Personality Theory | Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, & Henry Murray (2024)

Created July 26, 2024 by Mark Kelland

In contrast to both the often dark, subconscious emphasisof the psychodynamic theorists and the somewhat cold, calculated perspectivesof behavioral/cognitive theorists, the humanistic psychologists focus on eachindividual’s potential for personal growth and self-actualization. Carl Rogers was influenced by strongreligious experiences (both in America and in China) and his early clinicalcareer in a children’s hospital.Consequently, he developed his therapeutic techniques and theaccompanying theory in accordance with a positive and hopeful perspective. Rogers also focused on the uniquecharacteristics and viewpoint of individuals.

Abraham Maslow is best known for his extensive studies onthe most salient feature of the humanistic perspective: self-actualization. He is also the one who referred to humanisticpsychology as the third force, after the psychodynamic and behavioral/cognitiveperspectives, and he specifically addressed the need for psychology to movebeyond its study of unhealthy individuals.He was also interested in the psychology of the work place, and hisrecognition in the business field has perhaps made him the most famous psychologist.

Henry Murray was an enigmatic figure, who seeminglyfailed to properly acknowledge the woman who inspired much of his work, and whobelieved his life had been something of a failure. Perhaps he felt remorse as a result ofmaintaining an extramarital affair with the aforementioned woman, thanks inlarge part to the advice and help of Carl Jung!Murray extended a primarily psychodynamic perspective to the study ofhuman needs in normal individuals. HisThematic Apperception Test was one of the first psychological tests appliedoutside of a therapeutic setting, and it provided the basis for studying theneed for achievement (something akin to a learned form ofself-actualization).

Carl Rogers and Humanistic Psychology

Carl Rogers is the psychologist many people associatefirst with humanistic psychology, but he did not establish the field in the waythat Freud established psychoanalysis. Afew years older than Abraham Maslow, and having moved into clinical practicemore directly, Rogers felt a need to develop a new theoretical perspective thatfit with his clinical observations and personal beliefs. Thus, he was proposing a humanistic approachto psychology and, more specifically, psychotherapy before Maslow. It was Maslow, however, who used the termhumanistic psychology as a direct contrast to behaviorism andpsychoanalysis. And it was Maslow whocontacted some friends, in 1954, in order to begin meetings that led to thecreation of the American Association for Humanistic Psychology. Rogers was included in that group, but sowere Erich Fromm and Karen Horney, both of whom had distinctly humanisticelements in their own theories, elements that shared a common connection toAlfred Adler’s Individual Psychology (Stagner, 1988). In addition, the spiritual aspects ofhumanistic psychology, such as peak experiences and transcendence, have rootsin the work of Carl Jung and William James, and go even further back in time toancient philosophies of Yoga and Buddhism.

In at least one important way, Rogers’ career was similarto that of Sigmund Freud. As he beganhis clinical career, he found that the techniques he had been taught were notvery effective. So, he beganexperimenting with his own ideas, and developing his own therapeuticapproach. As that approach developed, sodid a unique theory of personality that aimed at explaining the effectivenessof the therapy. Rogers found itdifficult to explain what he had learned, but he felt quite passionately aboutit:

…thereal meaning of a word can never be expressed in words, because the realmeaning would be the thing itself. Ifone wishes to give such a real meaning he should put his hand over his mouthand point. This is what I should most like to do. I would willingly throw away all the words ofthis manuscript if I could, somehow, effectively point to the experience which is therapy. It is a process, a thing-in-itself, anexperience, a relationship, a dynamic… (pp. ix; Rogers, 1951)

Brief Biography of Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers was born on January 8, 1902, inChicago, Illinois. His parents werewell-educated, and his father was a successful civil engineer. His parents loved their six children, of whomRogers was the fourth, but they exerted a distinct control over them. They were fundamentalist Christians, whoemphasized a close-knit family and constant, productive work, but approved oflittle else. The Rogers householdexpected standards of behavior appropriate for the ‘elect’ of God: there was no drinking of alcohol, no dancing,no visits to the theater, no card games, and little social life at all(DeCarvalho, 1991; Thorne, 2003).

Rogers was not the healthiest of children, and his familyconsidered him to be overly sensitive.The more his family teased him, the more he retreated into a lonelyworld of fantasy. He sought consolationby reading books, and he was well above his grade level for reading when he beganschool. In 1914 the family moved to alarge farm west of Chicago, a move motivated primarily by a desire to keep thechildren away from the temptations of suburban city life. The result was even more isolation forRogers, who lamented that he’d only had two dates by the end of highschool. He continued to learn, however,becoming something of an expert on the large moths that lived in the area. In addition, his father encouraged thechildren to develop their own ventures, and Rogers and his brothers raised avariety of livestock. Given theseinterests, and in keeping with family tradition, Rogers enrolled in theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison to study scientific agriculture (DeCarvalho,1991; Thorne, 2003).

During his first year of college, Rogers attended aSunday morning group of students led by Professor George Humphrey. Professor Humphrey was a facilitative leader,who refused to be conventional and who encouraged the students to make theirown decisions. Rogers found theintellectual freedom very stimulating, and he also began to make closefriends. This increased intellectual andemotional energy led Rogers to re-examine his commitment to Christianity. Given his strong religious faith, he decidedto change his major to history, in anticipation of a career as a Christianminister. He was fortunate to be chosenas one of only twelve students from America to attend a World Student ChristianFederation conference in Peking, China.He traveled throughout China (also visiting Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, thePhilippines, and Hawaii) for 6 months, surrounded by other intelligent andcreative young people. He kept adetailed journal, and wrote lengthy letters to his family and Helen Elliott, achildhood friend whom he considered to be his “sweetheart.” His mind was stretched in all directions bythis profound cross-cultural experience, and the intellectual and spiritualfreedom he was embracing blinded him to the fact that his fundamentalist familywas deeply disturbed by what he had to say.However, by the time Rogers was aware of his family’s disapproval, hehad been changed, and he believed that people of very different cultures andfaiths can all be sincere and honest (Kirschenbaum, 1995; Thorne, 2003). As a curious side note, Rogers’ roommate onthe trip was a Black seminary professor.Rogers was vaguely aware that it was strange at that time for a Blackman and a White man to room together, but he was particularly surprised at thestares they received from the Chinese people they met, who had never seen a Blackperson before (Rogers & Russell, 2002).After his return from China, Rogers graduated from college, and 2 monthslater he married Helen. Again his familydisapproved, believing that the young couple should be more establishedfirst. But Rogers had been accepted tothe Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and both he and Helen wantedto be together. His family may havewanted them to wait because Union Theological Seminary was, perhaps, the mostliberal seminary in America at the time (DeCarvalho, 1991; Rogers &Russell, 2002; Thorne, 2003).

Rogers spent 2 years at the seminary, including a summerassignment as the pastor of a small church in Vermont. However, his desire not to impose his ownbeliefs on others, made it difficult for him to preach. He began taking courses at nearby Teachers’College of Columbia University, where he learned about clinical and educationalpsychology, as well as working with disturbed children. He then transferred to Teachers’ College, andafter writing a dissertation in which he developed a test for measuringpersonality adjustment in children, he earned his Ph.D. in ClinicalPsychology. Then, in 1928, he beganworking at the Rochester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children(DeCarvalho, 1991; Thorne, 2003).

Rogers was immersed in his work in Rochester for 12years. He found that even the mostelaborate theories made little sense when dealing with children who hadsuffered severe psychological damage after traveling through the courts and thesocial work systems. So Rogers developedhis own approach, and did his best to help them. Many of his colleagues, including thedirector, had no particular therapeutic orientation:

When I would try to see what I coulddo to alter their behavior, sometimes they would refuse to see me the nexttime. I’d have a hard time getting themto come from the detention home to my office, and that would cause me to think,“What is it that I did that offended the child?” Well, usually it was overinterpretation, orgetting too smart in analyzing the causes of behavior…So we approached everysituation with much more of a question of “What can we do to help?” rather than“What is the mysterious cause of this behavior?” or “What theory does the childfit into?” It was a very good place forlearning in that it was easy to be open to experience, and there was certainlyno pressure to fit into any particular pattern of thought. (pg. 108; Rogers& Russell, 2002)

Eventually Rogers wrote a book outlining his work withchildren, The Clinical Treatment of theProblem Child (Rogers, 1939), which received excellent reviews. He was offered a professorship at Ohio StateUniversity. Beginning as a fullprofessor gave Rogers a great deal of freedom, and he was frequently invited togive talks. It has been suggested thatone such talk, in December 1940, at the University of Minnesota, entitled “NewerConcepts in Psychotherapy,” was the official birthday of client-centeredtherapy. Very popular with his students,Rogers was not so welcome amongst his colleagues. Rogers believed that his work was particularlythreatening to those colleagues who believed that only their own expertisecould make psychotherapy effective.After only 4 years, during which he published Counseling and Psychotherapy (Rogers, 1942), Rogers moved on to theUniversity of Chicago, where he established the counseling center, wrote Client-Centered Therapy (Rogers, 1951)and contributed several chapters to Psychotherapyand Personality Change (Rogers & Dymond, 1954), and in 1956 received a Distinguished Scientific Contribution Awardfrom the American Psychological Association.Then, in 1957, he accepted a joint appointment in psychiatry andpsychology at the University of Wisconsin to study psychotic individuals. Rogers had serious doubts about leavingChicago, but felt that the joint appointment would allow him to make a dramaticcontribution to psychotherapy. It was aserious mistake. He did not get alongwith his colleagues in the psychology department, whom he considered to beantagonistic, outdated, “rat-oriented,” and distrustful of clinical psychology,and so he resigned. He kept his appointmentin the psychiatry department, however, and in 1961 published perhaps his mostinfluential book, On Becoming a Person(Rogers, 1961).

