Understanding the 19 Propositions: Personality & Behaviour Explained

Carl Rogers' 19 Propositions: A Plain English Summary

If you are here there is a good chance you are currently studying to become a counsellor or psychotherapist and are hoping to understand Carl Roger's 19 Propositions. Hopefully, you've found it helpful. I know you're probably under a lot of time pressure to get work completed, case studies submitted and presented, client work, supervision, your own personal therapy - so decided the best approach was just to lead with it rather than have a 10 paragraph preamble repeating stuff you already know.

And if you aren't a student and have found your way here for other reasons hopefully, the words I have written above have given you an idea about the why/how therapy works and how change happens (in the simplest way I am able to explain the process).

During my own counselling studies, as a thought experiment, I wanted to see if I could take the 19 propositions and explain it in the fewest amount of words I possibly could. My tutor really loved it and it helped some of the other students, also doing the course, so now that I have a website/somewhere to put it I thought I would share it.

Scroll below to see the original 19 propositions reproduced for comparison.

The Problem with the 19 Propositions

I have seen some other attempts to explain the 19 propositions which try to reword them into modern language or group that in themes (1-3 mean this / 4-7 are about this) however, they still felt like it could be made simpler - and therefore less daunting to tackle for people.

I think some people struggle because of it's the presentation - a daunting list of 19 statements talking about the organism doing this / the organism doing that. Rogers was trying to describe the fluid, dynamic process of being human using a static, numbered list. It’s like trying to describe your favorite song - you lose the feeling without the music. In stripping away the list and the academic language I hope you have the "feel" of it and the core to human experience it is trying to explain.