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Actualizing tendency
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The actualizing tendency is a fundamental element of Carl Rogers' theory of person-
centered therapy (PCT) (also known as client-centered therapy). Rogers' theory is
predicated on an individual's innate capacity to decide his/her own best directions
in life, provided his/her circumstances are conducive to this, based on the
organism's "universal need to drive or self-maintain, flourish, self-enhance and
self-protect".[1] Counsellors Keith Tudor and Mike Worrall proposed that analogues
of the actualizing tendency can be found in texts by various writers from antiquity
onward, such as Aristotle, Lucretius, Spinoza, S�ndor Ferenczi, Jessie Taft, and
Eric Berne.[2]:86

Contents
1 Development of the concept
2 Application to psychotherapy
2.1 Characteristics of the actualizing tendency
2.1.1 It is individual and universal
2.1.2 It is holistic
2.1.3 It is ubiquitous and constant
2.1.4 It is directional
2.1.5 It is primarily tension-increasing
2.1.6 It tends towards greater autonomy
2.1.7 It involves self-actualization (in humans)
2.1.8 It is pro-sociality
2.1.9 It is channelled through the reflective consciousness
3 Criticism
4 See also
5 References
Development of the concept
Rogers based his notion of the actualizing tendency on his deductive observation
that whenever a person is free to choose their goals they select "positive and
constructive pathways".[1] Rogers found that: "it is our experience in therapy
which has brought us to the point of giving this proposition a central place",
[3]:489 and eventually named this theoretical construct the actualizing tendency.
The individual: "has one basic tendency and striving � to actualize, maintain and
enhance the experiencing organism". In 1980 he elucidated further: "...life is an
active process, not a passive one. Whether the stimulus arises from within or
without, whether the environment is favourable or unfavourable, the behaviours of
an organisms can be counted on to be in the direction of maintaining, enhancing,
and reproducing itself. This is the very nature of the process we call life."
Fundamentally, therefore, actualization is not something that an organism does, or
has, but what it is.[2]:87

In his "theory of personality and behaviour", published in 1951, Rogers presented

19 propositions, the fourth of which holds that: "The organism has one basic
tendency and striving � to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing
organism". Rogers regarded the actualizing tendency as the fundamental motivational
driver of all human development, emotion and behaviour: "Rather than many needs and
motives, it seems entirely possible that organic and psychological needs may be
described as partial aspects of this one fundamental need."[4] To illustrate the
universal nature of the actualization of an individual organism's life cycle Rogers
wrote of how potatoes had sprouted and grown in his parent's dark basement: "They
would never become plants, never mature, never fulfil their real potential. But
under the most adverse circumstances, they were striving to become. Life would not
give up, even if it could not flourish."[4]:118 Nathaniel Raskin, a long-term
collaborator with Carl Rogers, wrote in 2000 that the actualizing tendency

...is a central tenet in the writings of Kurt Goldstein, Hobart Mowrer, Harry Stack
Sullivan, Karen Horney, and Andras Angyal, to name just a few. The child's painful
struggle to learn to walk is an example. It is Rogers' belief, and the belief of
most other personality theorists that, given a free choice and in the absence of
external force, individuals prefer to be healthy rather than sick, to be
independent rather than dependent, and in general to further the optimal
development of the total organism.[5]

Actualization of the self (self-actualization) occurs alongside the actualization

of all other life functions and organs. It is important to note the difference
between self-actualization as conceptualised by Carl Rogers and the more widely
known self-actualization of Abraham Maslow.