In 1963, Rogers moved to California to join the WesternBehavioral Sciences Institute, at the invitation of one of his former students,Richard Farson. This was a non-profitinstitute dedicated to the study of humanistically-oriented interpersonalrelations. Rogers was leery of making anothermajor move, but eventually agreed. Hebecame very active in research on encounter groups and educational theory. Five years later, when Farson left theinstitute, there was a change in its direction.Rogers was unhappy with the changes, so he joined some colleagues inleaving and establishing the Center for Studies of the Person, where heremained until his death. In his lateryears, Rogers wrote books on topics such as personal power and marriage(Rogers, 1972, 1977). In 1980, hepublished A Way of Being (Rogers,1980), in which he changed the terminology of his perspective from“client-centered” to “person-centered.”With the assistance of his daughter Natalie, who had studied withAbraham Maslow, he held many group workshops on life, family, business,education, and world peace. He traveledto regions where tension and danger were high, including Poland, Russia, SouthAfrica, and Northern Ireland. In 1985 hebrought together influential leaders of seventeen Central American countriesfor a peace conference in Austria. Theday he died, February 4, 1987, without knowing it, he had just been nominatedfor the Nobel Peace Prize (DeCarvalho, 1991; Kirschenbaum, 1995; Thorne, 2003).

Placing Rogers in Context: A Psychology 2,600 Years in the Making

Carl Rogers was an extraordinary individual whose approach to psychology emphasized individuality. Raised with a strong Christian faith, exposed to Eastern culture and spirituality in college, and then employed as a therapist for children, he came to value and respect each person he met. Because of that respect for the ability of each person to grow, and the belief that we are innately driven toward actualization, Rogers began the distinctly humanistic approach to psychotherapy that became known as client-centered therapy.

Taken together, client-centered therapy and self-actualization offer a far more positive approach to fostering the growth of each person than most other disciplines in psychology. Unlike the existing approaches of psychoanalysis, which aimed to uncover problems from the past, or behavior therapies, which aimed to identify problem behaviors and control or “fix” them, client-centered therapy grew out of Rogers’ simple desire to help his clients move forward in their lives. Indeed, he had been trained as a psychoanalyst, but Rogers found the techniques unsatisfying, both in their goals and their ability to help the children he was working with at the time. The seemingly hands-off approach of client-centered therapy fit well with a Taoist perspective, something Rogers had studied, discussed, and debated during his trip to China. In A Way of Being, Rogers (1980) quotes what he says is perhaps his favorite saying, one which sums up many of his deeper beliefs:

If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves,
If I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves,
If I keep from preaching at people, they improve themselves,
If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves.
Lao Tsu, c600 B.C.; Note: This translation differs somewhat from the one
cited in the References. I have included the translation Rogers quoted,
since the difference likely influenced his impression of this saying.

Rogers, like Maslow, wanted to see psychology contribute far more to society than merely helping individuals with psychological distress. He extended his sincere desire to help people learn to really communicate, with empathic understanding, to efforts aimed at bringing peace to the world. On the day he died, he had just been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Since a Nobel Prize cannot be awarded to someone who has died, he was not eligible to be nominated again. If he had lived a few more years, he may well have received that award. His later years were certainly committed to peace in a way that deserved such recognition.

Basic Concepts

Rogers believed that each of us lives in a constantlychanging private world, which he called the experiential field. Everyoneexists at the center of their own experiential field, and that field can onlybe fully understood from the perspective of the individual. This concept has a number of importantimplications. The individual’s behaviormust be understood as a reaction to their experience and perception of thefield. They react to it as an organizedwhole, and it is their reality. Theproblem this presents for the therapist is that only the individual can reallyunderstand their experiential field.This is quite different than the Freudian perspective, in which only thetrained and objective psychoanalyst can break through the defense mechanisms andunderstand the basis of the patient’s unconscious impulses. One’s perception of the experiential field islimited, however. Rogers believed thatcertain impulses, or sensations, can only enter into the conscious field ofexperience under certain circ*mstances.Thus, the experiential field is not a true reality, but rather anindividual’s potential reality (Rogers, 1951).

The one basic tendency and striving of the individual isto actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing of the individual or, inother words, an actualizing tendency. Rogers borrowed the term self-actualization, a term first used by Kurt Goldstein, todescribe this basic striving.

Thetendency of normal life is toward activity and progress. For the sick, the only form ofself-actualization that remains is the maintenance of the existent state. That, however, is not the tendency of thenormal…Under adequate conditions the normal organism seeks further activity.(pp. 162-163; Goldstein, 1934/1995).

For Rogers,self-actualization was a tendency to move forward, toward greater maturity andindependence, or self-responsibility.This development occurs throughout life, both biologically (thedifferentiation of a fertilized egg into the many organ systems of the body)and psychologically (self-government, self-regulation, socialization, even tothe point of choosing life goals). A keyfactor in understanding self-actualization is the experiential field. A person’s needs are defined, as well aslimited, by their own potential for experience.Part of this experiential field is an individual’s emotions, feelings,and attitudes. Therefore, who theindividual is, their actual self, iscritical in determining the nature and course of their self-actualization(Rogers, 1951). We will examine Maslow’swork on self-actualization in more detail below.

What then, is the self?In Rogers’ (1951) initial description of his theory of personality, theexperiential field is described in four points, the self-actualizing tendencyin three points, and the remaining eleven points attempt to define theself. First and foremost, the self is adifferentiated portion of the experiential field. In other words, the self is that part of ourprivate world that we identify as “me,” “myself,” or “I.” Beyond that, the self remains somewhatpuzzling. Can the self exist inisolation, outside of relationships that provide some context for theself? Must the self be synonymous withthe physical body? As Rogers’ pointedout, when our foot “goes to sleep” from a lack of circulation, we view it as anobject, not as a part of our self!Despite these challenging questions, Rogers tried to define and describethe self.

Rogers believed the self is formed in relation to others;it is an organized, fluid, yet consistent conceptual pattern of ourexperiential interactions with the environment and the values attached to thoseexperiences. These experiences aresymbolized and incorporated into the structure of the self, and our behavior isguided largely by how well new experiences fit within that structure. We may behave in ways inconsistent with the structureof our self, but when we do we will not “own” that behavior. When experiences are so inconsistent that wecannot symbolize them, or fit them into the structure of our self, thepotential for psychological distress arises.On the other hand, when our concept of self is mature enough toincorporate all of our perceptions and experiences, and we can assimilate thoseexperiences symbolically into our self, our psychological adjustment will bequite healthy. Individuals who find itdifficult to assimilate new and different experiences, those experiences thatthreaten the structure of the self, will develop an increasingly rigid self-structure. Healthy individuals, in contrast, willassimilate new experiences, their self-structure will change and continue togrow, and they will become more capable of understanding and accepting othersas individuals (Rogers, 1951).

The ability of individuals to make the choices necessaryfor actualizing their self-structure and to then fulfill those choices is whatRogers called personal power(Rogers, 1977). He believed there aremany self-actualized individuals revolutionizing the world by trusting theirown power, without feeling a need to have “power over” others. They are also willing to foster the latentactualizing tendency in others. We caneasily see the influence of Alfred Adler here, both in terms of the creativepower of the individual and seeking superiority within a healthy context ofsocial interest. Client-centered therapy was based on making the context of personalpower a clear strategy in the therapeutic relationship:

…the client-centered approach is aconscious renunciation and avoidance by the therapist of all control over, ordecision-making for, the client. It isthe facilitation of self-ownership by the client and the strategies by whichthis can be achieved…based on the premise that the human being is basically atrustworthy organism, capable of…making constructive choices as to the nextsteps in life, and acting on those choices. (pp. 14-15; Rogers, 1977)

Discussion Question: Rogers claimed that no one can really understand your experiential field. Would you agree, or do you sometimes find that close friends or family members seem to understand you better than you understand yourself? Are these relationships congruent?

Personality Development

Although Rogers described personality within thetherapist-client relationship, the focus of his therapeutic approach was basedon how he believed the person had arrived at a point in their life where theywere suffering from psychological distress.Therefore, the same issues apply to personality development as intherapy. A very important aspect ofpersonality development, according to Rogers, is the parent-childrelationship. The nature of thatrelationship, and whether it fosters self-actualization or impedes personalgrowth, determines the nature of the individual’s personality and,consequently, their self-structure and psychological adjustment.

A child begins life with an actualizing tendency. As they experience life, and perceive theworld around them, they may be supported in all things by those who care forthem, or they may only be supported under certain conditions (e.g., if theirbehavior complies with strict rules). Asthe child becomes self-aware, it develops a need for positive regard. When theparents offer the child unconditionalpositive regard, the child continues moving forward in concert with itsactualizing tendency. So, when there isno discrepancy between the child’s self-regardand its positive regard (from the parents), the child will grow uppsychologically healthy and well-adjusted.However, if the parents offer only conditionalpositive regard, if they only support the child according the desires andrules of the parents, the child will develop conditions of worth. As aresult of these conditions of worth, the child will begin to perceive theirworld selectively; they will avoid those experiences that do not fit with itsgoal of obtaining positive regard. Thechild will begin to live the life of those who set the conditions of worth,rather than living its own life.

As the child grows older, and more aware of its owncondition in the world, their behavior will either fit within their ownself-structure or not. If they havereceived unconditional positive regard, such that their self-regard andpositive regard are closely matched, they will experience congruence. In other words,their sense of self and their experiences in life will fit together, and thechild will be relatively happy and well-adjusted. But, if their sense of self and their abilityto obtain positive regard do not match, the child will develop incongruence. Consider, for example, children playingsports. That alone tells us that parentshave established guidelines within which the children are expected to“play.” Then we have some children whoare naturally athletic, and other children who are more awkward and/orclumsy. They may become quite athleticlater in life, or not, but during childhood there are many different levels ofability as they grow. If a parentexpects their child to be the best player on the team, but the child simplyisn’t athletic, how does the parent react?Do they support the child and encourage them to have fun, or do theypressure the child to perform better and belittle them when they can’t? Children are very good at recognizing who thebetter athletes are, and they know their place in the hierarchy of athletics,i.e., their athletic self-structure. Soif a parent demands dominance from a child who knows they just aren’t thatgood, the child will develop incongruence.Rogers believed, quite understandably, that such conditions arethreatening to a child, and will activate defense mechanisms. Over time, however, excessive or sudden anddramatic incongruence can lead to the breakdown and disorganization of theself-structure. As a result, theindividual is likely to experience psychological distress that will continuethroughout life (Rogers, 1959/1989).

