早在1956年的心理学界，人本主义流派的领军人物 卡尔·罗杰斯（Carl Rogers）和行为主义流派的领军人物斯金纳（B.F.Skinner）就有过这么一个讨论，刊登在了【科学】学术期刊上，以下是文章中卡尔·罗杰斯的发言的一部分内容的不严谨翻译：
正如Meerloo和其他人所指出的，心理治疗可以成为B控制A的最微妙的工具之一。治疗师可以巧妙地塑造一个人，使他成为治疗师的仿制品。他能致使一个人成为服从且顺从的人。当某些治疗原则以极端的方式使用时，我们称之为洗脑。即「人格解体并按照控制者所希望的方式重新塑造」的例子。所以，治疗原则可以被用作外界控制人类人格和行为的有效手段。不过，心理治疗还能作为别的什么手段使用吗？
在这里，我发现「以人为中心」的心理治疗的发展是一个令人兴奋的线索，它表明了「行为科学」能实现的事，实现我所说的[帮助人的]各种价值。「以人为中心」除了是心理治疗的一个新方向之外，它也对「行为科学与人类行为控制的关系」有重要的意义。让我描述一下我们的经验，因为它与本次讨论的问题有关。
在「以人为中心」的治疗中，我们深深地参与了对行为的预测和影响，甚至是对行为的控制。作为治疗师，我们建立了某些条件（治疗师对来访者的态度），而来访者在建立这些条件方面的发言权相对较少。我们预测，如果这些条件被建立起来，来访者的某些行为后果将随之而来。到这个点为止，这主要是外界控制，与斯金纳所描述的没有区别，也与我在本文前面几节所讨论的没有区别。但在这里，任何相似性都不再存在。
我们选择建立的条件预示着这样的行为后果：来访者将变得自我引导，不那么僵化，更开放地对待他的感官所提供的证据，更好地组织和整合，更接近他为自己所选择的理想形象。换句话说，我们通过外界控制建立了一些条件，并预测这些条件会激发一个人的追求内心目标的内在控制。
我们已经设定了预测各种行为类型的条件，包括：自我引导行为、对内在和外界现实的敏感性、灵活的适应性--这些行为在本质上是不可能被很具体地预测的。我们最近的研究表明，我们的预测在很大程度上得到了证实。而我们对科学方法的决心使我们相信，达成这些目标的更有效手段可能会兑现。
看到这段文字时，我得到了一些很宝贵的启示。假如我的目的是创造一个自由自发的环境，那所谓「控制」的方法就能被允许。一切都是为了激发来访者的自由选择的权力，唤醒此人尊重自己的意志。从这个角度上看，心理咨询和教育方法就有很多共通之处，如果能因此激发这个人的内在动力和自我认可的行为，即便是「控制」又何尝不可呢？
文中摘抄的英语原文：
Psychotherapy, as Meerloo (15) and others have pointed out, can be one of the most subtle tools for the control of A by B. The therapist can subtly mold individuals in imitation of himself. He can cause an individual to become a submissive and conforming being. When certain therapeutic principles are used in extreme fashion, we call it brainwashing. an instance of the disintegration of the personality and a reformulation of the person along lines desired by the controlling individual. So the principles of therapy can be used as an effective means of external control of human personality and behavior.Can psychotherapy be anything else?
Here I find the developments going on in client-centered psychotherapy (16) an exciting hint of what a behavioral science can do in achieving the kinds of values I have stated. Quite aside from being a somewhat new orientation in psychotherapy, this development has important implications regarding the relation of a behavioral science to the control of human behavior. Let me describe our experience as it relates to the issues of this discussion.
In client-centered therapy, we are deeply engaged in the prediction and influencing of behavior, or even the control of behavior. As therapists, we institute certain attitudinal conditions, and the client has relatively little voice in the establishment of these conditions. We predict that if these conditions are instituted, certain behavioral consequences will ensue in the client. Up to this point this is largely external control, no different from what Skinner has described, and no different from what I have discussed in the preceding ps of this article. But here any similarity ceases.
The conditions we have chosen to establish predict such behavioral consequences as these: that the client will become self-directing, less rigid, more open to the evidence of his senses, better organized and integrated, more similar to the ideal which he has chosen for himself. In other words, we have established by external control conditions which we predict will be followed by internal control by the individual, in pursuit of internally chosen goals. We have set the conditions which predict various classes of behaviors--self-directing behaviors, sensitivity to realities within and without, flexible adaptiveness--which are by their very nature unpredictable in their specifics. Our recent research indicates that our predictions are to a significant degree corroborated, and our commitment to the scientific method causes us to believe that more effective means of achieving these goals may be realized.
参考：此段落源于 卡尔·罗杰斯（Carl Rogers）和斯金纳（B.F. Skinner 行为主义心理学的领军人物）于1956年的辩论内容
Science, Nov.30, 1956, 124, pp.1057-1066
