Rogers outlines the following six conditions required to exist and continue for constructive personality change to occur:
1 - Two persons are in psychological contact.
2 - The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious.
3 - The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship.
4 - The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.
5 - The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference and endeavours to communicate this experience to the client.
6 - The communication to the client of the therapist's empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved.
Thoughts
The critical point here is that these conditions are not a framework or process leading to a specific road map for change. The underlying assumption is that the ability to make the necessary change already lies within the client. The core conditions are essential for supporting the innate impulse of self-actualization.
The analogy that resonates most with me is that of a planted seed. To thrive, grow, and reach its full potential, the seed has some basic requirements (conditions): sunlight, water, and soil. Even with these conditions, there is no guarantee the seedling will achieve its full potential, but without these essentials, it certainly will not.
It will try, of course. The image Rogers often quoted was of potatoes in a pitch-black cellar, far from any soil. Yet their formative tendency still pushed them forward, growing long, futile sprouts in a hopeless situation. This image powerfully illustrates that the inherent tendency (formative for plants, actualizing for humans) is always present. However, for this potential to be fully realized, certain core conditions must be met.
Notably, the potato or seed does not need direction or instruction. They do not need to be taught how to grow, produce shoots, or form tubers—they inherently know their power and the alchemy of their tendency. Similarly, once the core conditions are met, the focus is not to direct the client on how to grow but to help them explore what unfolds as the actualizing tendency flourishes into self-actualization.