Discussion Question: Conditions of worth are typically first established in childhood, based on the relationship between a child and his or her parents. Think about your relationship with your own parents and, if you have children, think about how you treat them. Are most of the examples that come to mind unconditional positive regard, or conditional positive regard? How has that affected your relationship with your parents and/or your own children?

Anotherway in which Rogers approached the idea of congruence and incongruence wasbased on an individual’s dual concept of self.There is, of course, the actual self-structure, or real self. In addition,there is also an ideal self, muchlike the fictional finalism described by Adler or the idealized self-imagedescribed by Horney. Incongruencedevelops when the real self falls far short of the accomplishment expected ofthe ideal self, when experience does not match the expectations of theself-structure (Rogers, 1951, 1959/1989).Once again, the relationship between parents and their children plays animportant role in this development. Ifparents expect too much, such as all A’s every marking period in school, butthe child just isn’t academically talented, or if the parents expect theirchild to be the football team’s quarterback, but the child isn’t a goodathlete, then the ideal self will remain out of reach. Perhaps even worse, is when a child isphysically or emotionally abused. Such achild’s ideal self may remain at a relatively low standard, but the real selfmay be so utterly depressed that incongruence is still the result. An important aspect of therapy will be toprovide a relationship in which a person in this unfortunate condition canexperience the unconditional positive regard necessary to begin reintegratingthe self-structure, such that the gap between the real self and the ideal selfcan begin to close, allowing the person to experience congruence in their life.

What about individuals who have developed congruence,having received unconditional positive regard throughout development or havingexperienced successful client-centered therapy?They become, according to Rogers (1961), a fully functioning person. Healso said they lead a good life. Thegood life is a process, not a state of being, and a direction, not adestination. It requires psychologicalfreedom, and is the natural consequence of being psychologically free to beginwith. Whether or not it developsnaturally, thanks to a healthy and supportive environment in the home, or comesabout as a result of successful therapy, there are certain characteristics ofthis process. The fully functioningperson is increasingly open to new experiences, they live fully in each moment,and they trust themselves more and more.They become more able and more willing to experience all of theirfeelings, they are creative, they trust human nature, and they experience therichness of life. The fully functioningperson is not simply content, or happy, they are alive:

Ibelieve it will become evident why, for me, adjectives such as happy,contented, blissful, enjoyable, do not seem quite appropriate to any generaldescription of this process I have called the good life, even though the personin this process would experience each one of these feelings at appropriatetimes. But the adjectives which seemmore generally fitting are adjectives such as enriching, exciting, rewarding,challenging, meaningful. Thisprocess…involves the courage to be. …thedeeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual isinwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming. (pp.195-196; Rogers, 1961)

Discussion Question: Rogers described self-actualized people as fully functioning persons who are living a good life. Do you know anyone who seems to be a fully functioning person? Are there aspects of their personality that you aspire to for yourself? Does it seem difficult to be fully functioning, or does it seem to make life both easier and more enjoyable?

Connections Across Cultures: Self-Realization as the
Path to Being a Fully Functioning Person

Rogers described an innate drive toward self-actualization, he talked about an ideal self, and he said that a fully functioning person lived a good life. But what does this actually mean? In the Western world we look for specific, tangible answers to such questions. We want to know what the self-actualization drive is, we want to know which ideals, or virtues, are best or right, and we want to define a “good life.” All too often, we define a good life in terms of money, power, and possessions. The Eastern world has, for thousands of years, emphasized a very different perspective. They believe there is a natural order to life, and it is important that we let go of our need to explain the universe, and it is especially important that we let go of our need to own pieces of the universe. In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tsu (c. 600 B.C./1989) writes:

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name,
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great…

The greatest Virtue is to follow Tao and Tao alone…
Tao follows what is natural.

At about the same time, some 2,600 years ago, the Bhagavad Gita was also written down (Mitchell, 2000). In the second chapter one finds:

When a man gives up all desires
That emerge from the mind, and rests
Contented in the Self by the Self,
He is called a man of firm wisdom…

In the night of all beings, the wise man
Sees only the radiance of the Self;
But the sense-world where all beings wake,
For him is as dark as night.

In each of these sacred books, we are taught that there is something deeper than ourselves that permeates the universe, but it is beyond our comprehension. It is only when we stop attempting to explain it, our way of trying to control it, and be content to just be ourselves, that we can actually attain that goal. To achieve this goal seems to require the absence of conditions of worth. If someone has been given unconditional positive regard throughout their life, they will be content to live that life as it is. Rogers was well aware of this challenge, and he described the good life as a process, not something that you could actually get, but something that you had to “Be.” Still, is it possible that a fully functioning person might have the insight necessary to understand the essence of the universe? Not according to Swami Sri Yukteswar:

Man possesses eternal faith and believes intuitively in the existence of a Substance, of which the objects of sense - sound, touch, sight, taste, and smell, the component parts of this visible world - are but properties. As man identifies himself with his material body, composed of the aforesaid properties, he is able to comprehend by these imperfect organs these properties only, and not the Substance to which these properties belong. The eternal Father, God, the only Substance in the universe, is therefore not comprehensible by man of this material world, unless he becomes divine by lifting his self above this creation of Darkness or Maya. See Hebrews 11:1 and John 8:28.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
“Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the son of man, then shall ye know that I am he.”
Jnanavatar Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, 1894/1990

So whether we believe in God, Tao, an eternal Self, a mortal Self, or merely an actualizing tendency, for thousands of years there has been the belief, amongst many people, that our lives are about more than just being alive for a limited period of time. And it is in the recognition and acceptance, indeed the embracing, of that something more, even if we can’t conceive it in our conscious mind, that we find and live a good life. When Paramahansa Yogananda, a direct disciple of Swami Yukteswar, came to the United States in 1920 to establish a permanent Yoga society, it was suggested that he name his society God-Realization. However, since he believed life is about realizing (or actualizing, in psychological terms) our selves, he established his organization as the Self-Realization Fellowship (Yogananda, 1946).

Self-realization, in the context of Yoga, refers to becoming aware of one’s connection to the spark of divinity that exists within us, which may well be the source of our actualizing tendency. It is not the same as the sense of “I” or “me” that we normally think of. After all, are we our body or our mind? Consider the body. Is it the body we were born with, or the body we have now? Is our mind what we are thinking now, or what we were thinking 2 years ago? Both the body and the mind are transient, but the Self continues. It is that Self that Yogis, Buddhists, and Taoists seek to realize, and it may well be that Self which seeks its own actualization (separate from the consciousness created by the brain underlying our mind; see Feuerstein, 2003; Kabat-Zinn, 1994). This is also the Self of Being and transcendence, as described by Maslow.

Social Relationships and Marriage

Social and personal relationships were very important toRogers, both in therapy and in everyday life.During each moment, we have our awareness (or consciousness), ourexperience (our perception of what is happening), and our communication (ourrelational behavior). For the fullyfunctioning person, there is congruence between each of these phenomena. Unfortunately, we tend to be a poor judge ofour own congruence. For example, ifsomeone becomes angry with another person at a meeting or in a therapy group,they may remain unaware of their anger, even though it may be quite obvious toeveryone else in the room. Thus, ourrelationship with others can reflect the true nature of our own personality,and the degree to which we are congruent.If others are congruent, and therefore are willing to talk to us openlyand honestly, it will encourage us to become more congruent and, consequently,more psychologically healthy (Rogers, 1961, 1980). Curiously, the reason this became soimportant to Rogers was the lack of such meaningful relationships in his ownlife. Because his family followedstrict, fundamentalist rules, they discouraged relationships with peopleoutside their family. The consequenceswere rather disturbing for Rogers:

…the attitudes toward personsoutside our large family can be summed up schematically in this way: “Other persons behave in dubious ways whichwe do not approve in our family. Many ofthem play cards, go to movies, smoke, dance, drink, and engage in otheractivities, some unmentionable. So thebest thing to do is to be tolerant of them, since they may not know better, butto keep away from any close communication with them and to live your lifewithin the family…”

I could sum up these boyhood yearsby saying that anything I would today regard as a close and communicativeinterpersonal relationship with another was completely lacking during thatperiod…I was peculiar, a loner, with very little place or opportunity for aplace in the world of persons. I wassocially incompetent in any but superficial contacts. My fantasies during this period weredefinitely bizarre, and probably would be classed as schizoid by adiagnostician, but fortunately I never came in contact with a psychologist.(pp. 28-30; Rogers, 1980)

As noted above, the development of healthy relationshipstakes place whenever one person in the relationship is congruent. Their congruence encourages the other personto be more congruent, which supports the continued open communication on behalfof the first person. This interplay goesback and forth, encouraging continued and growing congruence in therelationship. As we will see below, thisis basically the therapeutic situation, in which the therapist is expected tobe congruent. However, it certainly doesnot require a trained therapist, since it occurs naturally in any situation inwhich one person is congruent from the beginning of the relationship.

Client-Centered and Person-Centered Therapy

Central to Rogers’ view of psychotherapy is therelationship between the therapist and the client, and we must again emphasizethe distinction between a client and a patient.This involves shifting the emphasis in therapy from a psychologist/psychiatristwho can “fix” the patient to the client themselves, since only the client cantruly understand their own experiential field.The therapist must provide a warm, safe environment in which the clientfeels free to express whatever attitude they experience in the same way thatthey perceive it. At the same time, theclient experiences the therapist as someone temporarily divested of their ownself, in their complete desire to understand the client. The therapist can then accurately andobjectively reflect the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, confusions,ambivalences, etc., of the client back to the client. In this open, congruent, and supportiveenvironment, the client is able to begin the process of reorganizing andreintegrating their self-structure, and living congruently within thatself-structure (Rogers, 1951).

In 1957, Rogers published an article entitled The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions ofTherapeutic Personality Change (Rogers, 1957/1989). The list is fairly short and straightforward:

The client and the therapist must be in psychological contact.
The client must be in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious.
The therapist must be congruent in the relationship.
The therapist must experience unconditional positive regard for the client.
The therapist must experience empathic understanding of the client’s frame of reference and endeavor to communicate this experience to the client.
The client must perceive, at least to a minimal degree, the therapist’s empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard.

