Incongruence and “inner experience”

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a well-known theoretical difficulty in Rogers’ concept of incongruence. It is the difficulty that when a person is incongruent part of their experience is said to be denied to awareness, but that makes it hard to see how an incongruent person can be(come) aware of their incongruence. Rogers pictures “experience” as something “inner”, to which the person can attend; but experiences that are not in awareness cannot be attended to. I argue that the problem arises from the misleading picture of experience as “inner,” and I develop an alternative account that draws on the work of Wittgenstein. In that account to attend to one’s feelings or attitudes is not to direct one’s attention “inwards” but to attend to one’s situation and to the articulation of one’s response to it. Such articulation involves “telling a story,” and I suggest that my account fits well with current work on incorporating narrative therapy into the person-centred approach.

Inkongruenz und “innere Erfahrung”

Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit einer bekannten theoretischen Schwierigkeit in Rogers‘ Konzept der Inkongruenz. Wenn eine Person inkongruent ist, sagen wir, dass Teile ihrer Erfahrung vor dem Bewusstsein geleugnet werden. Das macht es schwer zu sehen, wie sich eine inkongruente Person sich der eigenen Inkongruenz bewusst werden kann. Rogers skizziert “Erfahrung” als etwas “Inneres”, dem sich die Person zuwenden kann; aber Erfahrungen, die nicht im Bewusstsein sind, denen kann man sich nicht zuwenden. Ich lege dar, dass das Problem aus dem irreführenden Bild von Erfahrung als “innerer” resultiert, und ich entwickle eine Alternative, die sich auf das Werk von Wittgenstein stützt. Mit diesem Konzept bedeutet es, wenn man sich den eigenen Gefühlen oder Haltungen zuwendet, keine Wendung der Aufmerksamkeit nach “innen,” sondern dass man sich der eigenen Situation und der Artikulation der eigenen Reaktion darauf zuwendet.

Incongruencia y “experiencia interior”

Este artículo se refiere a una muy conocida dificultad teórica, el concepto de Rogers de incongruencia. Esta dificultad consiste en que cuando una persona es incongruente parte de su experiencia parece estar negada a la conciencia, pero lo que lo hace mas difícil aun es ver cómo una persona incongruente puede ser-volverse consciente de su incongruencia. Rogers describe la “experiencia” como algo “interno”, a lo que la persona puede alcanzar, no así a las experiencias que no están en la conciencia. Sostengo que el problema surge de la imagen engañosa de ver a la experiencia como “interna”, y desarrollo una versión alternativa que se basa en la obra de Wittgenstein. Según mi versión alcanzar nuestros sentimientos o actitudes no es dirigir la atención “hacia dentro” sino ocuparse de nuestra situación y la articulación de nuestra respuesta a la misma.

L’incongruence et “l’Expérience intérieure”

Cet article traite d’une difficulté théorique bien connue concernant le concept d’incongruence de Rogers. Il s’agit de la difficulté suivante : quand une personne est incongruente on dit qu’une partie de leur expérience n’a pas accès à la conscience, il est donc difficile de voir comment une personne incongruente peut devenir consciente de son incongruence. Rogers se représente « l’expérience » comme quelque chose « d’intérieur » à laquelle la personne peut rester attentive, mais les expériences qui ne sont pas conscientes ne peuvent pas bénéficier de cette attention. J’argumente que le problème est posé par l’image de Rogers d’une expérience « intérieure », et j’élabore une compréhension alternative inspirée par le travail de Wittgenstein. Selon cette compréhension, rester attentif à ses sentiments ou attitudes n’est pas diriger son attention « vers l’intérieur », mais plutôt rester attentif à sa situation et à l’expression de sa réponse à celle-ci.

不一致と「内的体験」

本論文は、ロジャーズの不一致の概念における有名な理論的困難さに関心を置いている。人が不一致のとき、自身の体験の一部に気がつく事を否定すると言われる。しかし、どのように不一致の人が自身の不一致に気づくかが分かるのは難しい。ロジャーズは「内面」の何かとして「体験」することを想像する。そしてそこに人は存在する。しかし、認識出来ない経験は対応される事がない。私は、問題は「内面」としての体験の紛らわしい絵から生じると主張する。そして、Wittgensteinの仕事を元とした、私は新しい報告開発する。その人の感情または態度に対応することは、その人の「内部」を気にかけることを導かず 、その人の状況や、 反応への明確な表現が結果として生じる。

Keywords:

• incongruence
• congruence
• experience
• narrative therapy
• Wittgenstein
• Rogers

Notes

1. “Awareness, Symbolization, Consciousness. These three terms are defined as synonymous” (Rogers, 1959, p. 198).

2. The difference between awareness and consciousness seems to be that one can be aware of things of which one is not conscious in the moment. For example, there is a difference between “aware” as used in “When they met last week, she was aware of what he had done, and I’m puzzled why she didn’t ask him about it,” and “conscious” as in “While she was with him last week, she was very conscious of what he had done, but she didn’t actually say anything.” The first means that at the time they met she knew what he had done, but did not necessarily think about it during their meeting, while the second means that as they were talking she kept thinking about, or being troubled by, what he had done. A similar distinction is marked in Freud’s thought as that between the “pre-conscious” and the “conscious” – see below.

3. It is sometimes suggested that there can’t be cases where someone is in pain, yet is not conscious of it. But consider Norman Malcolm’s (1984, pp. 15–16) example of Horatio Hornblower, who is standing on the deck of his ship during a severe storm: “Hornblower found the keen wind so delicious that he was unconscious of the pain the hailstones caused him.”

4. Wittgenstein does not discuss the matter in a systematic way, so that it is hard to give brief references for the material. Within his major work Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, 1963/2009) one could begin with what he says on pages 4–6, 89–92, 97–104, 178, 187–189 (in the revised edition (Wittgenstein, 1963/2009) the corresponding pages are 7–10, 95–98, 103–111, 187, 196–198), but for those unfamiliar with Wittgenstein’s work it might be better to start with secondary sources such as Canfield (2007b). Wittgenstein (1992) is especially relevant. Other relevant secondary sources include ter Hark (1990), Vesey (1991), Moyal-Sharrock (2000) and Canfield (2007a).

5. I have discussed elsewhere how my analysis relates to Gendlin’s approach (Purton, 2012; 2014).