Being humble can be risky

Step 7: We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Carl Rogers is, in theory, the “godfather” (for some reason I find myself wishing we said “goddaddy” instead of “godfather”) of modern therapy. This is because he was the first person to suggest that the relationship between the therapist and the client mattered. He believed it was important for the therapist to create the conditions (i.e., the environment) where change can happen. He did not believe in giving advice or telling people how to change, he believed that if people were accepted, not judged, viewed positively, and deeply heard and empathized with, and if there was a genuineness to these traits on the part of the therapist, then change would happen on its own because people have the innate desire to grow. This is called person-centered therapy. 

Now, Rogers was deeply committed to his principles. So deeply committed that it caused a great deal of chaos in his professional life. Later in his career as a professor and therapist he worked on a years-long research project with a team of people, his students. That’s how research works, there’s always a team, there’s a professor and their students. 

One of the students was out to make a name for himself and was disruptive to the team and attempted to doctor the research to make his results as a therapist appear more positive than the results of the other therapists participating in the study. That kind of ethical breach has huge consequences in a situation where you’re receiving funding through the government, or the school where the research is taking place, etc. Plus research needs to be as unbiased as possible and his portion of the research was as biased as possible.  So, logistically, the team had to do a lot of work to go back and re-do this student’s work. But, bigger picture, Rogers was faced with a dilemma: what to do with the student? Should he be kicked out of the research? 

Rogers felt that he should deal with the situation using his own principles. He wanted to show his student the exact same thing he shows his clients: unconditional positive regard. So that’s what he did. He did not ostracize the student but let him remain on the team and attempted to show him unconditional positive regard. The effects were drastic and negative. The research team blew up. Rogers moved to California and quit therapy and began work in global politics and a few other things. His students were left relatively adrift in the wind and the one who caused the biggest problems eventually died by suicide. 

The thing I wrestle with in all this is: Was Rogers wrong? The outcome was bad. But was he wrong to live according to his values in this particular way?

I’ve read Rogers’ account of this story in his biography (pretty vague) and I’ve heard some 3rd party accounts (students of Rogers’ students). Rogers believes that if he had spent more time developing interpersonal relationships amongst his students and the team in general then these problems would have been mitigated. His students believe that Rogers should have leaned more heavily on one of his other values of genuineness (perhaps expressing frustration at the unethical behavior and providing the student with consequences) as opposed to unconditional positive regard (save that for therapy, they might say, it doesn’t belong everywhere in life). 

Who is correct? 

I thought about this story after writing the message I delivered yesterday (time is funny like that, I wrote the message on Wednesday, I’m writing this on Thursday, the message will get delivered on Sunday, this will arrive to you on Monday). That’s because I wrote the message on humility, as step 7 teaches the importance of humbly asking God to remove shortcomings. Spoiler alert: I think this story is about Rogers exercising humility, and I’ll make that point a little clearer and in a little more detail in a few moments. 

But first, I want us to consider the following passage and what it might have to say about humility:

But now set aside these things, such as anger, rage, malice, slander, and obscene language. Don’t lie to each other. Take off the old human nature with its practices and put on the new nature, which is renewed in knowledge by conforming to the image of the one who created it. In this image there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all things and in all people.

Therefore, as God’s choice, holy and loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with each other and, if someone has a complaint against anyone, forgive each other. As the Lord forgave you, so also forgive each other. And over all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Colossians 3:8-14, CEB

Humility, in this passage, is about recognizing the inherent equality of all people. And, as such, we put on compassion and kindness and we tolerate each other and we’re willing to forgive and we’re willing to love. 

Rogers’ story, or at least one part of his story, ended pretty poorly, especially considering the eventual death of his student. Did he chase the wrong value? I’m not so sure. We can’t always measure things by their outcomes (how very unscientific of me to say). 

When it comes to living our lives as the kind of people we want to be, we must be focussed on the process and not the outcome. Rogers’ process was beautiful. He believed that seeing the best in his student would be the best thing for that student and the team. In so doing he not only demonstrated positive regard but compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, and humility.

Now, I don’t know all the in’s and out’s of that story and there could be, and probably is, quite a lot of nuance that I’m missing. Forget the story and forget Rogers, the actual logistical details are unimportant (for the purposes of this blog). What matters is what we take away from this for ourselves. 

I don’t know about you, but one of my takeaways is that living according to our values might have a cost. It might not secure us the best outcome. But it might give us a beautiful process. This may be the very thing we’re called to: a beautiful process wherein we treat all people as if they are infused with the very spirit of God especially when they don’t act like it. 

And so here are my suggestions. 

Be careful how you treat people, and consider the call. The call of this passage extends the golden rule (I’m not talking about the “platinum rule” here, which I’m personally ambivalent about). The golden rule is about treating people how you want to be treated. Let’s go one step further: treat people as if they are infused with the spirit of God. 

People are not always going to act or behave as if they are infused with the spirit of God. The calling isn’t: treat people as if God’s spirit is in them so long as they’re doing a pretty good job of showing it. The call is: treat people as if God’s spirit is in them regardless of how they act. 

I’m going to take my own advice and stop here- I’m not going to tell you what this looks like or how to do it. But I’ll simply ask the question- consider in your life the people who are causing you the most problems…how are you treating them? Remember, the very spirit of God is in there somewhere. If the choice was entirely yours, how would you like to treat God’s spirit?