence Model (1996), and the concept of
“condition of un-worth”that I propose, are but preliminary steps towards expanding the
meaning of the Second Condition beyond Rogers’tentative formulations on personality-
development.
From an existential perspective, anxiety can be regarded as an appropriate and vital
response to mortality and temporality within which all personal, social, cultural, historical
and ecological elements of human experience are embedded. Anxiety is rooted in the
irredeemable condition of limited worth, or impending ultimate “un-worth”–dying, that
entwines the process of being alive. After all, no person is conditionally or uncondition-
ally worthy of living forever. This does not mean that the more congruent a person
becomes, more anxiety-ridden their life will be. On the contrary, a person can strive to
increase their capacity for accepting anxiety through realization that self by its very nature
is conceptual and thus insubstantial, transient, even illusory.
Second, placing PCT on an existential footing where anxiety is regarded as an
ontological “given”allows us to hold the process of therapy in an understanding that
every particular experience of anxiety and incongruence has ontological roots. The
medical and psychoanalytic antecedents of psychotherapy continue to limit the perception
of client difficulties in the nomenclature of psychopathology. However, by exploring the
existential frontiers of incongruence we can go beyond the concepts of disorder, even
distress, and encounter incongruence as the call of the awakening conscience, the prompt-
ings of existential guilt and gratitude, and the pure wonder of existence expressed along
the lines of Heidegger (1962): Why are there beings at all instead of Nothing?
The philosophical quest, the moral striving, the spiritual thirst; the search for coher-
ence and meaning of the post-modern self, the plural self, the socially contingent self –
each grappling with the consequences of its own disavowal of the ground of being –can
reveal exciting and uncharted territories of incongruence for PCT practice. In each
instance we find a version of the anxious and dislocated self that is tremulous at being
out of tune with organismic life. It is perhaps a sign of ultimate incongruence in human
beings that whilst we possess the potential for concern, knowledge, meaning and action,
we are thrown into a state of never knowing whether or how this potential will be realized,
and therefore never quite knowing precisely what to do about anything at all. The
existential cry (attributed to Sartre): Everything has been figured out except how to
live, is often the silent lament in therapy –not just the client’s lament but also the
therapist’s.
We tend to encounter our own ontological incongruence as a kind of fundamental
discontent with just being “vulnerable or anxious.”Similarly, the actualizing thrust that
brings a person to therapy often emerges as unease about something that is quite vaguely
defined. Often we meet clients who “suffer”from a creative block even when professionally
their talents are richly rewarded, or those capable of sustaining intimate bonds and
yet feeling from time to time inexplicably isolated, or persons who despite their insight
and intellect are bewildered by their patterns of responding in certain situations; or those
who go through bursts of academic or artistic accomplishments within a life characterized
by despair and pessimism, and clients who have legitimate and realistic, but conflicting and
therefore unrealizable needs, values and aspirations. Rogers’definition of the Second
Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies 219
Condition: The client is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious, accurately
sums up any of these scenarios with brevity and a profound understanding of the human
predicament. The aim of therapy, rather than eradicating anxiety, can be to facilitate in
clients the growth of capacity to accept, suffer, bear-with, the self-experiencing human
organism. In PCT this is accomplished through forming a relationship characterized by the
therapist’s genuine empathy and acceptance of the client’s experience. Clients gain in
degrees capacities for congruence through acceptance of anxiety initially within the outer
relationship with therapists, and subsequently through the enlarged capacity to accept more
self-experiencing within. Congruence, acquired thus, can serve to expand a person’s overall
capacity for processing experience as well as to deepen commitment to authentic living. As
the hold of redundant beliefs, ideals, values –including conditions-of-worth –is slackened,
there could be alleviation of some situation-specific “anxiousness and vulnerability,”but
not a complete and permanent release from all feelings of anxiety. For me, the central task in
therapy is to build a reliable bond within which the sometimes painful and terrifying limits
of existence can be safely and courageously explored in order to discover the realms of
freedom accessible to us.
Third, viewing the Second Condition as ontological provides a relatively stable
foothold for the ‘vexed concept of non-directivity’(Bozarth, 2000). Given the volume of
discourse on the meaning, relevance and feasibility of non-directivity (e.g. Bozarth, 2000;
Ellingham, 2011; Frankel & Sommerbeck, 2005; Levitt, 2005) it is confounding that non-
directivity has not yet been positioned firmly on the map of the six conditions. I think this
is a crucial task, for unless non-directivity is linked to the necessary six conditions, it
cannot be considered essential to PCT.
