Rogerian Style of Interpersonal Communication: Why is it not so Simple?

Abstract

Carl Ransom Rogers was the only psychologist nominated for the Noble Prize. His whole professional life focused on major questions, such as, how to facilitate the process of interpersonal communication? What are the most important prerequisites of effective, aiming at mutual understanding, communication? Why people are so often unable to accurately communicate, even though they do not suffer from any form of speech and language pathology? According to Rogers, the crucial components of effective human to human contact are surprisingly simple in theory. Equally unexpected is that they are very difficult to implement into daily practice. Rogers’s main concepts can be signaled by simple terms: non-directive approach, active person centered listening, transparency, congruency, unconditional positive regard, empathy and suspension of judgment. In the first part of our article, we review the Rogerian major frame of thinking and we add some comments on it. In the second section of our paper, we indicate selected obstacles disrupting practical use of his style of communication e.g. work overload and burnout, or disturbances caused by personality disorders.