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When Someone Really Hears You Without Passing Judgment On You, Without Trying To Take Responsibility For You, Without Trying To Mold You, It Feels Damn Good. . . . When I Have Been Listened To And When I Have Been Heard, I Am Able To Re-perceive My World In A New Way And To Go On. It Is Astonishing How Elements Which Seem Insoluble Become Soluble When Someone Listens. How Confusions Which Seem Irremediable Turn Into Relatively Clear Flowing Streams When One Is Heard.

-Carl Rogers

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When Someone Really Hears

Carl Rogers

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When Someone Really Hears You Without Passing Judgment On You, Without Trying To Take Responsibility For You, Without Trying To Mold You, It Feels Damn Good. . . . When I Have Been Listened To And When I Have Been Heard, I Am Able To Re-perceive My World In A New Way And To Go On. It Is Astonishing How Elements Which Seem Insoluble Become Soluble When Someone Listens. How Confusions Which Seem Irremediable Turn Into Relatively Clear Flowing Streams When One Is Heard.

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The Organism Has One Basic Tendency And Striving - To Actualize, Maintain, And Enhance The Experiencing Organism

Each Person Is An Island Unto Himself, In A Very Real Sense; And He Can Only Build Bridges To Other Islands If He Is First Of All Willing To Be Himself And Permitted To Be Himself.

Allowance Of The Freedom Of Choices In Direction, Either For The Group Or Individuals Particularly In The Near Future.

True Empathy Is Always Free Of Any Evaluative Or Diagnostic Quality. This Comes Across To The Recipient With Some Surprise. "if I Am Not Being Judged, Perhaps I Am Not So Evil Or Abnormal As I Have Thought".

When Someone Really Hears You Without Passing Judgment On You, Without Trying To Take Responsibility For You, Without Trying To Mold You, It Feels Damn Good. . . . When I Have Been Listened To And When I Have Been Heard, I Am Able To Re-perceive My World In A New Way And To Go On. It Is Astonishing How Elements Which Seem Insoluble Become Soluble When Someone Listens. How Confusions Which Seem Irremediable Turn Into Relatively Clear Flowing Streams When One Is Heard.

We In The West Seem To Have Made A Fetish Out Of Complete Individual Self-sufficiency, Of Not Needing Help, Of Being Completely Private Except In A Very Few Selected Relationships.

There Is In Every Organism, At Whatever Level, An Underlying Flow Of Movement Toward Constructive Fulfillment Of Its Inherent Possibilities.

There Is Direction But There Is No Destination

The Paradigm Of Western Culture Is That The Essence Of Persons Is Dangerous; Thus, They Must Be Taught, Guided, And Controlled By Those With Superior Authority.

Western Culture

Learning Of All Kinds Goes On Best, Lasts Best, And Tends To Lead Itself On More When It Grows Out Of A Real Focus Of Interest In The Learner.

Life, At Its Best, Is A Flowing, Changing Process In Which Nothing Is Fixed.

I Hear The Words, The Thoughts, The Feeling Tones, The Personal Meaning, Even The Meaning That Is Below The Conscious Intent Of The Speaker. Sometimes Too, In A Message Which Superficially Is Not Very Important, I Hear A Deep Human Cry That Lies Buried And Unknown Far Below The Surface Of The Person. So I Have Learned To Ask Myself, Can I Hear The Sounds And Sense The Shape Of This Other Person's Inner World? Can I Resonate To What He Is Saying So Deeply That I Sense The Meanings He Is Afraid Of, Yet Would Like To Communicate, As Well As Those He Knows?

An Empathic Way Of Being Can Be Learned From Empathic Persons. Perhaps The Most Important Statement Of All Is That The Ability To Be Accurately Empathic Is Something Which Can Be Developed By Training. Therapists, Parents And Teachers Can Be Helped To Become Empathic. This Is Especially Likely To Occur If Their Teachers And Supervisors Are Themselves Individuals Of Sensitive Understanding. It Is Most Encouraging To Know That This Subtle, Elusive Quality, Of Utmost Importance In Therapy, Is Not Something One Is "born With", But Can Be Learned, And Learned Most Rapidly In An Empathic Climate.

It Is Astonishing How Elements That Seem Insoluble Become Soluble When Someone Listens.

Passing Judgment

I Was Forced To Stretch My Thinking, To Realize That Sincere And Honest People Could Believe In Very Divergent Religious Doctrines.

