ABSTRACT
It is this awareness of and emphasis on the relational aspects of being in the world over the ‘individualistic’ view of people imputed to Rogers’ original theory of personality and development that leads Mearns and Thorne (2000: 182-183) to propose a process of ‘social mediation’. Social mediation is proposed as a counter-balance or (Mearns and Thorne 2007: 24) ‘a restraining force’ to the actualising tendency. The idea springs from the recognition that people are in relationship and that a free, unmediated, unmoderated expression of the actualising tendency may be detrimental to the person. This restraining force works in such a way as to ensure that the person not only moves towards being fully functioning but does so in such a way as to preserve, maintain (and possibly even enhance) the social contexts in which they exist. This is then the basis for further growth. Mearns and Thorne (2007: 24) encapsulate their development of theory thus ‘the person takes other people in their life into account [original emphasis] in the course of their own maintenance and development’.
