I believe that our actual, ideal, and ought selves go hand-in-hand with each other because
the majority of people in today’s world care what others think of them. We often strive to be our
best selves, and normally this has to do with living up to the expectations and standards that
others place upon us. While not all people feel this way, I think that most do. Our actual, ideal,
and ought selves may not be identical to one another, but they are what keeps us striving for
greatness. We usually take our actual selves and try to become our best selves based on our ought
selves. This means that we will take into consideration the ideas and expectations of others and
try to make ourselves into our ideal human being. Rogers stated that “people naturally think
about not only themselves in the present, but also their potential selves in the future” (Cervone,
2016).
I believe that Rogers’ concepts of the self, self-actualiztion, and unconditional positive
regard are true. Almost everyone has a vision of who they might want to be and have values that
they place on themselves. Rogers believed that for a person to be able to achieve self-

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actualiztion, they must be in a state of congruence. This means that self-actualization occurs
when a person’s “ideal self” is congruent with their actual behavior. Rogers stated that the


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- Fall '15
- YelenaGidenko
- Psychology, Personality Psychology, Psychotherapy