Watching a loggerhead sea turtle crawl out of its nest and make its way to the ocean is a powerful sight. These tiny creatures scramble across the sand, beginning an 8,000-mile journey across open waters before finding their way back home. Migrating birds, honeybees, and millions of dragonflies also make incredible journeys, flying thousands of miles from India to Africa.

Scientists have long wondered how these animals navigate such vast distances. They’ve searched for clues, like special particles in the brain that might act as a guide. Schopenhauer, in 1844, reflected on the way animals seem to heal, grow, and move with mechanical precision — as if driven by an internal will or instinct, a kind of deep, innate knowledge.

Humans, like these travellers, are also part of a constant process of change and direction. This process relies on self-organisation and self-determination, and for it to flourish, freedom and safety are essential.

A client in therapy once shared:

“This is helping me to get my head in order. I like making lists, and if my head is not in order then I don’t know what I am doing. This is leading me to organise my thoughts; it makes me feel looked after and you are helping me to understand. It is an intellectual discussion. It seems like me teaching you about me, and you taking a genuine interest in me. I like when you asked ‘can you help me to understand this?’”

This sentiment underscores a broader truth: we inherently seek organisation, understanding, and a sense of being truly seen. Paraphrasing Galilei, one might say no one can truly teach anything; instead, they help others realise that the answers lie within them.

But, but, but — what happens to a loggerhead sea turtle when it becomes trapped in a net or tumbles into a hollow, unable to shift itself? Can it liberate itself through its own effort? So when we want to help someone, I think it is important to have that question in our mind: is this person stuck? Is there a block? If the answer is no, and there are no longer blocks, we can then revert to Carl Rogers’ conditions of empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard to support their process of discovery and growth.

Personally, I believe Carl Rogers, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987, should have won it. He understood human beings more profoundly than others, and his insights can still change therapy and education for the better.

However, this is the one area where I differ from him:

Blocks must sometimes be removed, and more information provided, to enable the process of adaptation in human beings. As Michelangelo once said, ‘I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free