Rogers View Of Healthy Functioning

From a Person-Centered approach, it is important to make note that the closest concept of health and wellness is the idea of fully functioning. Rogers referred to fully functioning the maturation of an individual, not health. In addition, Rogers went to the extent to "dismantle the authority of the ‘doctor' and to empower the ‘patient' by introducing the terms counselor and client" (Demorest, 2005, pg. 137). He preferred the term client over patient because he did not believe that clients were sick, much less did he categorize clients as being healthy or unhealthy.
Nonetheless, in the context of reaching maturation, "health is seen as the congruence between what one wants to become, what one perceives one's self to be, and what one actually experiences" (Jones & Butman, 2011, p. 265). Therefore, Rogers' view of healthy functioning consisted of a fully

While he does not state that one dimension is more crucial than another one, he does "suggest that trusting one's organism" is the central process that incorporates the other characteristics (Fernald, 2000, p. 175). The first characteristic of a fully functioning person is their increasing openness to experience (Thorne, 1992, p. 34). Rogers (1961) states that being open to experiences enables an individual to have a "good life" as they move away from the "pole of defensiveness", which ultimately causes incongruence (p. 188). The second characteristic is having the ability to live in the present and being attentive to each moment experienced (Thorne, 1992, p. 34). Living in the moment allows individuals to trust the experience rather than repressing it. It also allows room for a changing organization of the self and the personality. The third characteristic is "an increasing trust in his