(Rogers, 1951/1995, p. 481 - 533)  

 

I) Every individual exists in a continually changing world of experience of which he is the center. 

 

II) The organism reacts to the field as it is experienced and perceived. This perceptual field is, for the individual, “reality”.  

 

III) The organism reacts as an organized whole to this perceptual field. 

 

IV) The organism has one basic tendency and striving – to actualize, maintain and expand the experiencing organism. 

 

V) Behavior is basically the goal oriented attempt of the organism to satisfy his needs as experienced, in the field as perceived.  

 

VI) Emotion accompanies and in general facilitates such goal-directed behavior, the kind of emotion being related to the socking versus the consummatory aspects of the behaviour, and the intensity of the emotion being related to the perceived significance of the behavior for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism.  

 

VII) The best vantage point for understanding behavior is from the inner frame of reference of the individual himself. 

 

VIII) A portion of the total perceptual field gradually becomes differentiated in the self. 

 

IX) As a result of the interaction with the environment, and particularly as a result of evaluational interaction with others, the structure of self is formed – an organized, fluid, but consistent conceptual pattern of perceptions of characteristics and relationships of the “I” or the “me,” together with the values attached to these concepts. 

 

X) The values attached to experiences, and the values which are a part of the self structure, in some instances are values experienced directly by the organism, and in some instances are values introjected or taken over from others, but perceived in distorted fashion, as if they had been experienced directly. 

 

XI) As experiences occur in the life of the individual, they are either a) symbolized, perceived and organized into some relationship to the self, b) ignored, because there is no perceived relationship to the self-structure, or c) denied symbolization or given a distorted symbolization because the experience is inconsistent with the structure of the self. 

 

XII) Most of the ways of behaving which are adopted by the organism are those which are consistent with the concept of self. 

 

XIII) Behavior may in some instances, be brought about by organic experiences and needs which have not been symbolized. Such behavior may be inconsistent with the structure of the self, but in such instances the behavior is not “owned” by the individual. 

 

XIV) Psychological maladjustment exists when the organism denies to awareness significant sensory and visceral experiences, which consequently are not symbolized and not organized in the gestalt of the self-structure. When this situation exists, there is a basic or potential psychological tension.  

 

XV) Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of the self is such that all the sensory and visceral experiences of the organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic level into a consistent relationship with the concept of the self. 

 

XVI) Any experience which is inconsistent with the organization or structure of the self may be perceived as threat, and the more of these perceptions there are, the more rigidly the self-structure is organized to maintain itself. 

 

XVII) Under certain conditions, involving primarily complete absence of any threat to the self-structure, experiences which are inconsistent with it may be perceived, and examined, and the structure of self revised to assimilate and to include such experiences. 

 

XVIII) When the individual perceives and accepts into one consistent and integrated system all his sensory and visceral experiences, then he is necessarily more understanding of others and is more accepting of others as separate individuals.  

 

XIX) As the individual perceives and accepts into his self structure more of his organic experiences, he finds that he is replacing his present value system – based so largely upon introjections which have been distortedly symbolized– with a continuing organismic valuing process.  

 

As the awareness of self emerges, the individual develops a need for positive regard. This need is universal in human beings, and in the individual, is pervasive and persistent. Whether it is an inherent or learned need is irrelevant to the theory. Standal (1954), who formulated the concept, regards it as the latter. 

a. The satisfaction of the need is necessarily based upon inferences regarding the experiential field of another.  

(1) Consequently it is often ambiguous. 

b. It is associated with a very wide range of the individual’s experiences.  

c. It is reciprocal, in that when an individual discriminates himself as satisfying another’s need for positive regard, he necessarily experiences satisfaction of his own need for positive regard. 

(1) Hence it is rewarding both to satisfy this need in another, and to experience the satisfaction of one’s own need by another.  

d. It is potent, in that the positive regard of any social other is communicated to the total regard complex which the individual associates with that social other.  

(1) Consequently the expression of the positive regard by a significant social other can become more compelling than the organismic valuing process, and the individual becomes more adient to the positive regard of such others than toward experiences which are of positive value in actualizing the organism.