Reminiscing and Predicting: Rogers’s beyond Words Speech and Commentary

In his “Beyond Words Symposium” at the Chicago Counseling and Psychotherapy Center in 1986, Carl Rogers offers reminiscences commemorating the 40th anniversary of the founding of the University of Chicago Counseling Center. He recalls the individuals whose work contributed to the birth of client-centered therapy and offers commentary not only on the development of the counseling center but also on the foundations of his own therapy process research, encounter group trainings, and person-centered education. Rogers’s symposium is peppered with individual stories and fond caricatures of his many colleagues, and he offers a variety of insights on the direction and scope of the person-centered movement. Rogers concludes with a discussion of the global need for person-centered expansion and offers a call to clinicians everywhere to continue to ride the “growing edge” of the client-centered movement.