How to Coach Yourself and Others Popular Models for Coaching | Page 185

2.11 THE ROGERS BASED COACHING Source: http://www.simplypsychology.org/coachee-centredtherapy.html - Carl Rogers Therapy by Saul Mcleod. Self concept The starting point of the Rogerian approach to coaching, counselling and psychotherapy is that individuals have within theirselves vast resources for self-understanding, for altering his or her self-concept, attitudes and self-directed behaviour and that these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided. Rogers placed emphasis on the person's current perception and how we live in the here-and-now. He maintained that we behave as we do because of the way we perceive our situation. "As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves." (Gross, 1992) Central to Rogers' theory is the notion of self or self-concept. He noticed that people tend to describe their current experiences by referring to themselves in some way, for example, "I don't understand what's happening" or "I feel different to how I used to feel". All the ideas and values that characterize 'I' and 'me', including the perception and valuing of 'what I am' and 'what I can do' -, influence both our perception of the world and perception of oneself. For instance, a woman who perceives herself as strong may well behave with confidence and come to see her actions as actions performed by someone who is confident. The self-concept does not necessarily always fit with reality, though, and the way we see ourselves may differ greatly from how others see us. For example, a person might be very interesting to others and yet consider himself to be boring. He 187