Accordingto Rogers, there is nothing else that is required; if these conditions are metover a period of time, there will be constructive personality change. What Rogers considered more remarkable are thosefactors that do not seem necessaryfor positive therapeutic change. Forexample, these conditions do not apply to one type of client, but to allclients, and they are not unique to client-centered therapy, but apply in alltypes of therapy. The relationshipbetween the therapist and client is also not unique, these factors hold true inany interpersonal relationship. And mostsurprisingly, these conditions do not require any special training on the partof therapist, or even an accurate diagnosis of the client’s psychologicalproblems! Any program designed for thepurpose of encouraging constructive change in the personality structure andbehavior of individuals, whether educational, military, correctional, orindustrial, can benefit from these conditions and use them as a measure of theeffectiveness of the program (Rogers, 1957).

Can any one of these conditions be considered moreimportant than the others? Although theyare all necessary, Rogers came to believe that the critical factor may be thetherapist’s empathic understandingof the client (Rogers, 1980). The DalaiLama (2001) has said that empathy is an essential first step toward acompassionate heart. It brings us closerto others, and allows us to recognize the depth of their pain. According to Rogers, empathy refers toentering the private world of the client, and moving about within it withoutmaking any judgments. It is essential toset aside one’s own views and values, so that the other person’s world may beentered without prejudice. Not justanyone can accomplish this successfully:

In somesense it means that you lay aside your self; this can only be done by personswho are secure enough in themselves that they know they will not get lost inwhat may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and thatthey can comfortably return to their own world when they wish. (pg. 143;Rogers, 1980)

Finally, let us consider group therapy situations. Within a group, all of the factors describedabove hold true. Rogers, who late in hiscareer was becoming more and more interested in the growth of all people,including those reasonably well-adjusted and mature to begin with, becameparticularly interested in T-groupsand encounter groups. These groups were developed following theproposition by Kurt Lewin that modern society was overlooking the importance oftraining in human relations skills (the “T” in T-group stands for“training”). Encounter groups were quitesimilar to T-groups, except that there was a greater emphasis on personalgrowth and improved interpersonal communication through an experientialprocess. Each group has a leader, orfacilitator, who fosters and encourages open communication. The group serves as a reflection of thecongruence, or lack thereof, in the communication of whoever is currentlyexpressing themselves. As a result, thegroup hopefully moves toward congruence, and the subsequent personal growth andactualization of the individual (Rogers, 1970).

Given the usefulness of T-groups and encounter in avariety of settings, as well as the importance of continued personal growth andactualization for the well-adjusted as well as those suffering psychologicaldistress, Rogers shifted his focus from simply client-centered therapy to amore universal person-centered approach,which encompasses client-centered therapy, student-centered teaching, andgroup-centered leadership (Rogers, 1980; see also Rogers & Roethlisberger,1952/1993). Rogers believed that allpeople have within them vast resources for self-understanding and for changingtheir self-concepts, attitudes, and behaviors.In all relationships, whether therapist-client, parent-child,teacher-student, leader-group, employer-employee, etc., there are three elementsthat can foster personal growth:genuineness or congruence, acceptance or caring, and empathicunderstanding. When these elements arefostered in any setting, “there is greater freedom to be the true, whole person.” The implications go far beyond individualrelationships. We live in what seems tobe an increasingly dangerous world.Globalism has brought with it global tension and conflict. However, Rogers argued that a person-centeredapproach would help to ease intercultural tension, by helping each of us tolearn to appreciate and understand others.Whether the cultural differences are political, racial, ethnic,economic, whatever, as more leaders become person-centered there is thepossibility for future growth of intercultural understanding and cooperation(Rogers, 1977).

Abraham Maslow and Holistic-Dynamic Psychology

Maslow stands alongside Rogers as one of the founders ofhumanistic psychology. Although he beganhis career working with two of the most famous experimental psychologists inAmerica, he was profoundly influenced by the events that led into World WarII. He became devoted to studying themore virtuous aspects of personality, and he may be viewed as one of thefounders of positive psychology.Well-known primarily for his work on self-actualization, Maslow also hada significant impact on the field of management. His fame in both psychology and businessmakes him a candidate for being, perhaps, the best-known psychologist of alltime (Freud is certainly more famous, but remember that he was apsychiatrist). According to Maslow, his holistic-dynamic theory of personalitywas a blend of theories that had come before his:

This theory is, I think, in the functionalisttradition of James and Dewey, and is fused with the holism of Wertheimer,Goldstein, and Gestalt psychology, and with the dynamicism of Freud, Fromm,Horney, Reich, Jung, and Adler. Thisintegration or synthesis may be called a holistic-dynamic theory. (pg. 35;Maslow, 1970)

Brief Biography of Abraham Maslow

Abraham H. Maslow was born on April 1, 1908 in Brooklyn,New York, the first of seven children.His father, Samuel, had left Kiev, Russia at just 14 years old. When Samuel Maslow arrived in America he hadno money and did not speak English.Samuel Maslow spent a few years in Philadelphia, doing odd jobs andlearning the language, before moving to New York City, where he married hisfirst cousin Rose and began a cooperage business (a cooper builds and repairsbarrels). Samuel and Rose Maslow did nothave a happy marriage, and Abraham Maslow was particularly sensitive to thisfact. Maslow resented his father’sfrequent absences, and apparently hated his mother. His mother was a superstitious woman, whoseverely punished Maslow for even minor misbehavior by threatening him withGod’s wrath. Maslow developed an intensedistrust of religion, and was proud to consider himself an atheist (Gabor,2000; Hoffman, 1988; Maddi & Costa, 1972).

Maslow’s childhood was no better outside the home. Anti-Semitism was rampant in New York. Many teachers were cruel, and he overheardthem say nasty things about him. He hadno friends, and there were anti-Semitic gangs that would find and beat upJewish children. At one point he decidedto join a Jewish gang for protection, but he didn’t have the “right” attitude:

I wanted to be a member of the gang,but I couldn’t: they rejected me becauseI couldn’t kill cats…We’d stake out a cat on a [clothesline] and stand back somany paces and throw rocks at it and kill it.

And the other thing was to throwrocks at the girls on the corner. Now Iknew that the girls liked it, and yet I couldn’t throw rocks at girls and Icouldn’t kill cats, so I was ruled out of the gang, and I could never be thegangster that I wanted to become. (pg. 4; Maslow, cited in Hoffman, 1988)

With six more children joining the family, one everycouple of years, the family was constantly moving and, following the troublingdeath of one of his little sisters (Maslow blamed her illness, in part, ontheir mother’s neglect), Maslow became a very unhappy and shy child. He also thought he was terribly ugly,something his father said openly at a large family gathering! Perhaps worst of all, he felt profoundlystrange and different than other children, largely because he was sointellectual. Maslow reconciled with hisfather later in life. During thedepression, Samuel Maslow lost his business.By that time he had divorced Maslow’s mother, Rose, and he moved in withhis son. The two became close, and afterSamuel Maslow died, his son remembered him fondly. Maslow never forgave his mother,however. Some of the childhood storieshe related were shockingly cruel. Once,he had searched through second-hand record shops for some special 78-RPMrecords. When he failed to put them awaysoon after returning home, his mother stomped them into pieces on the livingroom floor. Another time, Maslow broughthome two abandoned kittens he had found.When his mother caught him feeding them a saucer of milk, she grabbed thekittens and smashed their heads against a wall until they were dead! Later in life, he refused to even attend herfuneral.

What I had reacted to and totallyhated and rejected was not only her physical appearance, but also her valuesand world view…I’ve always wondered where my utopianism, ethical stress,humanism, stress on kindness, love, friendship, and all the rest camefrom. I knew certainly of the directconsequences of having no mother-love.But the whole thrust of my life-philosophy and all my research andtheorizing also has its roots in a hatred for and revulsion against everythingshe stood for. (pg. 9; Maslow cited in Hoffman, 1988)

Maslowspent much of his childhood reading, and despite the treatment he received frommany of his prejudiced teachers, he loved to learn. After high school Maslow won a scholarship toCornell University, but encountered pervasive anti-Semitism throughout hisfirst year. So he transferred to CityCollege, where he first studied the work of behavioral scientists like John B.Watson. He was impressed by Watson’sdesire to use the newly created science of behaviorism to fight socialproblems, such as racial and ethnic discrimination. At the same time, however, Maslow had fallenin love with his first cousin Bertha Goodman, a relationship his parentsstrongly opposed. So Maslow left for theUniversity of Wisconsin (Gabor, 2000; Hoffman, 1988; Maddi & Costa,1972). Bertha Goodman followed, and theywere soon married. Marriage boostedMaslow’s self-esteem, and provided him with a sense of purpose in life. He later said that “life didn’t really startfor me until I got married and went to Wisconsin” (pg. 128; cited in Maddi& Costa, 1972).

In Wisconsin, Maslow studied the behavior of primatesunder the supervision of the renowned Harry Harlow (most famous for his studieson contact comfort). One day, while watching some monkeysseemingly enjoy munching on peanuts and other treats, Maslow recognized thatappetite and hunger are two different things.Thus, motivation must be comprised of separate elements as well. In another study, Maslow tried to address thedifferent aspects of Freud and Adler’s psychodynamic perspectives by observingdominance behavior amongst the monkeys.His colleagues and professors, however, had little interest in thepsychoanalytic science that they considered to be a European endeavor. Maslow completed his Ph.D. at Wisconsin in1934, and then returned to New York. Heearned a position at Columbia University with the renowned Edward Thorndike,and began studying the relative contributions of heredity and environment onsocial behavior, as part of a project to study factors involved in poverty,illiteracy, and crime. As a curious sidenote, Thorndike had also developed an IQ test; Maslow scored 195 on this test,one of the highest scores ever recorded.During this time at Columbia University, Maslow also began relationshipswith many of the psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists who had fledNazi Germany. He was very impressed withMax Wertheimer, one of the founders of Gestalt psychology, and who helped tolay the foundation for positive psychology:

“Arethere not tendencies in men and in children to be kind, to deal sincerely [and]justly with the other fellow? Are thesenothing but internalized rules on the basis of compulsion and fear?” he askedrhetorically. (pg. 159; Wertheimer,cited in Gabor, 2000)

Maslow was one of the first students to study with AlfredAdler in America, being particularly impressed with Adler’s work helpingacademically-challenged children to succeed despite their low IQ scores. Maslow also studied with Erich Fromm, KarenHorney, and Ruth Benedict. Benedict wasan anthropologist who encouraged Maslow to gain some field experience. She sponsored a grant application that Maslowreceived to study the Blackfoot Indians.During the summer of 1938, Maslow examined the dominance and emotionalsecurity of the Blackfoot Indians. Hewas impressed by their culture, and recognized what he believed was an innateneed to experience a sense of purpose in life, a sense of meaning. A few years later, shortly after thebeginning of World War II, Maslow had an epiphany regarding psychology’sfailure to understand the true nature of people. He devoted the rest of his life to the studyof a hopeful psychology (Gabor, 2000; Hoffman, 1988; Maddi & Costa, 1972).

