I am isolated. I sit in a glass ball, I see people through a glass wall. Furthermore, I scream, but they do not hear me.- Ellen West

— Carl R. Rogers

I am well aware that certain exercises, tasks setup by the facilitator, can practically force the group to more of a here-and-now communication or more of a feeling level. There are leaders who do these very skillfully, and with good effect at the time. However, I am enough of a scientist-clinician to make many casual follow-up inquiries, and I know that frequently the lasting result of such procedures is not nearly as satisfying as the immediate effect. At its best it may lead to discipleship (which I happen not to like): "What a marvelous leader he is to have made me open up when I had no intention of doing it!" It can also lead to a rejection of the whole experience. "Why did I do those silly things he asked me to?" At worst, it can make the person feel that his private self has been in some way violated, and he will be careful never to expose himself to a group again. From my experience I know that if I attempt to push a group to a deeper level it is not, in the long run, going to work.

— Carl R. Rogers

I am willing for the participant to commit or not commit himself to the group. If a person wishes to remain psychologically on the sidelines, he has my implicit permission to do so. The group itself may or may not be willing for him to remain in this stance, but personally I am willing. One skeptical college administrator said that the main things he had learned was that he could withdraw from personal participation, be comfortable about it, and realize that he would not be coerced. To me, this seemed a valuable learning and one that would make it much more possible for him actually to participate at the next opportunity. Recent reports on his behavior, a full year later, suggest that he gained and changed from his seeming nonparticipation.

— Carl R. Rogers

I believe it will have become evident why, for me, adjectives such as happy, contented, blissful, enjoyable, do not seem quite appropriate to any general description of this process I have called the good life, even though the person in this process would experience each one of these at the appropriate times. But adjectives which seem more generally fitting are adjectives such as enriching, exciting, rewarding, challenging, meaningful. This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-fainthearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. Furthermore, it means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. Yet the deeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming.

— Carl R. Rogers

I believe that even our most abstract and philosophical views spring from an intensely personal base.

— Carl R. Rogers

I believe that individuals nowadays are probably more aware of their inner loneliness than has ever been true before in history.

— Carl R. Rogers

If awareness and conscious thought are seen as a part of life - not its master nor its opponent but an illumination of the developing process within the individual - then our total life can be the unified and unifying experience that is characteristic in nature.

— Carl R. Rogers

In my early professional years I was asking: 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?

— Carl R. Rogers

I regret it when I suppress my feelings too long, and they burst forth in ways that are distorted or attacking or hurtful.

— Carl R. Rogers

I would prefer my experiences in communication to have a growth-promoting effect, both on me and on the other, and I should like to avoid those communication experiences in which both I and the other person feel diminished.

— Carl R. Rogers