In the 1960s Carl Rogers introduced the term ‘congruence’ to indicate a person’s harmony with themselves. Roughly it means honesty, transparency, openness and self-revealing. It is the opposite of dissemblance. A sign of in-congruence would be, for example, smiling when one is annoyed. In counselling the idea is to help the client achieve greater immediacy and spontaneity.
Increasing congruence was an indication of the client’s progress in therapy. Later, Rogers saw how important it was in every relationship, not just for clients in therapy. It was at this time that Rogers began to call his method ‘person-centred’ rather than ‘client-centred’, realising we are not just talking about therapy, but how we relate to each other in daily life.
Everything we have discovered in therapy show us that any relationship goes better if both parties are congruent with their own feelings. Often it produces disturbance, but at least honesty provokes honesty. One person’s congruence draws out the other, who is increasingly truthful too. Congruence is not primarily about my relationship with others, but with myself. Secondarily, if I am congruent with myself it will automatically change how others behave toward me.
On the face of it, this seems a very simple idea: one is either in harmony with oneself or in conflict with it, true to one’s inner being or trying to hide or escape from it; and most often, actual situations are just as simple as this. But as soon as we look deeper it becomes more complex. It turns out that in the shadowy place behind the veil is not just a single, unitary, self. I have to be true; but true to what exactly? How do I tell what is most true – what I really feel? There are so many ways of looking at every situation and each viewpoint can be quite genuine. Each of my selves claims to be ‘me’ – but to which one do I give the crown.
This problem arises because of a very simple error. If we view the psyche as a structure, a sort of static being – a state, then we should be able to discover what that state is, how it is laid out. It should have an anatomy. Somewhere in all that complexity one should be able to find a stable, continuous something that is my true self, who I really am.
Even the statement: ‘who I really am’, assumes a stable, permanent ‘me’. But an anatomy of the psyche is not possible. In reality the psyche is not static, but dynamic. What is so one moment, is different the next; if only because a continually changing environment elicits different responses from me. Thus it is that the intellect cannot assist here. Your ‘true’ self is never the same from one moment to the next. In a word, life is a flow not a fixture. But the saving grace is that at any given moment there is a senior truth: it is what wants to reveal itself right NOW. Among all the possible ways of responding, at this very moment, there is one on top, pushing to be recognised, crying out to be said – that is the only moment you can be congruent.
Congruence is a challenge entirely of the present moment; but in saying this there is something that needs clarifying. Congruence does not have to be ABOUT the present; but what is surfacing IN the present.
Congruence, then, is not an on-going state, but the challenge of recognising your actual experience of the moment. In response to any situation what is most true, your truest self, is what is coming alive and pushing at the veil right now – right there within you. In the flowing dynamism of the soul there is no other way of knowing exactly what constitutes being true to yourself. Each moment of your life carries with it the challenge of knowing and admitting what you are in the present instant.
One difficulty is that in the presence of other people I tend to disappear. I mean this quite literally. Face to face with another person, they are always more real than I am. That’s why I only know what I should have said afterwards, sometimes hours later. Other people seem to have more thereness than I do. This kind of self-forgetting is not modesty. In actual fact it’s regression. I regress to a childlike state of being where everyone is grownup and I watch them with my mouth open. I have thoughts and feelings, but like a child, I hide behind the veil.
I exaggerate, of course – but to make a point. It’s not that I feel inferior; it’s just that when the heat is on I just can’t find the fullness of myself. Afterwards I know what I should have said. In fact, I go over the dialogue again, remembering what it would have been like to be congruent. Imaginatively, I go over it again, alter what happened – and feel a bit better.
Are there people who are too congruent, who withhold nothing? Yes. And the best you can say is that they cause disruption. But at least, you know where you are with them.
Dissemblance is a lifelong habit; living behind the veil is entrenched in childhood where you have to fake it to get by. The solution is to be with people who not only tolerate you daring to be truthful, but who welcome it and urge you on.
contact: stanrich@vodafone.co.nz
(03) 981 2264
