Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers was born January 8, 1902, and trained as a psychologist at a time when the field either dissected the unconscious or rewired behavior in labs. He went another way: person-centered therapy, where the clinician's job was to create conditions for the client's own growth, not to diagnose or direct. The approach spread beyond the consulting room into classrooms, organizations, anywhere people gathered. The American Psychological Association gave him its research prize in 1956 and its practice prize in 1972. A 1982 survey of U.S. and Canadian psychologists named him the most influ…