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If I Can Listen To What He Can Tell Me, If I Can Understand How It Seems To Him; If I Can See Its Personal Meaning For Him, If I Can Sense The Emotional Flavor Which It Has For Him, Then I Will Be Releasing Potent Forces Of Change In Him.

It Is The Client Who Knows What Hurts, What Directions To Go, What Problems Are Crucial, What Experiences Have Been Deeply Buried.

Openness To All Attitudes No Matter How Extreme Or Unrealistic They May Seem.

The State Of Empathy, Or Being Empathic, Is To Perceive The Internal Frame Of Reference Of Another With Accuracy And With The Emotional Components And Meanings Which Pertain Thereto As If One Were The Person.

It's An Awful Risky Thing To Live

"freedom, Individualism, Authenticity And Being Yourself So Long As You Don't Hurt Another's Physical Person Or Property: The Creative Process Is The Emergence In Action Of A Novel Relational Product, Growing Out Of The Uniqueness Of The Individual."

Empathy Is A Special Way Of Coming To Know Another And Ourself, A Kind Of Attuning And Understanding. When Empathy Is Extended, It Satisfies Our Needs And Wish For Intimacy, It Rescues Us From Our Feelings Of Aloneness.

You Know That I Don't Believe That Anyone Has Ever Taught Anything To Anyone. I Question That Efficacy Of Teaching. The Only Thing That I Know Is That Anyone Who Wants To Learn Will Learn. And Maybe A Teacher Is A Facilitator, A Person Who Puts Things Down And Shows People How Exciting And Wonderful It Is And Asks Them To Eat.

Man's Inability To Communicate Is A Result Of His Failure To Listen Effectively.

Effective Listening

A Second Characteristic Of The Process Which For Me Is The Good Life, Is That It Involves An Increasingly Tendency To Live Fully In Each Moment. I Believe It Would Be Evident That For The Person Who Was Fully Open To His New Experience, Completely Without Defensiveness, Each Moment Would Be New.

New Experiences

The Genuinely Significant Creation, Whether An Idea, Or A Work Of Art, Or A Scientific Discovery, Is Most Likely To Be Seen At First As Erroneous, Bad, Or Foolish. Later It May Be Seen As Obvious, Something Self-evident To All. Only Still Later Does It Receive Its Final Evaluation As A Creative Contribution. It Seems Clear No Contemporary Mortal Can Satisfactorily Evaluate A Creative Product At The Time It Is Formed, And This Statement Is Increasingly True The Greater The Novelty Of The Creation.

It Is A Direction Not A Destination.

It Is Astonishing How Elements That Seem Insoluble Become Soluble When Someone Listens, How Confusions That Seem Irremediable Turn Into Relatively Clear Flowing Streams When One Is Heard.

When A Person Realizes He Has Been Deeply Heard, His Eyes Moisten. I Think In Some Real Sense He Is Weeping For Joy. It Is As Though He Were Saying, "thank God, Somebody Heard Me. Someone Knows What It's Like To Be Me".

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Growing Knowledge

To Perceive The Internal Frame Of Reference Of Another With Accuracy And With The Emotional Components And Meanings Which Pertain Thereto As If One Were The Person, But Without Ever Losing The "as If" Condition. Thus, It Means To Sense The Hurt Or The Pleasure Of Another As He Senses It And To Perceive The Causes Thereof As He Perceives Them, But Without Ever Losing The Recognition That It Is As If I Were Hurt Or Pleased And So Forth.

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The Mainspring Of Creativity Appears To Be The Same Tendency Which We Discover So Deeply As The Curative Force In Psychotherapy, Man's Tendency To Actualize Himself, To Become His Potentialities. By This I Mean The Organic And Human Life, The Urge To Expand, Extend, Develop, Mature - The Tendency To Express And Activate All The Capacities Of The Organism, Or The Self.

Am I Living In A Way Which Is Deeply Satisfying To Me, And Which Truly Expresses Me?

We Think We Listen, But Very Rarely Do We Listen With Real Understanding, True Empathy. Yet Listening, Of This Very Special Kind, Is One Of The Most Potent Forces For Change That I Know.

The Way Of Being With Another Person Which Is Termed Empathic...means Temporarily Living In Their Life, Moving Abut In It Delicately Without Making Judgment... To Be With Another In This Way Means That For The Time Being You Lay Aside The Views And Values You Hold For Yourself In Order To Enter The Other's World Without Prejudice...a Complex, Demanding, Strong Yet Subtle And Gentle Way Of Being.

The Very Essence Of The Creative Is Its Novelty, And Hence We Have No Standard By Which To Judge It.

