ABSTRACT
The consistently reliable Joel Kovel informs us that Carl Rogers’ ‘first calling was Christian evangelism through the YMCA’. Rogers demystified some aspects of therapy in the same way that post-Fordism was subjecting management to a partial demystification. Rogers understood this change instinctively and realised that the new post-Taylorist worker would need to possess self-regulating abilities. The knowledge created by Rogers in the 1940s–1960s was situated in a specific time frame and subjected to the capitalist imperatives of its era. The way Rogers listens to each group member may seem similar to what phenomenologists call horizontalisation. The chief criticism levelled at Rogers contends that his ‘discovery’ of a more authentic, better human being, with an inner core that is ‘basically socialised, forward-looking, rational and realistic’, is no more than a comforting fairy tale. Applying the same rigorous standards to his own discursive practice, Rogers proceeds to offer an improved definition of ‘empathy’.
