Carl Rogers' example of a white therapist interacting with a black African American client

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The heuristic value of the two demonstration interviews with African American clients filmed in 1977 and 1984 resides in the significant change in how Carl Rogers worked as a white therapist in an interracial dyad. In the earlier encounter, Rogers attributed the client’s incongruence to his ‘introjected … cultural self’ that had ‘little relation to the real feelings in which he could discover his real self’ (Brodley & Lietaer, 2006, p.109). The accuracy of such commentary notwithstanding, Rogers appeared to overlook the significance of his own white privilege and how it might have affected his relationship with an African American client in the dominant culture of white America. But, in the 1984 encounter, Rogers was confronted with a client whose difficulties with racism included Rogers himself being a white therapist. Rogers responded in a way that suggests he was aware of his own white privilege. He communicated appreciation and respect for the client’s courage in speaking to him honestly, and for his rebellion against the racism of white America. Had the concepts of white privilege and white fragility been available to Rogers during his lifetime, he might have considered them to be useful adjuncts to his own aspirations for achieving congruence, UPR and empathic understanding of clients from racial/ethnic minority populations. However, he might have been wary of DiAngelo’s (2018) blanket assumption that he was beholden to an unconscious investment in racism. He could have claimed that his encounter with the 1984 client showed him practising an ethics of relationality in his immediate socio-cultural milieu (as advocated by Eddo-Lodge, 2019) as well as a genuine and accepting way of being.

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