Carl Rogers

Eventually I am going to briefly explain the important parts of these chapters because I need to take up some room and I am not quite sure about what to write. So here is a little description of what, like it or not, this paper is going to contain. I’ll start of with my thoughts and feelings about the structure and uniqueness of The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child, then get into the actual body of the book and talk about what I thought was interesting and what I think is still used today. Of course using my petite knowledge about the psychology of today and modern-day institutions and therapy. After that I am going to delve into Way of Life and do the same thing. The Way of Life section will probably be considerably shorter because of my limited interested in the book and my blatant laziness. Plus we had to have two sources and I decided to pick the two books that he wrote near the beginning of his career and near the end.

There were a few stylistic things about the book that impressed me enough to include them into this paper. First off, it was written in 1939 when the study of psychology was in its infancy. At the end of every chapter or section throughout the book there is a bibliography showing every source that was cited. I think this is a very clever way to let people know that there is a science behind psychology and it is not all blind conjecture. I think that was very insightful and very much a slap in the face to everyone that didn’t believe in psychology (of course if they put no stock in psychology they would not have read the book, but hey he tried).

Preface

“The primary purpose of this volume is to describe and discuss the variety of treatment skills actually used in clinical work. These ‘ways of practice,’ which have been evolving over a score of years, are set forth in organized fashion, in hope that their presentation will lead to a better understanding of treatment techniques and a more critical consideration of their use.” This guy seems to genuinely want to establish psychology as a science and I think it is neat how easily he can simultaneously write to an audience of professionals in their field to someone like me with absolutely no background in psychology.