The movie Precious is based on a young girl who comes from a hostile and difficult environment; she has a complicated relationship with both her mother and her father. Even so, her personality seems to develop throughout the movie. This essay will apply Carl Rogers’ person-centered, humanistic approach to account for the development of Precious’ personality. Carl Rogers's personality theory postulated that given a nurturing environment, every individual has a tendency of actualizing themselves. He also looks at the individual’s interaction with others and how he or she is valued by them, as well as how they value themselves (Hergenhahn, 1994). There are key concepts that Rogers uses in his theory. This essay will explain these concepts and
When a person becomes aware and recognizes the situation that they are in, their phenomenological field becomes enhanced and they can be aware of reality; that is, objective and subjective reality become similar (Herganhahn, 1994).
Precious' experiences at home were harsh and she blocked them from awareness by creating her own fantasies of her being famous and beautiful, her teacher telling her that he is going to leave his wife and marry her. Precious does not enhance her phenomenological field and thereby stagnates. However, when she becomes aware and recognizes her real situation, she closes the photo album and faces her home unloving environment.

The self-concept
Baumeister (as cited in MacLeod, 2008) defines the self-concept as “the individual’s belief about himself or herself, including the person’s attributes and who and what the self is". Self-concept may be described as the individual's outlook on their life, how they perceive themselves (Hergenhahn, 1994). This is to a large extent based on social interactions and evaluations an individual attaches to experiences. Carl Rogers (as cited in MacLeod, 2008) believes that there are three different components of self-concept, namely; self-image, self