3.4-
Theory of Congruence
The Real Self vs. The Ideal Self
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The School of Health Sciences, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore
Part 1
The Theory of Carl Rogers
Carl Ransom Rogers was an American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach (or client-centered approach) to psychology. Rogers is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy research and was honoured for his pioneering research with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1956.
Here is a short introduction to the Theory of Carl Rogers.
Carl Rogers believed that we all own a real self and an ideal self.
The real self
What we are intrinsically. It`s the self that feels most true to what and who we really are; the honest self that leaves us most comfortable in our skin. It may not be perfect, but it`s the part of us that feels most real.
The ideal self
The self that we think we want to be, that we strive to be, and that we feel we are expected to be. This self is borne out of influences outside of us. It is the self that holds values absorbed from others; a culmination of all those things that we think we should be, and that we feel others think we should be.
We want to accommodate those expectations because we believe we will be more loved and accepted if we do. For most part, we're not even aware of it.
Part 2
Carl Rogers: Congruence or incongruence
According to Carl Rogers, the degree to which a person's self-concept matches up to reality is known as congruence and incongruence.
Congruence is a term used to describe a state in which a person's ideal self and real self experience are consistent or very similar. However, Rogers felt that it was rare for a complete state of congruence to exist and that all people experience a certain amount of incongruence.
When the real self and ideal self of an individual meets or overlaps, one is considered to be in the state of congruence. The state of congruence is represented by the shaded overlaps of the two circles.
Being in a state of congruence means avoiding the temptation to present a facade or hide behind a false mask of professionalism or an attitude of superiority. It’s certainly not simple to achieve such a reality.
Unconditional love helps to foster congruence. Children and adolescence who experience such love feel no need to continually distort their memories in order to believe that other people will love and accept them as they are.
When the real self and ideal self of an individual does not overlap, one is considered to be in the state of incongruence. Incongruence implies having feelings not aligned with your actions.
An example of this would be if someone who is so angry that he or she is red in the face, answers the question 'How are you?' with, 'Fine.' The person is obviously not fine, therefore his or her answer is clearly not the truth. The individual's words and actions are incongruent.
Rogers believed that incongruence has its earliest roots in childhood. When parents place conditions on their affection for their children and adolescence (only expressing love if they "earn it" through certain behaviors and living up to the parents' expectations), they begin to distort the memories of experiences that leave them feeling unworthy of their parents' love.
Below is a very interesting (using hand puppets) explanation on Congruence/Incongruence or as they would term it as "congruity". You could skip the video to 3:00 to go straight to the point, or sit back relax and enjoy the song in the beginning.
It is healthy to some extent to have what one envisions as the ideal self. It is something that we all strive for; to be the best that we can be. The problem arises when our ideal selves are too far removed from what we really are. When there is a huge discrepancy between who we are, and what we think we should be, we begin to experience a dissonance, a lack of resonance within our true selves, and a gap between what we sense as our real self compared to what we feel compelled to aspire to (our ideal self). When the discrepancy is huge, the resulting incongruence can lead us to become demoralized and discouraged because we have in fact set ourselves up for failure. This discrepancy can lead to stress and anxiety because the real self never seems good enough and the ideal self may seem impossible to attain.
The above video by Arbi Chang was originally hosted in Youtube within this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKhsX2JwHRE
Part 3
Application of Carl Roger's Theory of Congruence
For Rogers, unhappiness and dissatisfaction were the outcomes of a psychological gap between real self (the way you think you are) and ideal self (the way you would like to be). For example, one may be experiencing a gap between one's real self (e.g. sees themselves as socially isolated) and their ideal self (e.g. feeling good as a result of being popular). According to Rogers, when these concepts are congruent, people are healthy; when they are not congruent, we may end up using defence mechanisms like denial or repression in order to feel less threatened by our undesirable feelings.
Many contemporary therapists use Rogers’ ideas of unconditional positive regard to help clients work toward self-awareness. Unconditional positive regard is where parents, and significant others accepts and loves the person for what he or she is. Positive regard is not withdrawn if the person does something wrong or makes a mistake. The consequences of unconditional positive regard are that the person feels free to try things out and make mistakes, even though this may lead to getting it worse at times. People who are able to self-actualize are more likely to have received unconditional positive regard from others, especially their parents in childhood.
This is a useful theory with real-world applications and has helped improve the outlook of many patients support from psychological issues.
Case Scenario - Bruce Wayne
Let us explore the scenario of Bruce Wayne.
As the young boy looks over his mother and father's fallen bodies, he listens intently to the patriarch's final words, "Bruce, itʼs okay. Donʼt be afraid." We know in this instance that the young Bruce Wayne would never be the same. The death of his parents is a huge loss for Bruce. It shattered his innocence. Making matters worse, he saw them gunned down and helplessly watched them die. So not only is there trauma, there could even be some sense of guilt.
According to Rogers, we want to feel, experience and behave in ways which are consistent with our self-image and which reflect what we would like to be, our ideal self. The ideal self - for Bruce, could be a reality where both his parents are still alive. In a world where he is protected and the law is just and fair. Perhaps a close to perfect world where citizens are safe from crime and danger.
When the discrepancy between his real and ideal self is huge, the resulting incongruence may have led to the creation and existence of what we know as Batman. This difference can lead to stress and anxiety because the world of the real self never seems good enough and the ideal self may seem impossible to attain. Perhaps Batman is a compensation effect filling in the gap of that discrepancy.
If you happen to be interested to find out more about the teen years explained, click on the link below to access a recommended reading for this section.
Next Section
We will now move on to take closer look at the Health Belief Model in adolescents.
References
Kassin, S., Fein, S. & Markus, H. R. (2017). Social Psychology 10th Edition. Cengage Learning
McLeod, S. A. (2014, Feb 05). Carl Rogers. Simply Psychology. Retrieved March 23, 2020, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html
Sharot, T. (2014, October 28). How to motivate yourself to change your behaviour. Retrieved March 23, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp0O2vi8DX4
