Critical Response

Disfavor among academics and parts of society

The contrast between Rogers's strong positive impact on clinical psychology in the real world and the lack of regard he enjoys among psychology professors in academia is impressive. Biographers Howard Kirschenbaum and Valerie Henderson note in their 1989 book, The Carl Rogers Reader, that

Rogers spent his whole life not only asserting the importance of the democratic and libertarian ideal in all human relationships, but seeking ways to accomplish that ideal. He innovated, he described, he modeled, he even proselytized. For that he won hundreds of thousands of appreciative students whose work touches millions of lives each year....he also won thousands of influential critics who have prevented Carl Rogers and the people-centered approach...