Reflections on the Buber-Rogers Dialogue

Abstract

After setting the stage of the dialogue between Martin Buber and Carl Rogers in Michigan in 1957, which the author moderated, the article discusses the close relationship between Rogers's writings and Buber's "healing through meeting." The first major issue that arose in the dialogue was that of "the problematic of mutuality"-Rogers's seeming insistence that Buber's I-Thou relationship implies total mutuality in the therapy relationship and Buber's stress that there is a normative limitation of mutuality both because of the structure of the therapy relationship and the limits of resources of the client. The second major issue was that of acceptance and confirmation. Rogers held that through the therapist's acceptance of the client, the client actualizes himself or herself. Buber held that acceptance is the beginning of relationship but that real healing through meeting demands confirmation too, which includes helping the client in his or her inner conflict between the desire to find and follow one's unique personal direction and the aimless whirl that resists direction. Rogers equated acceptance and confirmation because he held that human nature is good and therefore to be trusted. Buber held that the human being is neither good nor evil but polar. Rogers tended to make dialogue the means to self-actualization, whereas Buber saw self-actualization as the by-product of dialogue.