ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the paradigmatic difference between therapists, depending on their fundamental assumptions about human nature. It focuses on the fundamental assumptions of therapy and discusses the actualizing tendency which is the assumption that underpins person-centred therapy. Positive psychology showed that mainstream psychology rested on a fundamental assumption that human nature is essentially destructive. The idea of the tendency towards actualization is the foundation of the person-centred therapeutic approach to therapy. Carl Rogers conceptualized the basic directionality of the actualizing tendency as being toward the development of autonomous determination, expansion and effectiveness, and constructive social behaviour. The actualizing tendency, Rogers argued, was the one natural motivational force of human beings and which is always directed towards constructive growth. Joseph and Murphy have conceptualized person-centred practice as at the centre of a Venn-diagram consisting of three overlapping circles representing: the meta-theory of the tendency towards actualization, relational ways of helping and positive psychology with its emphasis on optimal functioning.
