longer feel a need to deny thoughts and feelings that might otherwise have led
to a withdrawal of positive regard. They are free to experience all of them-selves, free to incorporate faults and weaknesses into their self-concepts, free
to experience all of life.
Fortunately, parents are not the only source of unconditional positive re-
gard, and growing up in a family without this acceptance does not condemn a
person to a less-than-full life. Adult relationships with friends and romantic
partners can be based on unconditional positive regard. Similarly, therapistscan create an atmosphere of unconditional positive regard during psychother-
apy. Rogers maintained that such an environment is a requirement for effec-
tive treatment. We ’ll examine more of Rogers ’ideas about psychotherapy
later in this chapter.
ABRAHAM MASLOW
Abraham Maslow spent most of his career filling in the gaps he found inother approaches to personality. At a time when the field was largely con-cerned with psychological disorders, Maslow wondered what psychology
Is the child a bad boy, or has he merely done a bad thing? Rogers argues that parents
should provide children with unconditional positive regard. Although the boy may havedone something the mother did not like, he is still loved and prized by her.Abraham Maslow 283