[Xmca-l] Rogers day

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hello fellow Xmcars and venerable others,


It was a curious day yesterday, a day that I will call Rogers day.


I saw the documentary on Fred Rogers of Misteroger's Neighborhood fame (a public television children's show first produced in the 1960s, and I was the first-gen to imbibe my eyes and ears upon the greeting song, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", sweaters, tennis shoes, and fish feeding).


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers


It put me in a good mood, that gentle voice of his still resonates even though he left the earth in 2003, that's 15 years now! He is likely the only tolerable Republican that ever lived.


Then I learned (in Jungian fashion) about Carl Rogers and I read the wiki page on him here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Rogers


I was surprised to learn he lived in La Jolla and did a lot of international work. But I had wondered if anyone on this list might discuss his theories of self, hidden personality, and positive regard and how these compare to Vygotskian theories (i.e, CHAT).


The theory about self seems to be heavily phenomenological. I could detect some overlap with Vygotskian theory, but what interested me had to do with the discussion of threat of self and protection of self as a concept about structure, that the self has a structure and I'm assuming this is the personality, and that as experiences and perceptions are internalized how they are integrated into the existing structure depends upon whether there is an existing threat or not to the self. I may not have read this correctly, but my question to the list would be:


How does Vygostkian theory account for the unconscious, and also threats to self (as an internalized structure)?


I get that experiences coming from culture, language, environment, etc are perceptually received from the "outside" and then internalized but I realized there isn't really a discussion of "threat to self" in my readings by Vygotsky. There is conflict and struggle, but no thorough discussion of threat to self.


Perhaps I am being dull and just not remembering correctly. So please edify me as long as your name doesn't conjure up cereal... I would like some fresh voices, that's all. 😊 Cabbages might be OK.


Is it possible that Vygotsky never got far enough to discuss threat-to-self because he didn't live long enough to evaluate adult minds? While I wrote that I considered that children's lives are full of threats, and it is a miracle that they can thrive despite them. Does Vygotsky discuss existential threats in the child? Forgive me that nothing is arising in my memory right now.


Carl Rogers indicates 19 propositions that inform his theory. In regard to #6 ("The organism has one basic tendency and striving—to actualize, maintain and enhance the experiencing organism.") echos Spinoza and also Darwin. There are others that resonate with CHAT.


There is also his concept of incongruence/congruence as a measure of self-actualization, whereby congruence is achieved when the real self and the ideal self are one and the same, and incongruence is the difference (and manifest tension) between real and ideal self. I can see that the notion of ideal self coming from social expectations being similar to the ideal as presented in Vygotskian theory (I'm wrangling with the notion of "ideal" right now).


Mr Fred Rogers seemed to be an adult who had positive regard to children and advocated for self-acceptance ("I like you just the way you are.") We see him doing it every time he is interacting with a child. I think he would call this advocacy for self-acceptance, nothing else but love. In the documentary he says (I paraphrase): "Children should feel special without the pressure of doing something sensational." Which some critics lambasted for creating attitudes of entitlement in children. I wondered about all this in contrast to the concept of perezhivanie.


Does Vygotsky discuss concepts of love?


OK, so that was my Rogers day, neighbor.


Kind regards,


Annalisa




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