Growth Hypothesis
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Growth Hypothesis
In Rogers’ person-centered / Client-centered Therapy, the Growth Hypothesis is the working assumption that most (and likely all) people possess inherent “growth forces”—an actualizing tendency toward development, integration, and more mature functioning—and that, when a sufficiently facilitative climate is present, people can find their own next steps toward healthier, more reality-congruent (Aligned and Connected) living without the therapist directing them through advice, interpretation, or persuasion. Rogers later clarified that “unaided” does not mean “without relationship,” but rather without directive interventions; the growth-promoting climate is precisely what releases this capacity
Concept Map
Carl Rogers Terms
Client-Centered Therapy, Congruence, Fully Functioning Person, Growth Hypothesis
Related LP Terms
Growth Hypothesis > Growth Mode
=Non-LP Related Terms
Syncretic Terms
Notes
Quotes
"...in most if not all individuals there exist growth forces, tendencies toward self-actualization, which may act as the sole motivation for therapy. . . . The individual has the capacity and the strength to devise, quite unaided, the steps which will lead him to a more mature and more comfortable relationship to his reality."[1]
"Contrary to those therapists who see depravity at men’s core, who see men’s deepest instincts as destructive, I have found that when man [sic] is truly free to become what he most deeply is, free to actualize his [sic] nature as an organism capable of awareness, then he [sic] clearly appears to move toward wholeness and integration. "[2]
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Footnotes