Page 28 - Here and Now June 2022

The Process of Psychological Growth

The second question in the book revolves around the question---" What is the journey of personal
growth? What is psychological maturity and what would be the process of moving in the direction of
personal growth and psychological maturity?”
According to Roger, motivation for personal growth and psychological maturity is inherent, but it is
often obscured.

Therapy can facilitate and releasee a tendency to psychological maturity. Just as organisms grow
physically, psychological growth is intrinsic to humans. It was really intriguing to see therapy as a process
of personal growth by the author unlike the negative connotations usually associated with therapy.
According to Rogers, the only condition required for this growth is experiencing oneself fully and
completely.

After elucidating the meaning and conditions of psychological growth, the author describes the
“PROCESS” that will lead to this growth. The mystery around the process gets clarified in the way the
author describes the transformation in seven stages across seven dimensions. For our understanding we
prepared a visual flow of the process and divided it in broadly three phases as shown in Fig. 1.

Stage I II III IV V VI VII

acceptance and
unaware/mildly experiencing and
Aspects personal responsibility
aware phase spiritual phase
phase

Recognition of feelings

Expression of feelings

Self------ownership/accepting
personal responsibility

experiencing feelings in the here
and now

Acceptance of feelings

recognition of contradictions and
incongruent behaviour

differentiation between feelings
and personal constructs

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