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Carl Rogers: A Critical Biography. By David Cohen. London: Constable. 1997. Pp. 253. L20.
By never throwing anything away, and bequeathing over 140 boxes of papers, letters and notes to the American Library of Congress, Rogers made things easy for any future biographer. Cohen takes full advantage of this and presents to us a delicate interplay of Roger's personal and professional life. Rogers depicted his parents as cold disciplinarians. Whilst still at school, he had to get up at five in the morning to milk the cows. He went to university to study agriculture, then decided to train for the Christian ministry, and then decided to study psychology. He became a child psychologist, and his first book, about problem children, was described by Cohen as dry and detached.
It was not until his late thirties that Rogers worked with adults, but his non-directive approach fell into place almost immediately. His book Counselling and Psychotherapy,...