Application to psychotherapy
Actualization is never the goal for therapy, but the actualizing tendency � the
client's "native wisdom"[6] is the "engine that makes psychotherapy work",[7]:97
allowing clients to become more "fully functioning". Self-actualization in person-
centred personality theory is the ongoing, adaptive process of "maintaining and
enhancing that portion of the phenomenal field [i.e. experiencing] which is the
'self'".[7]:86�87 This self is continually adapting and modifying itself in
response to experience in response to external and internal stimuli.[7]:87 Often
misinterpreted as na�vely implying an innate goodness in humans, or alternatively
as encouraging an autonomy based on selfish, narcissistic individuality, Rogers'
self-actualization is biological, value-neutral and promotes the self-regulated
interdependence of a valued member of society, rather than a purely selfish
attitude. "Suppose we turn to the animal world and ask ourselves what is the basic
nature of the lion, or the sheep, or the dog, or the mouse. To say that any one or
all of these are basically hostile or antisocial or carnal seems to be
ridiculous."[8]

Rogers built his theory around the idea that this adaptive homeostasis is exactly
the process that can either optimise or pathologize the process of self-
actualisation: "In nature the actualizing tendency shows surprising efficiency. The
organism makes errors, to be sure, but these are corrected on the basis of
feedback."[9] While the organism might make errors, much depends on the
individual's environment during development: "Those who were fortunate enough to
have a loving and supportive environment during their early years would receive the
necessary reinforcement to guarantee the nourishment of the actualizing tendency.
They would ... be affirmed in their ability to trust their own thoughts and
feelings and to make decisions in accordance with their own perceptions and
desires"[10] in accordance with their personal organismic valuing process (OVP). In
PCT the process of self-actualization is what does the healing, and the therapist
must remain non-directive and "sustain the conviction that each person is
attempting to actualize himself: do not try to change anyone".[7]:288 Bohart (2013)
cites evidence for the idea that people can be surprisingly "self-righting"
following psychological distress, including trauma,[7]:95 and that it is this
capacity that facilitates effective therapy.[7]:95

Characteristics of the actualizing tendency

Brodley (1999)[11] has identified a number of major characteristics of the
actualizing tendency in human beings:

It is individual and universal

As a fundamental biological process, actualization is both as individual and as
universal as the genome of any individual organism. All living things utilise
energy, maintain homeostasis (sometimes in very complex, adaptive, or opportunistic
ways), grow, respond to stimuli, adapt, and reproduce. Each of these functions is
compelled and constrained in a distinctive manner by the individual's unique mix of
genes and environmental factors. Actualization arises from the tension at the
interface of gene and environment.[12]

It is holistic
The actualizing tendency applies to all aspects of the organism such that effort
towards its development and behaviours are holistically coordinated.

It is ubiquitous and constant

The actualizing tendency applies to all of the organism's systems, and at all times
during its life-cycle.

It is directional
There are two aspects to the actualizing tendency's directionality: a drive towards
the maintenance of organization and a drive towards realization of potential
throughout the life cycle.

It is primarily tension-increasing
An organism's behaviour is governed by feedback processes, in which "tension
reduction is a secondary, corrective reaction" (Brodley, 1999): the organismic
valuing process (OVP) regulates behaviour via motivational anxieties and associated
"pleasurable tensions".[13]

It tends towards greater autonomy

A maturing organism is increasingly driven towards autonomous behaviours. In humans
this involves increased self-regulation and self-determination, and towards a
socially negotiated degree of interdependence that the individual is comfortable
with. This implies issues related to power: the capacity to assist, resist, or
compel, others.

It involves self-actualization (in humans)

As a subset of the overall organism, the sense of self is always in a state of
actualization. A well-functioning human mind is free to continually reflect upon
and reinterpret its experience, and to restructure and reinvent itself, allows the
individual to adapt in sophisticated ways to complex aspects of its current and
predicted environment.

It is pro-sociality
Brodley (1999) identifies characteristics of sociability that she considers likely
to be universal: "the capacity for identification leading to feelings of sympathy
for other persons, capacity for empathy, affiliative tendencies, tendencies toward
attachment, communication, social cooperation and collaboration, capacities for
forming moral or ethical rules, and tendencies to engage in struggles to live
according to moral or ethical rules" (Brodley, 1999). Rogers had noted the
importance of others in an individual's actualization, which: "...inevitably
involves the enhancement of other selves as well... the self-actualization of the
organism appears to be in the direction of socialization, broadly defined" (Rogers,
1951).[3]:150, 448