Maslow taught for a few years at Brooklyn College, andalso served as the plant manager for the Maslow Cooperage Corporation (from1947-1949). In 1951 he was appointedProfessor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Brandeis University,where he conducted the research and wrote the books for which he is mostfamous. By the late 1960s, Maslow hadbecome disillusioned with academic life.He had suffered a heart attack in 1966, and seemed somewhat disconnectedfrom the very department he had helped to form.In 1969, however, he accepted a four year grant from the LaughlinFoundation, primarily to study the philosophy of democracy, economics, andethics as influenced by humanistic psychology.He had been troubled by what he viewed as a loss of faith in Americanvalues, and he was greatly enjoying his time working in California. He also attended management seminars at theSaga Corporation, urging the participants to commit themselves to humanisticmanagement. One day in June, 1970, hewas jogging slowly when he suffered a massive heart attack. He was already dead by the time his wiferushed over to him (Gabor, 2000; Hoffman, 1988; Maddi & Costa, 1972). He was only 62 years old. Shortly after his death, the International Study Project of MenloPark, CA published a memorial volume in tribute to Abraham Maslow(International Study Project, 1972).

Placing Maslow in Context: Beyond Humanistic Psychology

Whereas Carl Rogers is often thought of as the founder of humanistic psychology, in large part because of his emphasis on psychotherapy, it was Maslow who studied in great detail the most significant theoretical aspect of it: self-actualization. In addition to studying self-actualization, he applied it both in psychology and beyond. His application of self-actualization to management continued the classic relationship between psychology and business (which began with John B. Watson and his application of psychological principles to advertising). Unfortunately, Maslow died just as he was beginning to study his proposed fourth force: transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal psychology offered a connection between psychology and many of the Eastern philosophies associated with Yoga and Buddhism, and also provided a foundation for the study of positive psychology.

Maslow’s interest in business and management has quite possibly led to his being the most famous psychologist of all time, since he is well-known in both psychology and business. If he had continued being a vocal advocate for transpersonal psychology (if not for his untimely death at an early age), given today’s growing interest in Eastern philosophy and psychology and the establishment of positive psychology as a goal for the field of psychology by former APA President Martin Seligman, Maslow may well have become even more famous. It is interesting to note that someone so truly visionary seems to have become that way as a result of studying people whom he felt were themselves self-actualized. If positive psychology, the psychology of virtue and values, becomes the heir of Maslow’s goal, it should become a significant force in the field of psychology. That will be Maslow’s true legacy.

The Importance of Values in the Science of Psychology

A common criticism leveled against many personalitytheorists is that they have not confirmed their theories in a strict,scientific manner. When one goes so faras to consider values, which are typicallyassociated with religious morality, there is even greater resistance on thepart of those who would have psychology become “truly” scientific to considersuch matters worthy of examination.However, Maslow felt that:

Bothorthodox science and orthodox religion have been institutionalized and frozeninto a mutually excluding dichotomy…One consequence is that they are bothpathologized, split into sickness, ripped apart into a crippled half-scienceand a crippled half-religion…As a result…the student who becomes a scientistautomatically gives up a great deal of life, especially its richest portions.(pg. 119; Maslow, 1966)

Consequently, Maslow urgedthat we need to be fully aware of our values at all times, and aware of how ourvalues influence us in our study of psychology.Although people approach the world in common ways, they also payselective attention to what is happening, and they reshuffle the eventsoccurring around them according to their own interests, needs, desires, fears,etc. Consequently, Maslow believed thatpaying attention to human values, particularly to an individual’s values,actually helps the psychological scientist achieve the goal of clearlyunderstanding human behavior (Maslow, 1970).In a similar vein, when Maslow co-authored an abnormal psychology textearly in his career, he included a chapter on normal psychology. His description of the characteristics of ahealthy, normal personality provides an interesting foreshadowing of hisresearch on self-actualization (Maslow & Mittelmann, 1941).

Maslow felt so strongly about the loss of values in oursociety that he helped to organize a conference and then served as editor for abook entitled New Knowledge in HumanValues (Maslow, 1959). In thepreface, Maslow laments that “…the ultimate disease of our time isvaluelessness…this state is more crucially dangerous than ever before inhistory…” (pg. vii; Maslow, 1959).Maslow does suggest, however, that something can be done about this lossof values, if only people will try. Inthe book, he brought together an interesting variety of individuals,including: Kurt Goldstein, a well-knownneurophysiologist who studied the holistic function of healthy vs.brain-damaged patients and who coined the term self-actualization; D. T. Suzuki,a renowned Zen Buddhist scholar; and Paul Tillich, a highly respectedexistential theologian (who had a direct and significant influence on thecareer of Rollo May). There are alsochapters by Gordon Allport and Erich Fromm.In his own chapter, Maslow concludes:

If we wish to help humans to becomemore fully human, we must realize not only that they try to realize themselvesbut that they are also reluctant or afraid or unable to do so. Only by fully appreciating this dialecticbetween sickness and health can we help to tip the balance in favor of health.(pg. 135; Maslow, 1959)

Discussion Question: Maslow believed that values are very important, not only in the study of psychology, but in society as well. Do you agree? When politicians or religious leaders talk about values, do you think they represent meaningful, true values, or do they just support the values that are an advantage to their own goal or the goals of their political party or church?

The Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s is undoubtedly best known for his hierarchy of needs. Developed within the context of a theory ofhuman motivation, Maslow believed that human behavior is driven and guided by aset of basic needs: physiologicalneeds, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, and the need for self-actualization. It is generally accepted that individualsmust move through the hierarchy in order, satisfying the needs at each levelbefore one can move on to a higher level.The reason for this is that lower needs tend to occupy the mind if theyremain unsatisfied. How easy is it towork or study when you are really hungry or thirsty? But Maslow did not consider the hierarchy tobe rigid. For example, he encounteredsome people for whom self-esteem was more important than love, individualssuffering from antisocial personality disorder seem to have a permanent loss ofthe need for love, or if a need has been satisfied for a long time it maybecome less important. As lower needsare becoming satisfied, though not yet fully satisfied, higher needs may beginto present themselves. And of coursethere are sometimes multiple determinants of behavior, making the relationshipbetween a given behavior and a basic need difficult to identify (Maslow,1943/1973; Maslow, 1970).

The physiological needs are based, in part, on theconcept of homeostasis, the naturaltendency of the body to maintain critical biological levels of essentialelements or conditions, such as water, salt, energy, and body temperature. Sexual activity, though not essential for theindividual, is biologically necessary for the human species to survive. Maslow described the physiological needs asthe most prepotent. In other words, if a person is lackingeverything in life, having failed to satisfy physiological, safety,belongingness and love, and esteem needs, their consciousness will most like beconsumed with their desire for food and water.As the lowest and most clearly biological of the needs, these are alsothe most animal-like of our behavior. InWestern culture, however, it is rare to find someone who is actuallystarving. So when we talk about beinghungry, we are really talking about an appetite, rather than real hunger(Maslow, 1943/1973; Maslow, 1970). ManyAmericans are fascinated by stories such as those of the ill-fated Donner party,trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of 1846-1847, and theUruguayan soccer team whose plane crashed in the Andes mountains in 1972. In each case, either some or all of thesurvivors were forced to cannibalize those who had died. As shocking as such stories are, theydemonstrate just how powerful our physiological needs can be.

The safety needs can easily be seen in youngchildren. They are easily startled orfrightened by loud noises, flashing lights, and rough handling. They can become quite upset when other familymembers are fighting, since it disrupts the feeling of safety usuallyassociated with the home. According toMaslow, many adult neurotics are like children who do not feel safe. From another perspective, that of ErikErikson, children and adults raised in such an environment do not trust theenvironment to provide for their needs.Although it can be argued that few people in America seriously sufferfrom a lack of satisfying physiological needs, there are many people who liveunsafe lives. For example, inner citycrime, abusive spouses and parents, incurable diseases like HIV/AIDS, allpresent life threatening dangers to many people on a daily basis.

One place where we expect our children to be safe is inschool. However, as we saw in the lastchapter (in the section on the martial arts), 160,000 children each day are toofrightened to attend school (Nathan, 2005).Juvonen et al. (2006) looked at the effects of ethnic diversity onchildren’s perception of safety in urban middle schools (Grade 6). They surveyed approximately 2,000 students in99 classrooms in the greater Los Angeles area.The ethnicity of the students in this study was 46 percent Latino(primarily of Mexican origin), 29 percent African American, 9 percent Asian(primarily East Asian), 9 percent Caucasian, and 7 percent multiracial. When a given classroom, or a given school, ismore ethnically diverse, both African American and Latino students felt safer,were harassed less by peers, felt less lonely, and they had higher levels ofself-worth (even when the authors controlled for differences in academicengagement). Thus, it appears thatethnic diversity in schools leads toward satisfaction of the need for safety,at least in one important area of a child’s life. Unfortunately, most minority studentscontinue to be educated in schools that are largely ethnically segregated(Juvonen, et al., 2006).

