Carl Rogers: The Clinical Treatment Of The Problem Child

1. Rogers, C., & Carmichael, L. (1939). The clinical treatment of the problem child,. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

2. I chose this book because I am intrigued with the techniques and style of therapy Carl Rogers chooses to reach his clients. I also was captivated by the title of the book, “The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child” that title alone sparked some thoughts about what specifically was wrong with this child, what steps did Carl Rogers take in order to help treat the child and lastly, was the treatment successful. These are all question I had in my mind before even opening the book. Because the book already had me forming questions in my mind, it captured my interest to read and get the answers I was seeking. Lastly, I am

The theoretical approach used in the book is psychoanalysis. Although the author of the book and the main person that is being focused on is Carl Rogers, Sigmund Freud is the originator of psychoanalytic therapy. Sigmund Freud in the beginning of his career was interested on understanding the human behavior, which resulted with the famous psychotherapy that Carl Rogers used in this book. Freud was always interested in human’s unconscious state of mind, the things that took place in our unconscious in addition to thoughts and feelings that are in our unconscious. He believed the human mind was like an iceberg; it was mostly hidden in the unconscious with the conscious mind being the tip of the iceberg. He believed the unconscious held aspects of our personality and the conscious things we were already aware of. Another aspect of psychoanalysis is apparent is defense mechanisms, which according to Freud are used by the ego to protect the person from anxiety. Psychoanalysis therapy is based off of observations that individuals are unaware of they are also the factors that determine emotions and behavior. (Sigmund Freud. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2015, from

The chapters I decided to use were the first three chapters of the book. The first chapter is entitled Point of View, and the main idea of this chapter is suggesting that when dealing with a “problem child” it might be a better idea to deal with the child rather than the behavior of the child. It also speaks on the different factors that have an influence on a child’s behavior. For instance, hereditary behavior, the author seems to believe that plays a role in the child’s behavior as well as their parents due to the fact that’s where some of their behavior patterns derived from. A couple of other factors the author addressed were environmental, social, economic and companionships. Chapter two entitled methods of diagnosis main idea is about the levels of diagnosis along with methods of description and classifications, personality tests (attitude and character). They also introduced a few tests that were being used for measuring diagnosing personality, in addition to a brief description of some personality measures, which are more widely used with clinical practice. Lastly, chapter three entitled the component factor method of diagnosis main idea was on the different methods of diagnosis they introduced ideas of understanding behavior as a complex component factor and made a list of eight factors of description of methods of addressing behaviors to see which one were most effective, and finally planning treatment for the child.

7. It was surprisingly difficult to find any reviews