1. What is meant by actualizing tendency?

What is meant by self-actualizing and self-

actualization? What’s the difference between the two terms?
Actualizing tendency is the desire that pushes an individual towards growth, drive towards
completion and reach owns potentials. Self-actualizing or self-actualization is the subset of
the actualizing tendency. It’s the tendency to actualize the self as perceived in harmony. Self-
actualization occurs when the individual’s ideal self is congruent with its actual behaviour.
Actualizing tendency involves evaluating subjective experiences in terms of their potential in
helping an individual improve himself/herself both short-term and long-term. So if the
actualizing tendency leads to self-actualization, the individual can become a fully functioning
person.
2. Why do we do the things we do? How would Rogers using his theory, possibly answer
this question?
Rogers’ believed that a person’s behaviour is completely dependent on how he or she
perceives the world and its situations. We do what we do because that’s how we perceived
the world. In the process of actualizing the self, we evaluate our experiences from those given
situations on how it could possibly help and improve ourselves.
3. What is an organismic self, self-concept, and ideal self? Differentiate.
Organismic self refers to the entire person, including those aspects outside a person’s
awareness. Self-concept includes all aspects of an individual including experiences as
perceived in awareness. While the ideal self is an individual’s view of who they would like to
be.
4. How did Rogers’ background influence his theory?
Carl Rogers grew up from a family who emphasized a close-knit relationship and constant
productive work with high ethical standards. Because of his background growing up from a
family with Christian faith, exposure to Eastern Culture and spirituality in College, it’s been
easy for him to value and respect each person he met. With his respect on each person’s
ability to grow as a human, Rogers began his Person-Centered Theory.
5. Compare and contrast Rogers’ theory and Freud’s.
Carl Rogers theory is part of the humanist psychology, its main idea focuses on the “self” and
is dependent to a person’s personality, whereas Freud’s theory focuses on the behavior of an
individual which is linked to its past childhood experiences. Rogers’ theory is highly positive
and is based on the current and perceived situations, believing that each person has the drive
towards completion and reaching its own potentials while Freud’s notion is basically based
on the past.
6. Explain how pathology/maladjustment develops using Rogers’ theory?
According to Rogers, distortion in one’s awareness may lead to maladjustment. Self-concept
should be congruent to a person’s actual experience to avoid incongruence. So when a
person’s self-concept, which are aspects and experiences under a person’s awareness does not
characterize the real experiences, they are denied and distorted, tensions may arise and result
to maladjustment.
7. “We often do things that appeal to our organismic valuing – yet they do not serve our
actualization well”. Explain this line and give example.
Rogers believed that we all have an organismic valuing process. That is a natural instinct
directing individuals fulfil each pursuits. This could also help evaluate right or wrong
experiences suitable for us. With the phrase given, it means that we do what we do because
we experience satisfaction from it. We tend to create our own environment different from the
one that is on the way for self-actualization. Example for this would be eating sweets, it gives
us satisfaction but this doesn’t contributes to our actualization process.
8. What do we mean by conditions of worth? Have you experienced this? Give example.
These are qualifications attached to one’s person acceptance to another person. An
impression that a person will be only accepted if he/she meets the approval and expectations
of other people. In my case, maybe that’s when the time that I’m still looking for a job. A
company has qualifications or certain experiences and trainings than an applicant should have
upon acceptance for a job.
9. Discuss the three necessary and sufficient conditions for therapeutic growth.
Empathy, acceptance/unconditional positive regard and genuineness/congruence. For a
successful therapeutic change, these conditions are necessary and sufficient. By empathy, the
therapist should be able to experience and feel its client’s feelings as if it’s his/her own
feelings. With acceptance, the therapist recognize his/her client as a whole. No conditions
attached. The therapist let the client be what he/she wanted to be. And for the genuineness,
the therapist should be able to show honest feelings of joy, anger, frustration and confusion.
A therapist should neither denied nor distort if these feelings are not truly felt.
10. Discuss the stages of therapeutic process according to Rogers.
According to Rogers, there are 7 stages for a client progressed through therapeutic
personality change. Stage 1, clients are defensive and resistant to change. They are unwilling
to communicate about their selves and doesn’t recognize personal feelings and emotions.
Stage 2, clients become slightly less rigid and begin to discuss external events or other
people. Stage 3, they begin to discuss themselves, but as an object and not as a person. Stage
4, the beginning of talking deep feelings but not the one presently felt. By Stage 5, clients
now felt significant change and personal growth. They can now express present emotions and
accept more responsibility on their own actions. Stage 6, they show rapid growth and
irreversible movement towards congruence and actualization. They freely allow previously
denied and distorted experiences come into awareness. And with the last stage, clients
become the fully functioning “persons of tomorrow”. They are self-actualize, empathic and
can show unconditional positive regard towards others.
11. Describe the “person of tomorrow”/fully functioning person (self-actualizing).
Rogers idea of the “person of tomorrow/fully functioning person” is characterized by a
person who is more adaptable to a static environment. This person is open to his/her
experiences. No denial and distortions will happen since this person accurately symbolize and
put into awareness all of his/her experiences. This person has trust on its organismic self,
hence, make choices that is right for him/her. A person of tomorrow is in a state of existential
living. Lives fully in the moment. He/she has harmonious relationship with others. No need
to prove the self as guided by the thought of unconditionally accepted by someone. Person of
tomorrow is more integrated. He/she is aware with its conscious and unconscious processes.
This person is also characterized by basic trust of human nature. He/she is always ready to
help other people if needed. Lastly, a person of tomorrow is open to all experience and enjoy
greater richness in life than other people.
12. Compare Maslow’s self-actualizers’ characteristics and Rogers’ “the person of
tomorrow”
Maslow’s self-actualizer’s characteristics are somehow difficult to obtain. For Maslow, only
a few individuals can be able to achieve their full potentials. On Rogers’ person of tomorrow,
all people are capable of becoming a fully functioning person, that is, people should move
towards actualization as an innate portion of human development. Rogers’ also regarded a
person of tomorrow characteristics as a process of always becoming and changing. Hence,
it’s not the end or a completion of life journey. Whereas Maslow’s Self-actualizer
characteristics can only be obtain after satisfying the lower needs and motivators.
13. Discuss the necessary and sufficient conditions for change.
Conditions for change includes empathy, acceptance/unconditional positive regard and
genuineness/congruence. By empathy, the person should feel safe and unthreatened thinking
that there’s someone who accurately sense what they feel. With acceptance, the person
should feel that he/she is accepted for who and what he/she is. Genuineness, it must be
clearly sense by the person that the one he/she is talking shows honest feelings and doesn’t
attempt to cover-up emotions.