More about the Actualising Tendency

BLOG – No. 2

The Actualisation Tendency cont’d…..

In the last blog I shared that the actualising tendency, as argued from a Humanistic (Person-Centred) perspective is a biological (innate) force that exists in all organisms (including humans) and direct all towards survival, maintenance and growth – their fulfilment of potential. 

One key psychological factor that restricts our human growth is our mentally constructed perception of who we are and how we should behave – the basis of this is our early conditioning when we learn to respond to the requirements of our environment. This conditioning reinforces a certain way of being in order to gain something of what we value from important others – this could include: survival, attention, love etc. To gain this we create a false persona/sense of self, which could be viewed as a contracted version of our true wholeness, which we came into the world as. 

Every time we repeat conditioned behaviours they become strengthened and embedded in our psyche and holds the false message ‘this is the person I am’.  We can then spend our life seeking to fit our everyday experiences into this false self. Any experience that doesn’t meet the demands of our self-concept we can find ourselves manipulating the experience to make it fit, using defence mechanisms, notably denial and distortion.

Living up to a self-concept can lead to exhaustion, stress, anxiety, unhappiness etc. 

More about why the above happens in my next blog…

The Actualising Tendency

Introduction to Blog by Russ Kendall

Up to this point, my sharing on this page of my website have been in the form of poems and these I will continue to write and share with you. However, in light of the New Year starting I thought I would also start writing a blog to share some of my insights and observations of the therapeutic process and in particular the counselling I offer, which is based on a Person-Centred approach. I shall also refer to Mindfulness and Focusing, which are also very much related to the counselling I offer.

 Blog No. One – The Actualising Tendency 

Person-Centred Counselling was developed in the 1950s by Carl Rogers under the Humanistic school of Psychology. When I studied psychology many years ago, the Humanistic school really resonated with me because of it’s underpinning philosophy in the innate potential in everyone (including me) to have the capacity to grow and aspire to their full potential. This innate potential, emanant writers of the day believed resided in all organisms. In this regard Rogers stated that if Potatoes were put in a dark cellar they would move towards the light. This, I’m sure you will have observed in nature in your everyday life. This is what is called the Actualising Tendency.

I wrote the following poem that says something about this for me:

Winter sky

Winter sky blue, draw me near.

Hold me in your loving arms,

so that I may know how to love.

And when that time comes let me be.

Your quiet, unspoken beauty,

where birds fly in timeless flight,

and the sun shines selflessly giving,

show me how to fully receive of myself.

In my next blog, I shall talk more about the Actualising Tendency in terms of what helps and hinders it……….