I argue that therapists’non-directivity is indispensable to PCT practice since it is
incongruence which “directs”the client to seek therapy. It is therefore crucial that such
incongruence is allowed to become disclosed as a narrative of clients’subjective percep-
tions and experiences. Without the clarity, ability, commitment, and the discipline to work
within the client’s frame of reference, therapists risk failing to attend to the constitutive
experiences of incongruence that have brought the client to therapy in the first place.
Explicitly directive therapies tend to involve re-casting the client’s difficulties accord-
ing to pre-existing theoretical moulds, e.g. unconscious conflicts, primal trauma, true and
false self, categories of psychopathology, etc. For me, the essence of non-directivity lies in
recognizing that the experience and expression of incongruence fall in the domain of
client’s subjectivity and language. These need no re-formulation by the therapist striving
to remain close to the client’s frame of reference, with genuine UPR and empathy. Non-
directive practice secures that the language and symbols of the solution to a problem are
not separate from the language and symbols of the problem itself. Therapist non-direc-
tivity can induce a dialectical and dialogical encounter with clients, revealing aspects of
their self in terms of congruence and incongruence. Such encounter goes beyond the
notion of a working alliance, towards “relational depth,”where the presentational and
existential levels of client’s self-experiencing become differentiated (Schmid & Mearns,
2006).
The turning of the hermeneutic circle, as it were, leads to particular dimensions of a
client’s life illuminating the whole and vice-versa. Such encounter can infuse the client’s
self-concept with fluidity and facilitate un-impinged experiencing –a process which is
seldom anxiety-free but is usually nourishing also in the climate of empathy and UPR.
Growth in personal and interpersonal spheres originates as capacities for autonomous
choice, determining one’s values, and purposefully creating new life experiences that are
meaningful to a person. The organismic valuing process can yet be relied upon to guide a
220 D. Vaidya
person in all areas of their life. This is growth as Rogers’envisaged in the direction of
being “fully functioning,”not some abstract ideal of transcendence. For such growth to
occur, therapists do not need to re-construe the client’s problem according to their own
system. Heidegger’s(1962, p. 58) definition of phenomenology conveys poignantly the
stance of the non-directive therapist, especially when transcribed in a poetic form:
To let that
which shows itself
be seen from itself
in the very way in which
it shows itself
from itself.
Rogers’(1951, p. 221) call for non-directivity is in accord with Heidegger when he says:
“The client is the only one who has the potentiality of knowing fully the dynamics of his
perceptions and his behaviour”. I doubt if a more ethical, aesthetical, and radical applica-
tion of existential philosophy for the practice of psychotherapy has been articulated so
succinctly elsewhere.
Concluding thoughts
Acknowledging incongruence as existentially related to mortality expands the meaning of
the Second Condition for the practice of PCT therapy. The spiritual teachings of
Buddhism, as well as the phenomenology of Heidegger highlight the necessity and
practical usefulness of this realization. The process view of a person in PCT, as self and
organism, enables the notion of ontological anxiety, and its many existential forms such as
discontent, despair, guilt, absurdity, and boredom, to co-exist with the potential for
meeting organismic experiences with resoluteness, courage, agency, freedom, responsi-
bility and care. The existential dimension of PCT is implicit in its current form. This paper
attempts to make it more explicit as a foundation for person-centred practice.
The reflective process of writing this paper has made me appreciate more clearly the
broad applicability of Rogers’“necessary and sufficient”conditions of therapy. PCT
practice points to the very real possibility of authentic living with an inclusive attitude
towards the ontologically incongruent “no-fixed-self”that can actively participate in life
as the experience of its own onward movement towards death. It is inconceivable to me
how such an enterprise could be free from feeling “vulnerable or anxious.”Re-visioning
the Second Condition as an existential given means that the task in therapy is not
elimination of anxiety but rather developing a capacity for its full-frontal embrace in a
facilitative climate of the remainder of the six conditions.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Gillian Proctor, Soti Grafanaki, and Mike Worrall for their encouraging
comments, precise reflections, and pertinent references. Thanks also to Charlotte Macgregor for
an “existential”reading of an earlier draft.
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