Throughout the evolution of the human species we foundsafety primarily within our family, tribal group, or our community. It was within those groups that we shared thehunting and gathering that provided food.Once the physiological and safety needs have been fairly well satisfied,according to Maslow, “the person will feel keenly, as never before, the absenceof friends, or a sweetheart, or a wife, or children” (Maslow, 1970). Although there is little scientificconfirmation of the belongingness and love needs, many therapists attributemuch of human suffering to society’s thwarting of the need for love andaffection. Most notable amongpersonality theorists who addressed this issue was Wilhelm Reich. An important aspect of love and affection issex. Although sex is often considered aphysiological need, given its role in procreation, sex is what Maslow referredto as a multidetermined behavior. Inother words, it serves both a physiological role (procreation) and abelongingness/love role (the tenderness and/or passion of the physical side oflove). Maslow was also careful to pointout that love needs involve both giving and receiving love in order for them tobe fully satisfied (Maslow, 1943/1973; Maslow, 1970).

Maslow believed that all people desire a stable andfirmly based high evaluation of themselves and others (at least the others whocomprise their close relationships).This need for self-esteem, or self-respect, involves twocomponents. First is the desire to feelcompetent, strong, and successful (similar to Bandura’s self-efficacy). Second is the need for prestige or status,which can range from simple recognition to fame and glory. Maslow credited Adler for addressing thishuman need, but felt that Freud had neglected it. Maslow also believed that the need forself-esteem was becoming a central issue in therapy for many psychotherapists. However, as we saw in Chapter 12, AlbertEllis considers self-esteem to be a sickness.Ellis’ concern is that self-esteem, including efforts to boostself-esteem in therapy, requires that people rate themselves, something thatEllis felt will eventually lead to a negative evaluation (no one isperfect!). Maslow did acknowledge thatthe healthiest self-esteem is based on well-earned and deserved respect fromothers, rather than fleeting fame or celebrity status (Maslow, 1943/1973;Maslow, 1970).

When all of these lower needs (physiological, safety,belongingness and love, and esteem) have been largely satisfied, we may stillfeel restless and discontented unless we are doing what is right forourselves. “What a man can be, he must be” (pg. 46; Maslow, 1970).Thus, the need for self-actualization, which Maslow described as thehighest of the basic needs, can also be referred to as a Being-need, as opposed to the lower deficiency-needs (Maslow, 1968).We will examine self-actualization in more detail in the followingsection.

Although Maslow recognized that humans no longer haveinstincts in the technical sense, we nonetheless share basic drives with otheranimals. We get hungry, even though howand what we eat is determined culturally.We need to be safe, like any other animal, but again we seek andmaintain our safety in different ways (such as having a police force to providesafety for us). Given our fundamentalsimilarity to other animals, therefore, Maslow referred to the basic needs as instinctoid. The lower the need the more animal-like itis, the higher the need, the more human it is, and self-actualization was, inMaslow’s opinion, uniquely human (Maslow, 1970).

In addition to the basic needs, Maslow referred to cognitive needs and aesthetic needs. Little is known about cognitive needs, sincethey are seldom an important focus in clinic settings. However, he felt there were ample grounds forproposing that there are positive impulses to know, to satisfy curiosity, tounderstand, and to explain. Theeight-fold path described by the Buddha, some 2,600 years ago, begins withright knowledge. The importance ofmental stimulation for some people is described quite vividly by Maslow:

I have seen a few cases in which itseemed clear to me that the pathology (boredom, loss of zest in life,self-dislike, general depression of the bodily functions, steady deteriorationof the intellectual life, of tastes, etc.) were produced in intelligent peopleleading stupid lives in stupid jobs. Ihave at least one case in which the appropriate cognitive therapy (resumingpart-time studies, getting a position that was more intellectually demanding,insight) removed the symptoms.

I have seen many women, intelligent,prosperous, and unoccupied, slowly develop these same symptoms of intellectualinanition. Those who followed myrecommendation to immerse themselves in something worthy of them showedimprovement or cure often enough to impress me with the reality of thecognitive needs. (pg. 49; Maslow, 1970)

There are also classicstudies on the importance of environmental enrichment on the structuraldevelopment of the brain itself (Diamond et al., 1975; Globus, et al., 1973;Greenough & Volkmar, 1973; Rosenzweig, 1984; Spinelli & Jensen, 1979;Spinelli, Jensen, & DiPrisco, 1980).Even less is known about the aesthetic needs, but Maslow was convincedthat some people need to experience, indeed they crave, beauty in their world. Ancient cave drawings have been found thatseem to serve no other purpose than being art.The cognitive and aesthetic needs may very well have been fundamental toour evolution as modern humans.

Self-Actualization

Maslow began his studies on self-actualization in orderto satisfy his own curiosity about people who seemed to be fulfilling theirunique potential as individuals. He didnot intend to undertake a formal research project, but he was so impressed byhis results that he felt compelled to report his findings. Amongst people he knew personally and publicand historical figures, he looked for individuals who appeared to have madefull use of their talents, capacities, and potentialities. In other words, “people who have developed orare developing to the full stature of which they are capable” (Maslow,1970). His list of those who clearlyseemed self-actualized included Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, AlbertEinstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Addams, William James, Albert Schweitzer,Aldous Huxley, and Baruch Spinoza. Hislist of individuals who were most-likely self-actualized included Goethe(possibly the great-grandfather of Carl Jung), George Washington, BenjaminFranklin, Harriet Tubman (born into slavery, she became a conductor on theUnderground Railroad prior to the Civil War), and George Washington Carver(born into slavery at the end of the Civil War, he became an agriculturalchemist and prolific inventor). Inaddition to the positive attributes listed above, Maslow also considered itvery important that there be no evidence of psychopathology in those he choseto study. After comparing the seeminglyself-actualized individuals to people who did not seem to have fulfilled theirlives, Maslow identified fourteen characteristics of self-actualizing people(Maslow, 1950/1973, 1970), as follows:

More EfficientPerception of Reality and More Comfortable Relations with It: Self-actualizing people have an ability torecognize fakers, those who present a false persona. More than that, however, Maslow believed theycould recognize hidden or confused realities in all aspects of life: science, politics, values and ethics,etc. They are not afraid of the unknownor people who are different, they find such differences to be a pleasantchallenge. Although a high IQ may beassociated with this characteristic, it is not uncommon to find those who areseemingly intelligent yet unable to be creative in their efforts to discovernew phenomena. Thus, the perception ofreality is not simply the same as being smart.

Acceptance (Self,Others, Nature): Similar to theapproach Albert Ellis took with REBT (and his hypothesized dangers inherent inself-esteem), Maslow believed that self-actualizing people accept themselves asthey are, including their faults and the differences between their personal realityand their ideal image of themselves.This is not to say that they are without guilt. They are concerned about personal faults thatcan be improved, any remaining habits or psychological issues that areunhealthy (e.g., prejudice, jealousy, etc.), and the shortcomings of theircommunity and/or culture.

Spontaneity: The lives of self-actualizing people aremarked by simplicity and a natural ease as they pursue their goals. Their outward behavior is relativelyspontaneous, and their inner life (thoughts, drives, etc.) is particularlyso. In spite of this spontaneity, theyare not always unconventional, because they can easily accept the constraintsof society and find their own way to fit in without being untrue to their ownsense of self.

Obstacles to Self-Actualization

In The Farther Reachesof Human Nature (Maslow, 1971), which was completed by Maslow’s wife andone of his colleagues shortly after Maslow’s death, Maslow describedself-actualization as something that one does not obtain or fulfill at aspecific point in time. Rather, it is anongoing process of self-actualizing, characterized for some by brief periods ofself-actualization (the peak experiences, for example). Maslow also described two major obstacles toachieving self-actualization: desacralizing and the Jonah complex. The Jonah complex, a name suggested byMaslow’s friend Professor Frank Manuel, refers to being afraid of one’s owngreatness, or evading one’s destiny or calling in life. Maslow specifically described this as anon-Freudian defense mechanism in which a person is as afraid of the bestaspects of their psyche as they are afraid of the worst aspects of their psyche(i.e., the socially unacceptable id impulses).He described the process of this fear as a recognition, despite how muchwe enjoy the godlike possibilities revealed by our finest accomplishments, ofthe weakness, awe, and fear we experience when we achieve thoseaccomplishments. According to Maslow,“great emotions after all can in factoverwhelm us” (Maslow, 1971).Nonetheless, he encouraged people to strive for greatness, within areasonable sense of their own limitations.

A very important defense mechanism, which affects youngpeople in particular, is what Maslow called desacralizing. The source of this problem is usually foundwithin the family:

These youngsters mistrust thepossibility of values and virtues. Theyfeel themselves swindled or thwarted in their lives. Most of them have, in fact, dopey parentswhom they don’t respect very much, parents who are quite confused themselves aboutvalues and who, frequently, are simply terrified of their children and neverpunish them or stop them from doing things that are wrong. So you have a situation where the youngsterssimply despise their elders - often for good and sufficient reason. (pg. 49;Maslow, 1971)

As a result, children grow upwithout respect for their elders, or for anything their elders considerimportant. The values of the cultureitself can be called into question. Whilesuch a situation may sometimes be important for changing social conventionsthat unfairly discriminate against some people, can we really afford to live ina society in which nothing issacred? Indeed, can such a society orculture continue to exist? Thus, Maslowemphasized a need for resacralizing. Maslow noted that he had to make up the wordsdesacralizing and resacralizing “because the English language is rotten forgood people. It has no decent vocabularyfor the virtues” (Maslow, 1971).Resacralizing means being willing to see the sacred, the eternal, thesymbolic. As an example, Maslowsuggested considering a medical student dissecting a human brain. Would such a student see the brain simply asa biological organ, or would they be awed by it, also seeing the brain as asacred object, including even its poetic aspects? This concept is particularly important forcounselors working with the aged, people approaching the end of their lives,and may be critical for helping them move toward self-actualization. According to Maslow, when someone asks a counselorfor help with the self-actualizing process, the counselor had better have ananswer for them, “or we’re not doing what it is our job to do” (Maslow, 1971).

Discussion Question: Maslow believed that desacralizing was particularly challenging for young people. Do you think our society has lost its way, have we lost sight of meaningful values? Is nothing sacred anymore? Is there anything that you do in your life to recognize something as sacred in a way that has real meaning for your community?

