The Actualising Tendency
This is Part 2 of a two-part article about the concept of self-actualisation. You can read part 1 in the previous blog post.
Many years ago, I reached a low point in my life. I had ended a long-term relationship and was given a very serious health diagnosis. In response, I developed agonising anxiety, and my life crumbled to the point that I no longer knew who I was.
I had lost the capacity to deal with my anxieties alone and struggled to find the insight I needed to move forward in life. Over several years of therapy, I began to rebuild myself, but not back to how I was; instead, I was building aspects of myself that had never fully developed. In short, I was growing into a more fully formed version of myself, with insight and self-awareness that I could not previously access.
Looking back, I can see that what was activated in me at that time was not just a desire to end my anxiety and to ‘feel better’. There was also an inner drive to thrive and move into my potential as a human being.
This process was not linear, and it continues to evolve. But something in my life was changing for the better.
What is the actualising tendency?
What had become activated in me was what psychotherapist Carl Rogers may have described as the actualising tendency.
Carl Rogers was an American psychologist active in the mid-20th century. He was one of the founders of the humanistic psychotherapy movement and pioneered his own approach, known as person-centred psychotherapy.
Roger’s approach to therapy was grounded in the notion that people have infinite potential for constructive self-awareness and healing. Specifically, the idea that “the individual has an inherent capacity to move away from maladjustment and toward psychological health and growth” (Corey 2001, p. 164).
The actualising tendency, according to Rogers, “is the urge which is evident in all organic and human life—to expand, extend, become autonomous, develop, mature”. This tendency may, however, “become deeply buried under layer after layer of encrusted psychological defences” (Rogers 1961, p.58).
He believed we have within us the building blocks to be a fully functioning person, leading to both personal empowerment and social transformation.
Rogers saw as central the qualities that Maslow had identified in self-actualised individuals. He was also inspired by the Danish existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who wrote: “to will to be that self which one truly is, is indeed the opposite of despair” (Kierkegaard 2013, p.19). What Keirkegaard meant is that selfhood lies in actively choosing and becoming the most authentic version of yourself.
Rogers believed that humans require acceptance. Through this acceptance (for example, in the therapy relationship), they can develop openness to and trust in their own experience, as well as a willingness to grow.
“Whether one calls it a growth tendency, a drive toward self-actualisation, or a forward-moving directional tendency”, said Rogers (1961, p.58), “it is the mainspring of life, and…the tendency upon which all psychotherapy depends.”
Internal Locus of Evaluation
Central to his theory is the idea of an internal locus of evaluation, defined as a trust in one’s own feelings, instincts, decisions and choices. The opposite of this (and perhaps more common) is the seeking of external validation, such as a reliance on the approval of others.
However, before a person can really feel into their internal locus of evaluation, they need to confront the masks they have come to wear through the process of socialisation.
Rogers recalls a case study of a young woman identifying a mask that many women (myself included) have struggled with - the desire to appease:
“I somehow developed a sort of knack…of trying to make people feel at ease around me. I just didn’t stand up for my own convictions, until I don’t know whether I have any convictions to stand up for…or actually knowing what my real self is, and I’ve been just playing a sort of false role.” (Rogers 1961, p.144)
Who we become is often an internalisation of values that don’t reflect who we really are. What follows is the horror of discovering that we exist in response to the ideas and demands of others, and the tumultuous and painful process of removing the masks to discover the quiet freedom that exists underneath.
The person discovers slowly “the stranger who has been living behind these masks, the stranger who is himself.” (Rogers 1961, p.163)
As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie notes: “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller…they grow up to be women who have turned pretence into an art form” (We Should All Be Feminists, 2013).
Women are often socialised to please and placate, to care for others, to become the buffers or sponges for the emotions that others cannot hold, and to make decisions based on the wishes of those around them.
Women are also judged more on their looks, skills, and aptitude. Being objectified and undermined consistently in this way erodes confidence and self-trust.
What this means is that a woman’s locus of evaluation is often externalised. Power is given away as she gives up her own authority and accepts the authority of others as a source for self-definition (Mearns et al. 2013, p.20).
Rogers (1961, p.244) described this dynamic as a person’s “conditions of worth”. These are the beliefs we internalise — first from parents and early family experiences, and later from society — that convince us we are only deserving of love and acceptance if we meet certain external standards: “I am only worthy if I’m intelligent,” “if I don’t show anger or weakness,” “if I’m helpful to others” and so on.