Over The Years, However, The Research Evidence Keeps Piling Up, And It Points Strongly To The Conclusion That A High Degree Of Empathy In A Relationship Is Possibly The Most Potent And Certainly One Of The Most Potent Factors In Bringing About Change And Learning.

So, As You Can Readily See From What I Have Said Thus Far, A Creative, Active, Sensitive, Accurate, Empathic, Nonjudgmental Listening Is For Me Terribly Important In A Relationship. It Is Important For Me To Provide It; It Has Been Extremely Important, Especially At Certain Times In My Life, To Receive It. I Feel That I Have Grown Within Myself When I Have Provided It; I Am Very Sure That I Have Grown And Been Released And Enhanced When I Have Received This Kind Of Listening.

I Believe I Know Why It Is Satisfying To Me To Hear Someone. When I Can Really Hear Someone, It Puts Me In Touch With Him; It Enriches My Life. It Is Through Hearing People That I Have Learned All That I Know About Individuals, About Personality, About Interpersonal Relationships.

There Is Another Peculiar Satisfaction In Really Hearing Someone: It Is Like Listening To The Music Of The Spheres, Because Beyond The Immediate Message Of The Person, No Matter What That Might Be, There Is The Universal. Hidden In All Of The Personal Communications Which I Really Hear There Seem To Be Orderly Psychological Laws, Aspects Of The Same Order We Find In The Universe As A Whole. So There Is Both The Satisfaction Of Hearing This Person And Also The Satisfaction Of Feeling One's Self In Touch With What Is Universally True.

Growth Occurs When Individuals Confront Problems, Struggle To Master Them, And Through That Struggle Develop New Aspects Of Their Skills, Capacities, Views About Life.

When The Other Person Is Hurting, Confused, Troubled, Anxious, Alienated, Terrified; Or When He Or She Is Doubtful Of Self-worth, Uncertain As To Identity, Then Understanding Is Called For. The Gentle And Sensitive Companionship Of An Empathic Stance… Provides Illumination And Healing. In Such Situations Deep Understanding Is, I Believe, The Most Precious Gift One Can Give To Another.

Don't Be The Ammunition Wagon, Be The Rifle... Knowledge Exists Primarily For Use.

The Curious Paradox Is That When I Accept Myself Just As I Am, Then I Can Change.

What You Are To Be, You Are Now Becoming.

People Are Just As Wonderful As Sunsets If You Let Them Be. When I Look At A Sunset, I Don't Find Myself Saying, "soften The Orange A Bit On The Right Hand Corner." I Don't Try To Control A Sunset. I Watch With Awe As It Unfolds.

I Am Increasingly An Architect Of Self. I Am Free To Will And Choose. I Can, Through Accepting My Individuality... Become More Of My Uniqueness, More Of My Potentiality.

We Cannot Change, We Cannot Move Away From What We Are, Until We Thoroughly Accept What We Are. Then Change Seems To Come About Almost Unnoticed.

What I Am Is Good Enough If I Would Only Be It Openly.

The Education Situation Which Most Effectively Promotes Significant Learning Is One In Which (1) Threat To The Self Of The Learner Is Reduced To A Minimum And (2) Differential Perception Of The Field Of Experience Is Facilitated

To Be Original, Or Different, Is Felt To Be "dangerous."

As No One Else Can Know How We Perceive, We Are The Best Experts On Ourselves.

I Prize The Privilege Of Being Alone.

I Think My Deepest Criticism Of The Educational System . . . Is That It's All Based Upon A Distrust Of The Student. Don't Trust Him To Follow His Own Leads; Guide Him; Tell Him What To Do; Tell Him What He Should Think; Tell Him What He Should Learn. Consequently At The Very Age When He Should Be Developing Adult Characteristics Of Choice And Decision Making, When He Should Be Trusted On Some Of Those Things, Trusted To Make Mistakes And To Learn From Those Mistakes, He Is, Instead, Regimented And Shoved Into A Curriculum, Whether It Fits Him Or Not.

If I Were To Search For The Central Core Of Difficulty In People As I Have Come To Know Them, It Is That In The Great Majority Of Cases They Despise Themselves, Regarding Themselves As Worthless And Unlovable.

Experience Is, For Me, The Highest Authority.

If The Time Comes When Our Culture Tires Of The Endless Homicidal Feuds, Despairs Of The Use Of Force And War As A Means Of Bringing Peace, Becomes Discontent With The Half-lives That Its Members Are Living - Only Then Will Our Culture Seriously Look For Alternatives.