Maslow had something else interesting to say aboutself-actualization in The Farther Reachesof Human Nature: "What doesself-actualization mean in moment-to-moment terms? What does it mean on Tuesday at fouro'clock?" (pg. 41). Consequently,he offered a preliminary suggestion for an operational definition of theprocess by which self-actualization occurs.In other words, what are the behaviors exhibited by people on the pathtoward fulfilling or achieving the fourteen characteristics of self-actualizedpeople described above? Sadly, thiscould only remain a preliminary description, i.e., they are "ideas thatare in midstream rather than ready for formulation into a final version,"because this book was published after Maslow's death (having been put togetherbefore his sudden and unexpected heart attack).

What does one do when heself-actualizes? Does he grit his teeth and squeeze? What does self-actualization mean in terms ofactual behavior, actual procedure? Ishall describe eight ways in which one self-actualizes. (pg. 45; Maslow, 1971)

They experiencefull, vivid, and selfless concentrationand total absorption.
Within theongoing process of self-actualization, they make growth choices (rather than fear choices; progressive choicesrather than regressive choices).
They are awarethat there is a self to beactualized.
When in doubt,they choose to be honest rather thandishonest.
They trust theirown judgment, even if it means beingdifferent or unpopular (being courageous is another version of this behavior).
They put in theeffort necessary to improve themselves, working regularly toward self-development no matter how arduousor demanding .
They embrace theoccurrence of peak experiences, doingwhat they can to facilitate and enjoy more of them (as opposed to denying theseexperiences as many people do).
They identify andset aside their ego defenses (theyhave "the courage to give them up").Although this requires that they face up to painful experiences, it ismore beneficial than the consequences of defenses such as repression.

Being and Transcendence

Maslow had great hope and optimism for the humanrace. Although self-actualization mightseem to be the pinnacle of personal human achievement, he viewed HumanisticPsychology, or Third Force Psychology,as just another step in our progression:

I should say also that I considerHumanistic, Third Force Psychology to be transitional, a preparation for astill “higher” Fourth Psychology, transpersonal, transhuman, centered in thecosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness,identity, self-actualization, and the like…These new developments may very welloffer a tangible, usable, effective satisfaction of the “frustrated idealism”of many quietly desperate people, especially young people. These psychologies give promise of developinginto the life-philosophy, the religion-surrogate, the value-system, the life-programthat these people have been missing.Without the transcendent and the transpersonal, we get sick, violent,and nihilistic, or else hopeless and apathetic.We need something “bigger than we are” to be awed by and to commitourselves to in a new, naturalistic, empirical, non-churchly sense, perhaps asThoreau and Whitman, William James and John Dewey did. (pp. iii-iv; Maslow,1968)

Although Maslow wrote about this need for a Fourth Force Psychology in 1968, it wasnot until the year 1998 that APA President Martin Seligman issued his call forthe pursuit of positive psychology as an active force in the field ofpsychology. Maslow believed that allself-actualizing people were involved in some calling or vocation, a causeoutside of themselves, something that fate has called them to and that theylove doing. In so doing, they devotethemselves to the search for Being-values(or B-values; Maslow, 1964, 1967/2008, 1968).The desire to attain self-actualization results in the B-values actinglike needs. Since they are higher thanthe basic needs, Maslow called them metaneeds. When individuals are unable to attain thesegoals, the result can be metapathology,a sickness of the soul. Whereascounselors may be able to help the average person with their average problems,metapathologies may require the help of a metacounselor,a counselor trained in philosophical and spiritual matters that go far beyondthe more instinctoid training of the traditional psychoanalyst (Maslow,1967/2008). The B-values identified byMaslow (1964) are an interesting blend of the characteristics ofself-actualizing individuals and the human needs described by Henry Murray: truth, goodness, beauty, wholeness,dichotomu-transcendence, aliveness, uniqueness, perfection, necessity,completion, justice, order, simplicity, richness, effortlessness, playfulness,self-sufficiency.

Transcendence is typically associated with people who arereligious, spiritual, or artistic, but Maslow said that he found transcendentindividuals amongst creative people in a wide variety of vocations (includingbusiness, managers, educators, and politicians), though there are not many ofthem in any field. Transcendence,according to Maslow, is the very highest and most holistic level of humanconsciousness, which involves relating to oneself, to all others, to allspecies, to nature, and to the cosmos as an end rather than as a means (Maslow,1971). It is essential that individualsnot be reduced to the role they play in relation to others, transcendence canonly be found within oneself (Maslow, 1964, 1968). Maslow’s idea is certainly not new. Ancient teachings in Yoga tell us that thereis a single universal spirit that connects us all, and Buddhists describe thisconnection as interbeing. The Abrahamic religions teach us that theentire universe was created by, and therefore is connected through, onegod. It was Maslow’s hope that atranscendent Fourth Force in psychology would help all people to becomeself-actualizing. In Buddhist terms,Maslow was advocating the intentional creation of psychological Bodhisattvas. Perhaps this is what Maslow meant by the termmetacounselor.

Connections Across Cultures: Is Nothing Sacred?

Maslow described some lofty ambitions for humanity in Toward a Psychology of Being (1968) and The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1971), as well as some challenges we face along the way. Transcendence, according to Maslow, is a loss of our sense of Self, as we begin to feel an intimate connection with the world around us and all other people. But transcendence is exceedingly difficult when we are hindered by the defense mechanism of desacralization. What exactly does the word “sacred” mean? It is not easily found in psychological works. William James often wrote about spiritual matters, but not about what is or is not sacred. Sigmund Freud mentioned sacred prohibitions in his final book, Moses and Monotheism (Freud, 1939/1967), but he felt that anything sacred was simply a cultural adaptation of all children’s fear of challenging their father’s will (and God was created as a symbol of the mythological father). A dictionary definition of sacred says that it is “connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.” However, there is another definition that does not require a religious context: “regarded with great respect and reverence by a particular religion, group, or individual” (The Oxford American College Dictionary, 2002). Maslow described desacralization as a rejection of the values and virtues of one’s parents. As a result, people grow up without the ability to see anything as sacred, eternal, or symbolic. In other words, they grow up without meaning in their lives.

The process of resacralization, which Maslow considered an essential task of therapists working with clients who seek help in this critical area of their life, requires that we have some concept of what is sacred. So, what is sacred? Many answers can be found, but there does seem to be at least one common thread.

Christians have long believed that forgiveness lies at the heart of faith. Psychologists have recently found that forgiveness may also lie at the heart of emotional and physical well-being.

David Myers & Malcolm Jeeves (2003)

…Compassion is the wish that others be free of suffering. It is by means of compassion that we aspire to attain enlightenment. It is compassion that inspires us to engage in the virtuous practices that lead to Buddhahood. We must therefore devote ourselves to developing compassion.

The Dalai Lama (2001)

I have been engaged in peace work for more than thirty years: combating poverty, ignorance, and disease; going to sea to help rescue boat people; evacuating the wounded from combat zones; resettling refugees; helping hungry children and orphans; opposing wars; producing and disseminating peace literature; training peace and social workers; and rebuilding villages destroyed by bombs. It is because of the practice of meditation - stopping, calming, and looking deeply - that I have been able to nourish and protect the sources of my spiritual energy and continue this work.

Thich Nhat Hanh (1995)

…Our progress is the penetrating of the present moment, living life with our feet on the ground, living in compassionate, active relationship with others, and yet living in the awareness that life has been penetrated by the eternal moment of God and unfolds in the power of that moment.

Fr. Laurence Freeman (1986)

Keep your hands busy with your duties in this world, and your heart busy with God.

Sheikh Muzaffer (cited in Essential Sufism by Fadiman & Frager, 1997)

Forgiveness is a letting go of past suffering and betrayal, a release of the burden of pain and hate that we carry.

Forgiveness honors the heart’s greatest dignity. Whenever we are lost, it brings us back to the ground of love.

Jack Kornfield (2002)

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself…”

Jesus Christ (The Holy Bible, 1962)

In examining self-actualizing people directly, I find that in all cases, at least in our culture, they are dedicated people, devoted to some task “outside themselves,” some vocation, or duty, or beloved job. Generally the devotion and dedication is so marked that one can fairly use the old words vocation, calling, or mission to describe their passionate, selfless, and profound feeling for their “work.”

The spiritual life is then part of the human essence. It is a defining-characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not full human nature. It is part of the Real Self, of one’s identity, of one’s inner core, of one’s specieshood, of full humanness.

Abraham Maslow (1971)

Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, as well as members of other religions and humanists, all have some variation of what has been called The Golden Rule: treating others as you would like to be treated. If that is sacred, then even amongst atheists, young people can evaluate the values and virtues of their parents, community, and culture, and then decide whether those values are right or wrong, whether they want to perpetuate an aspect of that society based on their own thoughts and feelings about how they, themselves, may be treated someday by others. This resacralization need not be religious or spiritual, but it commonly is, and some psychologists are comfortable embracing spirituality as such.

Kenneth Pargament and Annette Mahoney (2005) wrote a chapter entitled Spirituality: Discovering and Conserving the Sacred, which was included in the Handbook of Positive Psychology (Snyder & Lopez, 2005). First, they point out that religion is an undeniable fact in American society. Some 95 percent of Americans believe in God, and 86 percent believe that He can be reached through prayer and that He is important or very important to them. Spirituality, according to Pargament and Mahoney, is the process in which individuals seek both to discover and to conserve that which is sacred. It is interesting to note that Maslow and Rogers consider self-actualization and transcendence to be a process as well, not something that one can get and keep permanently. An important aspect of defining what is sacred is that it is imbued with divinity. God may be seen as manifest in marriage, work can be seen as a vocation to which the person is called, the environment can been seen as God’s creation. In each of these situations, and in others, what is viewed as sacred has been sanctified by those who consider it sacred. Unfortunately, this can have negative results as well, such as when the Heaven’s Gate cult followed their sanctified leader to their deaths. Thus, spirituality is not necessarily synonymous with a good and healthy lifestyle.