It is channelled through the reflective consciousness

Humans have a far more developed consciousness / self-awareness than other animals,
and in a well-functioning individual there will be conscious awareness of their
organismic needs and motivations. The actualizing tendency, however, is only
partially available to the individual's phenomenal field, and is not always fully
subject to conscious reflection and effective symbolisation (the process by which
an individual makes meaning from their experience).
Criticism
Psychologist Les Greenberg said: "I disagree with Rogers and client-centered theory
with regard to the inborn nature of the actualizing tendency and what it is in
therapy that releases the growth tendency."[14] Greenberg and Richard van Balen
explained that instead of the idea of the actualizing tendency, they preferred the
idea of a "development tendency oriented toward increased complexity via
exploration, and differentiation and integration of functioning, that results in
greater adaptive flexibility".[15]:46

The general aim of therapy, in Greenberg and van Balen's view, is to help clients
to become "viable in a given environment rather than to actualize potential or
become all one can be",[15]:47 and such development "is based more on a set of
values than on a biological tendency".[15]:47 Greenberg and van Balen noted that
basic organismic experience itself, far from being an expression of an actualizing
tendency, sometimes needs therapeutic change: "For example, in posttraumatic stress
syndrome the emotion system often signals an alarm when no danger is present.
Similarly abuse or poor attachment histories can lead to maladaptive experience of,
or mistrust of, interpersonal closeness, or a desire for relational experiences
that are not in one's best interest."[15]:51 Greenberg and van Balen wrote: "People
in our view are often struggling and confused. Both 'good' and 'bad' inclinations
do exist as possibilities. Therapy is the co-constructive dialogue in which both
the therapist and client struggle to discern and confirm the client's health-
promoting tendencies and possibilities", and is not simply a result of an innate
actualizing tendency.[15]:47

See also
Organismic theory
References
Levitt, B. E. (2005) Embracing non-directivity: reassessing person-centered theory
and practice in the 21st century. Ross-on-Wye. p. 136.
Tudor, K and Worrall, M (2006) Person-centred therapy: a clinical philosophy.
London: Routledge.
Rogers, C. R. (1951) Client-centred therapy. London: Robinson.
Rogers, C. R. (1980) A way of being. New York: Houghton Mifflin Books pp. 487�8.
Raskin, M. (2004) Contributions to client-centered therapy and the person-centered
approach. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books. p.260.
Worsley, R. (2009) Process work in person-centred therapy. 2nd ed. London:
Palgrave Macmillan. p.40.
Cooper, M., O'Hara, M., Schmid, P. and Bohart, A. (Ed) (2013) The handbook of
person-centred psychotherapy and counseling. 2nd ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rogers, C. R. (1957) A note on the 'nature of man'. Journal of Counseling
Psychology. Vol. 4, No. 3, 1957. p.200.
Mearns, D. and Thorne, M. (2000) Person-centred therapy today: new frontiers in
theory and practice. London: Sage. p. 185.
Mearns, D. and Thorne, B. (2007/2008) Person-centred counselling in action. 3rd
ed. London: Sage. p.9.
Brodley, B. (1999) The actualizing tendency concept in client-centred therapy. The
person-centered journal. Vol. 6. Issue 2
Merry, T. (2002) Learning and being in person-centred counselling. 2nd ed. Ross-
on-Wye: PCCS Books. p.69.
Koch, Sigmund, ed. Psychology: a study of a science. study 1, Volume 3:
formulations of the person and the social context, London: McGraw-Hill, 1959. p.
196.
Greenberg, L. S. (1996) The power of empathic exploration: a process-
experiential/gestalt perspective on the case of Jim Brown. In Farber, B. A., Brink,
D., & Raskin, P. M. (eds.), The psychotherapy of Carl Rogers: cases and commentary
(pp. 251�260). New York: Guilford Press.
Greenberg, L. S. & van Balen, R. (1998) The theory of experience-centered
therapies. In Greenberg, L. S., Watson, J. C., & Lietaer, G. (eds.), Handbook of
experiential psychotherapy (pp. 28�57). New York: Guilford Press.
Categories: Humanistic psychology
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