Carl Rogers’ reset with an African American client: a discussion

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article discusses a significant change in how Carl Rogers worked as a white therapist in an interracial dyad. This change was evident in two filmed demonstration interviews with African American clients in 1977 and 1984. While Rogers had always been steadfast in his stance against racism, in 1977 he was not sufficiently aware that being a white therapist might affect his relationship with an African American client. Later, in 1984, Rogers empathically and acceptingly responded to a client’s concerns regarding the difficulty of discussing pervasive and systemic racism with a white therapist. Rogers’ shift in approach, which is discussed within the framework of the six core conditions of person-centered therapy, underscores an important issue for contemporary white psychotherapists and counselors – that issue being the need for an ongoing examination of one’s own racial/cultural self that I will discuss in terms of white privilege and white fragility.