Page "Carl Rogers" Paragraph 41

Rogers identified the " real self " as the aspect of one's being that is founded in the actualizing tendency, follows organismic valuing, needs and receives positive regard and self-regard.

It is the " you " that, if all goes well, you will become.

On the other hand, to the extent that our society is out of sync with the actualizing tendency, and we are forced to live with conditions of worth that are out of step with organismic valuing, and receive only conditional positive regard and self-regard, we develop instead an " ideal self ".

By ideal, Rogers is suggesting something not real, something that is always out of our reach, the standard we cannot meet.

This gap between the real self and the ideal self, the " I am " and the " I should " is called incongruity.