Experience Is, For Me, The Highest Authority. The Touchstone Of Validity Is My Own Experience. No Other Person's Ideas, And None Of My Own Ideas, Are As Authoritative As My Experience. It Is To Experience That I Must Return Again And Again, To Discover A Closer Approximation To Truth As It Is In The Process Of Becoming Me.

Neurotic Behavior Is Quite Predictable. Healthy Behavior Is Unpredictable.

Life Is About Being & Becoming.

In A Person Who Is Open To Experience Each Stimulus Is Freely Relayed Through The Nervous System, Without Being Distorted By Any Process Of Defensiveness.

I Realize That If I Were Stable, Prudent And Static; I'd Live In Death. Therefore I Accept Confusion, Uncertainty, Fear And Emotional Ups And Downs; Because That's The Price I'm Willing To Pay For A Fluid, Perplexed And Exciting Life.

Facilitative Attitudes (and Skills) Can Help A Therapist Gain Entry Into The Group Freedom From A Desire To Control The Outcome, And Respect For The Capacity Of The Group, And Skills In Releasing Individual Expression Openness To All Attitudes No Matter How Extreme Or Unrealistic They May Seem Acceptance Of The Problems Experienced By The Group Where They Are Clearly Defined As Issues Allowance Of The Freedom Of Choices In Direction, Either For The Group Or Individuals Particularly In The Near Future

Adults Who Think That Children Must Be Manipulated For Their Own Good Have Developed The Attitude Of A Controlling Parent Who Lacks Faith In Himself, The Child, Or Humanity Or Himself.

With The Price Of Life These Days, You've Got To Get Everything For Free You Can.

I Have Learned That In Any Significant Or Continuing Relationship, Feelings Which Are Persistent Had Best Be Expressed. If They Are Expressed As Feelings Owned By Me, The Result May Be Temporarily Upsetting But Ultimately Far More Rewarding Than Any Attempt To Deny Or Conceal Them.

The Basic Idea Behind Teaching Is To Teach People What They Need To Know.

Most Of Us Consist Of Two Separated Parts, Trying Desperately To Bring Themselves Together Into An Integrated Soma, Where The Distinctions Between Mind And Body, Feelings And Intellect, Would Be Obliterated.

I Have Come To Think That One Of The Most Satisfying Experiences I Know — And Also One Of The Most Growth-promoting Experiences For The Other Person — Is Just Fully To Appreciate This Individual In The Same Way That I Appreciate A Sunset.

The Only Reality I Can Possibly Know Is The World As I Perceive It At This Moment. The Only Reality You Can Possibly Know Is The World As You See It At This Moment. And The Only Certainty Is That Those Perceived Realities Are Different. There Are As Many “real Worlds” As There Are People!

No Other Person's Ideas, And None Of My Own Ideas, Are As Authoritative As My Experience.

This Process Of The Good Life Is Not, I Am Convinced, A Life For The Faint-hearted. It Involves The Stretching And Growing Of Becoming More And More Of One's Potentialities. It Involves The Courage To Be. It Means Launching Oneself Fully Into The Stream Of Life.

Though Modern Marriage Is A Tremendous Laboratory, Its Members Are Often Without Preparation For The Partnership Function. How Much Agony And Remorse And Failure Could Have Been Avoided If There Had Been At Least Some Rudimentary Learning Before They Entered The Partnership.

In My Early Professional Years I Was Asking The Question: How Can I Treat, Or Cure, Or Change This Person? Now I Would Phrase The Question In This Way: How Can I Provide A Relationship Which This Person May Use For His Own Personal Growth?

The Degree To Which I Can Create Relationships, Which Facilitate The Growth Of Others As Separate Persons, Is A Measure Of The Growth I Have Achieved In Myself.

When I Look At The World I'm Pessimistic, But When I Look At People I Am Optimistic.

Powerful Is Our Need To Be Known, Really Known By Ourselves And Others, Even If Only For A Moment.

The Only Person Who Cannot Be Helped Is That Person Who Blames Others.

If We Value Independence, If We Are Disturbed By The Growing Conformity Of Knowledge, Of Values, Of Attitudes, Which Our Present System Induces, Then We May Wish To Set Up Conditions Of Learning Which Make For Uniqueness, For Self-direction, And For Self-initiated Learning.

The Sense Of Community Does Not Arise Out Of Collective Movement, Nor From Conforming To Some Group Direction. Quite The Contrary. Each Individual Tends To Use The Opportunity To Become All That He Or She Can Become. Separateness And Diversity - The Uniqueness Of Being "me" - Are Experienced

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