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PCE2006
7th World Conference for
Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling
July 12–16, 2006, Potsdam, Germany
Topic:
Actualizing Tendency in Modern Interdisciplinary, Systems Theory
Symposia, Paper Sessions, Workshops, Round Table Discussion Groups:
Jeffrey H. D. Cornelius-White
Missouri State University, The Person-Centered Journal
Abstract:
The presentation advocates for the reprioritization of the formative tendency as the foundational motivational construct in the person-centered approach rather than the actualizing tendency. The actualizing tendency roots growth as residing in the maintenance and enhancement of the single human individual. The formative tendency is broader and subsumes the actualizing tendency. The formative tendency exists in all life processes whether individual or group, organic or inorganic. Likewise, it sees growth as fundamentally interconnected rather than merely an actualization of the single organism. The formative tendency is a better starting point for a more nondirective, multicultural and ethical revision of person-centered theory where wider applications are necessary corollaries and where individual therapy, with its reliance on the directional tendency in the single human organism, is not the central application. Many applications of the person-centered approach exist, many with strengths not found in the therapeutic application. For example, person-centered education has an older and arguably stronger body of research evidence compared to client-centered therapy and has the potentially to beneficially influence many more people. A person-centered approach built upon the formative tendency, with the actualizing tendency as a paradoxically unitary yet subsidiary concept of the formative tendency, provides an ethical mandate for nondirectivity across all contexts.
Ivan Ellingham
Psychology Department, Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Trust
Abstract:
Seeking to explain the nature of psychotherapeutic change, Carl Rogers posited the existence of an actualizing tendency intrinsic to the functioning of human individual. At the end of his life Rogers further posited that this actualizing tendency was part and parcel of a universal formative tendency, a tendency bound up with the evolutionary development of the cosmos as a whole. In my paper, building upon Rogers hypothesis of such a formative tendency, I elaborate further upon the nature of the relationship between evolution as a universal process and personal therapeutic change, especially on Rogers proposal that the acme of such change, the fully functioning person, represents the spearhead of human evolutionary advance. In order to so build on Rogers ideas and on person-centred theory in general, I draw upon the ideas of a number of organismic thinkers, especially of the American philosophy Susanne Langer and her two major mentors Ernst Cassirer and Alfred North Whitehead.
Peter F. Schmid
Univ.Doz. HS Prof. Mag. Dr., University of Graz; Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Francisco; IPS Austria, Koflergasse 4, A 1120 Vienna, Austria, tel: +43 1 8123746, fax: +43 1 8124578,
e-mail: pfs@pfs-online.at, www: http://pca-online.net;
http://pfs-online.at
Abstract:
Serious practice or opportunistic trend of fashion? In person-centered groups constellation work (Aufstellungsarbeit) was used long before gurus and trends made it popular. Person-centered constellation work is a way of actualizing resources beyond superficial problem-solving. It differs essentially from popular directive, leader-centered or manipulative approaches currently dominating the
"psychological market". It is also at odds with goal-oriented and rule-dominated methods. On the contrary, person-centered constellation work is a creative enterprise to facilitate personal and organizational development. It is not a means to simply diagnose a state of relationship but a dynamic procedure to visualize relational processes and to observe and experience both intrapersonal and interpersonal constellations and conflicts. Those involved are enabled to gain new perspectives and prospects of persons, families, groups and organizations and to test alternative structures of relationships.
In this workshop you can experience and discuss the person-centered practice of working with constellations. You may experiment with your own material or that of your clients and see how to use constellation work in your practice as therapist, counselor, supervisor, coach, mediator, manager, teacher, director, social or pastoral worker etc. in individual counseling, small and large group work and organizations. Languages are English and German.
Deutsche Zusammenfassung:
Seriöse Praxis oder opportunistischer Modetrend? Personzentrierte Aufstellungsarbeit hat nichts mit leitergesteuerten, zielorientierten oder manipulativen Vorgehensweisen zu tun. Sie ist ressourcenorientiert an Persönlichkeits- und Organisationsentwicklung ausgerichtet. Eigentlich geht es dabei nicht um
"Stellungen", sondern um dynamische Prozesse, wobei intrapersonale und interpersonale Konstellationen und Konflikte durch die räumliche Visualisierung von Beziehungsprozessen sichtbar werden.
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