This means that a woman’s self-worth is conditional, not inherent. When these external standards aren’t met, a woman may feel worthless, anxious, and disconnected from her own inner trust.
This also creates incongruence, a divide between the authentic self (who we truly are and what we genuinely desire) and the conditional self (who acts according to what we believe we should do or be to gain approval).
How do you develop an internal locus of evaluation?
Good therapy should aim to help individuals move from seeking external validation to developing a stronger connection with authenticity and self-trust.
These are the steps I have used myself and for my clients to develop an internal locus of evaluation. This is not a linear process, and these things don’t necessarily need to happen in this order, but they are useful steps for reigniting trust in oneself.
Tuning into your own body, sensations and feelings, to know what feels right and wrong for you. Sometimes referred to as a ‘felt sense’ or intuition, this takes practice, and therapy is a great place to experiment with it. Start by sitting quietly and noticing body feelings and sensations that arise. Learn to name them: “When I think about that, it gives me a tight, anxious feeling in my chest.” “When I’m with that person, I feel flooded with anxiety and find it hard to think straight.” This is all information that your body, your nervous system and your intuition are giving you. At first, learn to listen and feel those things - the more you can do this, the more you can trust this information. This is often the first step in making decisions that align with your authentic self and inner experience. We start life with a well-developed felt sense. However, women are often taught by families, society and partners to deny this. Getting back in touch with it is crucial.
Being able to read those sensations in the moment and trust them as a source of guidance. Have you ever had a moment of feeling deeply uncomfortable, but were unable to form a response right then and there? Later on, you could see clearly how and why you became dysregulated in this precise moment - but right then, your sense of this was clouded. It takes deep nervous system regulation and a developed self-trust to express confidently and calmly what you know to be true. Be patient as you work on this, especially when it comes to differentiating between what is a ‘gut sense’ of something, and what is fear or anxiety based on past experiences. You already have the information you need. Learn to trust that over time.
Learning to value your own perceptions and choices. This means honouring your wants and needs, your intuition about what feels right and what doesn’t, and standing by your personal values. This is a difficult thing to master, especially if you were not raised to have self-trust. Initially, this may look like sitting quietly with those perceptions. You don’t have to voice them all at once; firstly, get comfortable with your own innate sense of what feels right and wrong for you (use your therapist as a resource to express these things). Sometimes it can be helpful to do a values exercise to work out what your values are (there are many online tools for this).
Learning to disappoint others. Shifting from external reliance (pleasing others, meeting conditions of worth) to internal congruence means saying “no”. A fear of disappointing other people often keeps women saying yes to things that don’t work for them. This takes time and patience to master, and sometimes it’s best to start small - say no to things that seem manageable in the first instance. What is encouraging is how addictive saying no becomes after some time. When you see that people around you adapt, that the sky doesn’t fall in when you say ‘no’, it’s incredibly empowering. You may need to deal with a fair amount of acting up from people in your life who are used to you acquiescing. But this is part of the process of developing an internal locus of evaluation - learning how to hold your shape in the face of derision and stay true to yourself.
What I’ve realised is that developing an internal locus of evaluation is a radical act - one of the most radical acts a person can undertake. It’s a rebellion against the status quo, against a society that tells us we need to take our cues about who we are from external sources. This quiet, personal rebellion leads us back to self-trust and into an authentic life.
Why is this important? It’s about social justice.
I believe profoundly in the ability of people to remake themselves for the better. My own experiences of growth have shown me that there is validity in the concept of the actualising tendency and that we, as human beings in the 21st century, have a social justice obligation to actualise a more just world.
If the purpose of therapy is for the individual to become less defensive and more open to experience, to have a greater acceptance of oneself and others, to be freer, more self-directive and have trust in oneself, what are the implications for a whole gender who have been socialised for the exact opposite?
It was the dissonance and disempowerment in my own life that drove me to seek therapy, and which provided the impetus for change. In doing the agonising work of exploring my own masks, facades and defences, my world became freer, and self-trust quickly followed.
I wanted to end with a video I saw recently on social media of a wonderful woman and her daughter. Not only is it a lovely interaction, it’s also a beautiful example of how we can socialise girls to have agency and power by encouraging their authentic responses. Because when girls grow up trusting their assertiveness and their agency, they become women who create safer societies for all.