Élan Vital: the force that pushes us to fulfill ourselves

Who hasn’t seen roots grow from the potatoes they have stored at home? These have not been planted again or cultivated, however, without being in the most favorable conditions, they continue to fight for their survival, for their life cycle, for their development… This is the elan vital or vital impulse, a concept of the French philosopher Henri Bergson in his work The creative evolution which we talk about below.

He elan vital is a conceptualization of the life force that allows all living organisms to adapt to situations that life puts in their path. Carl Rogers referred to it as an actualizing tendency and Ralph Waldo Emerson called it a vital force. As we see, different authors over time have used different concepts to talk about it. Let’s dig deeper.

Perception and Henri Bergson

He elan vital It is the impulse that has caused the evolution of living beings and that has forced their development and evolution. A force that would have a lot to do with our perception of time, specifically, with the way of perceiving the present according to Bergson.

For this author, space is neither external nor objective, just as time is not internal or subjective. The only thing that exists is the present, which is unified in perception that comes from the vital force of each individual. Furthermore, this idea is used in the field of psychiatry to manage perception distortions in some disorders such as schizophrenia, in which the perceptual unit is broken.

Bergson defended the idea that this vital force cannot come from reason. In fact, he tells us that intelligence deviates from the vision of time and does not allow creation. On the contrary, reason would be at the service of this vital impulse or elan vital. Reason is in connection with life, but it is not life itself.

Carl Rogers and the updating trend

Rogers maintained that the most important human motivation is self-fulfilment. The motivation or drive It is intrinsic to every living being and is manifested through emotions.. This innate tendency to develop all potentialities occurs to ensure the conservation and enrichment of each living being.

Actually, It is a latent ability to understand oneself and to develop the effectiveness we need to act appropriately and obtain the satisfaction that this entails.

According to this idea, The human being is in a continuous process of improvement, growth and change. He elan vital It is the impulse that generates the effort that people make to self-actualize. In short, it is the force that makes us seek happiness.

We are the ones who know

Rogers also argued that It is each person and each organism that knows best what is best for them. and the direction of the development of its full potential. It is true that some favorable conditions seem to be necessary for this, but they are not necessarily the same for everyone. This way, It would be each of us who would intuitively know our path to fully develop as a person..

The therapeutic intervention that Rogers developed as a result of this theory of elan vital The updating tendency was to see the therapist as a companion. This helps the individual while adapting his or her resources to meet the needs that each situation requires. Actually, it would be a support so that everyone could organize themselves and find their way to fulfill themselves.

The potentials are unique

According to all of the above, human beings would be destined to develop in different ways according to our own nature. Unlike a flowerthe potential of each of us is unique and singular.

Rogers believed that Human beings are basically good and creative.. They become destructive when their self-concept is poor or some external restriction interferes with the development process.

This happens because For self-realization to occur, the person must reach a state of congruence. In this way, the self-realization to which this vital force pushes us from within occurs when the “ideal self” is congruent with its self-image.

All these theories about elan vitalthe updating tendency or the vital force that some authors defended refers to that it is this impulse that leads to the building of trust in the human being and the basis on which emotional education has been built little by little.

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