This is Lecture 5 from [[Jordan Peterson]]'s [[PA Personality and its Transformations]] from [[Peterson Academy]]. ## Carl Rogers Carl Rogers saw authentic and productive dialogue (dialogos) as transformative in and of itself, emblematic of the idea that the truth will set you free. Peterson read Rogers as a psychotherapist upholding a Protestant ethic. In contrast, Freud's free association method prioritized one-sided revealing of the self, as he saw the clinician as a potential risk for projecting ideas into the patient's mental map. Rogers is a phenomenologist, not an existentialist—a distinction Peterson emphasizes. Carl Rogers is also the first person to apply empirical measurements to psychotherapeutic practice, which is something that Freudians were incapable of doing. ## Phenomenology The Greek word that phenomenology is derived from is "phainesthai" which means to shine forth, and burning bush story can be a representation of this spontaneous gripping of reality. Phenomenon has the power to transform. Phenomenology saw experience, and not objects, as prime reality. We experience, and our experience encompasses both the objective and the subjective. Any reduction of reality to the objective fails to account for the subjective. The existentialist saw suffering as part and parcel of reality. It is not that the world is good, and bad or evil things happen as a kind of corruption of reality that ought to be healed, but that the world is inherently a place of suffering, and thus suffering requires no explanation or justification. ## Meaning How we experience meaning in relation to the world? European phenomenologists Binswanger and Boss had two opposing views. (A) Binswanger: We endow the world with meaning, projecting our a priori suppositions onto the world → The world changes in relation to your aim (B) Boss: The world discloses its meanings autonomously, and pulls you along as a consequence → Your aim changes in relation to the world Mythologically speaking, it is both, and it goes from A to B. A protagonist's aim reveals his path (A), but he will encounter agents that aid or obstruct the achievement of his aim, and also, agents that transform his aim itself. These are magical agents, because magic is that which does not play by the rules. Biblically speaking, our relationship with the highest reality is best characterized as a relationship. God is somebody that can be bargained with. To answer that question of whether it is A or B, it is both. Our relationship with the world is something [[John Vervaeke|Vervaeke]] would call [[Transjective|transjective]]. ## Motivations There are competing motivations, and we want to regulate them enough so that they don't run into each other. But there is a higher level motivation that seeks to unify and integrate all these competing motivations. This unification and integration is transformation and growth. >[!quote] …your motivation would be mostly to fall asleep. That's what you do when you're satiated. When everything's being satisfied. There's no reason for consciousness. Consciousness is a grappling phenomenon. --- Back to: [[PA Personality and its Transformations]]