Still, there is research that has shown that couples who sanctify their marriage experience greater marital satisfaction, less marital conflict, and more effective marital problem-solving strategies. Likewise, mothers and fathers who sanctify the role of parenting report less aggression and more consistent discipline in raising their children. For college students, spiritual striving was more highly correlated with well-being than any other form of goal-setting (see Pargament & Mahoney, 2005). So there appear to be real psychological advantages to spiritual pursuits. This may be particularly true during challenging times in our lives:

…there are aspects of our lives that are beyond our control. Birth, developmental transitions, accidents, illnesses, and death are immutable elements of existence. Try as we might to affect these elements, a significant portion of our lives remains beyond our immediate control. In spirituality, however, we can find ways to understand and deal with our fundamental human insufficiency, the fact that there are limits to our control… (pg. 655; Pargament & Mahoney, 2005)

Eupsychian Management and Theory Z

It is not merely a coincidence that Maslow is well-knownin the field of business. He spent 3years as the plant manager for the Maslow Cooperage Corporation, and later hespent a summer studying at an electronics firm in California (Non-LinearSystems, Inc.) at the invitation of the company’s president. He became very interested in industrial andmanagerial psychology, and the journal he kept in California was published as Eupsychian Management (Maslow,1965). Eupsychia refers to real possibility and improvability, and amovement toward psychological health, as opposed to the vague fantasies of proposedUtopian societies. More precisely,though this is something of a fantasy itself, Maslow described Eupsychia as theculture that would arise if 1,000 self-actualizing people were allowed to livetheir own lives on a sheltered island somewhere. Maslow applied his psychological theories,including both the hierarchy of needs and self-actualization, to a managementstyle that takes advantage of this knowledge to maximize the potential of theemployees in a company (also see the collection of Maslow’s unpublished papersby Hoffman, 1996).

Maslow introduced a variety of terms related to histheories on management, one of the most interesting being synergy. Having borrowed theterm from Ruth Benedict, synergy refers to a situation in which a person pursuingtheir own, selfish goals is automatically helping others, and a personunselfishly helping others is, at the same time, helping themselves. According to Maslow, when selfishness andunselfishness are mutually exclusive, it is a sign of mild psychopathology. Self-actualizing individuals are above thedistinction between selfishness and unselfishness; they enjoy seeing othersexperience pleasure. Maslow offered thepersonal example of feeding strawberries to his little daughter. As the child smacked her lips and thoroughlyloved the strawberries, an experience that thrilled Maslow, what was heactually giving up by letting her eat the strawberries instead of eating themhimself? In his experience with theBlackfoot tribe, a member named Teddy was able to buy a car. He was the only one who had one, buttradition allowed anyone in the tribe to borrow it. Teddy used his car no more often than anyoneelse, but he had to pay the bills, including the gas bill. And yet, everyone in the tribe was so proudof him that he was greatly admired and they elected him chief. So, he benefited in other ways by followingtradition and letting everyone use his car (Maslow, 1965). In the business field, when managersencourage cooperation and communication, everyone benefits from the healthygrowth and continuous improvement of the company. And this leads us to Theory Z (which is Eupsychian management).

Douglas McGregor, a professor of industrial relations atthe Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was greatly impressed with Maslow’swork, and McGregor had used Motivationand Personality as a textbook in his business classes. Based on Maslow’s theories, McGregorpublished a book in 1960 in which he outlined two managerial models, Theory X and Theory Y (Gabor, 2000; Hoffman, 1996). Maslow described the two theories as follows:

…To put it succinctly, Theory Y assumes that if you give peopleresponsibilities and freedom, then they will like to work and will do a betterjob. Theory Y also assumes that workersbasically like excellence, efficiency, perfection, and the like.

TheoryX, which still dominates most of theworld’s workplace, has a contrasting view.It assumes that people are basically stupid, lazy, hurtful, anduntrustworthy and, therefore, that you have got to check everything constantlybecause workers will steal you blind if you don’t. (pg. 187; Maslow, 1996a)

The Theory X/Theory Ystrategy was intentionally put into practice at Non-Linear Systems, henceMaslow’s invitation to study there.Maslow concluded, however, that even Theory Y did not go far enough inmaximizing people’s potential. Peoplehave metaneeds(the need forB-values), needs that go beyond simply offering higher salaries. When employees have their basic needs met,but recognize inefficiency and mismanagement in the company, they will stillcomplain, but these higher level complaints can now be described as metagrumbles (as opposed to the lowerlevel grumbles about lower level needs).Theory Z attempts to transcend Theory Y and actively facilitate thegrowth of a company’s employees toward self-actualization (Hoffman, 1996;Maslow, 1971; Maslow 1996b).

Discussion Question: How’s your job (or any job you have had)? Would you describe your supervisor or boss as someone who uses Eupsychian or Theory Z management? Does the workplace foster synergy amongst the employees? If not, can you imagine how the job would be different if they did?

Henry Murray and Personology

Henry Murray was primarily psychodynamic in hisorientation. However, the fundamentalaspect of his theory is the presence of needs in our lives, and there was adistinctly humanistic aspect to his theories as well (Maddi & Costa,1972). Thus, it seems appropriate toinclude Murray alongside Maslow’s discussion of human needs. In addition, Murray developed a practicalapplication of his famous test, the ThematicApperception Test (or TAT), forscreening candidates for special work assignments. Once again, this is similar to Maslow’sforays into the field of industrial/organizational psychology. Although it is common to present differentfields as fundamentally opposed, such as humanistic psychology vs. psychodynamic psychology, Murrayand Maslow provide an ideal opportunity to see the commonalities that oftenexist between different areas in psychology.It must also be remembered that Murray was no strict adherent to thedogmatic view of psychoanalysis presented by Freud:

…psychoanalysisstands for a conceptual system which explains, it seems to me, as much as anyother. But this is no reason for goingin blind and swallowing the whole indigestible bolus, cannibalisticallydevouring the totem father in the hope of acquiring his genius, hisauthoritative dominance, and thus rising to power in the psychoanalyticsociety, that battle-ground of Little Corporals. No; I, for one, prefer to take what I please,suspend judgment, reject what I please, speak freely. (pg. 31; Murray, 1940/2008).

Brief Biography of Henry Murray

Henry Alexander Murray, Jr. was born in 1893 in New YorkCity. He had many nicknames, andtypically asked his friends to call him Harry.His family was quite wealthy, and had a noble history. He was a descendant of John Murray, thefourth Earl of Dunmore, the last Royal Governor of Virginia, and his mother’sgreat-grandfather, Colonel Harry Babco*ck, had served on General GeorgeWashington’s staff during the Revolutionary War. Murray lived a life of luxury, spending thesummers on Long Island and often traveling throughout Europe. He was educated at exclusive private schools. However, his childhood was not withoutchallenges. He felt abandoned by hismother, who suffered from depression much of her life, when Murray was quiteyoung. He stuttered, and wascross-eyed. The operation to help curehis internal strabismus accidentally left him with an external strabismus. This created problems for Murray when it cameto competing in athletics, but Murray worked hard to overcome his difficultiesand he excelled at sports. He became thequarterback of his football team and won a featherweight boxing championship atschool. In college, he made the rowingteam at Harvard University (Maddi & Costa, 1972; Robinson, 1992).

In spite of his athletic success at Harvard, or perhapsbecause of it, he did not do well academically, receiving below averagegrades. Nonetheless, he earned a degreein history in 1915. While at Harvard healso married Josephine Rantoul, after a lengthy courtship. Despite his mediocre grades at Harvard,Murray was accepted into the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, andgraduated first in his class in 1919. Hethen completed a surgical internship at Presbyterian Hospital in New York,where he once treated the future president Franklin D. Roosevelt, followed by aperiod of research at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research andCambridge University, which culminated in a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1927. He then accepted a position as assistant toMorton Prince, and became the director of Harvard University’s psychologyclinic. Murray had never taken apsychology course, but he had some interesting experience (Maddi & Costa,1972; Robinson, 1992).

Murray had a psychiatry course in medical school, and hadread Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. He also had a research assistant from Vienna,Alma Rosenthal, who had been a long-time friend of Anna Freud. While both working together and having anintimate love affair, Rosenthal introduced Murray to the deeper dimensions ofthe unconscious mind. However, it wasMurray’s lifelong mistress, Christiana Morgan, who introduced him to Jung’sbook Psychology Types. Murray was deeply impressed by Jung’s book,but even more by Jung himself. Murraywas troubled by the intense love affair he had developed with Morgan, so hewent to Zurich in order to be psychoanalyzed by Jung. Jung managed to help Murray understand hisstuttering and accept having his affair with Morgan. After all, Jung had maintained a mistress ofhis own for many years. Jung alsomanaged to convince Murray’s wife and Morgan’s husband to accept the affair aswell, and Christiana Morgan remained a very important colleague throughout Murray’slife. It has been suggested that sheplayed a far more important role in his theories, and in the development of theTAT, than she has been given credit for (Maddi & Costa, 1972; Robinson,1992). Partly because Jung had directlyhelped him with a psychological problem, and partly because of theextraordinary range of ideas that Jung was open to, Murray always spoke highlyof Jung (though he believed that Jung tended toward being psychotic, just asFreud tended toward being neurotic; see Brian, 1995).

Initially, Murray’s reappointment as clinic director waschallenged by the experimental psychologists Edwin Boring and Karl Lashley, buthe was supported by the clinical psychologists, who were led by Gordon Allport(Stagner, 1988). As his work continuedhe was quite productive (it was during this time that he developed the TAT),and many important clinicians passed through the clinic. Included among them was Erik Erikson, whocame to the clinic after having been psychoanalyzed by Anna Freud in Vienna. Murray also spent a great deal of timetraveling and studying in Europe, and enjoyed a memorable evening with Sigmundand Anna Freud. As he was preparing toreturn to the clinic, World War II began.Murray joined the Army Medical Corps, and eventually worked for theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS). Ofparticular interest was his use of the TAT to screen OSS agents for sensitivemissions (the OSS was the precursor to the CIA, so in peacetime these agentswould be called spies). He was in Chinastudying errors they had made in their assessments when the atomic bomb wasdropped on Hiroshima. Murray wasshocked, and devoted the rest of his life to seeking alternatives to war (Maddi& Costa, 1972; Robinson, 1992).

As his career and life approached their ends, Murrayreceived the Distinguished ScientificContribution Award from the American Psychological Association, and the Gold Medal Award from the AmericanPsychological Foundation. He receivednumerous honorary degrees, and collections of papers have been published in hishonor (e.g., White, 1963; Zucker, Rabin, Aronoff, & Frank, 1992). In June, 1988, Murray told his nurse that hewas dead. She disagreed with him, andpinched him gently on the cheek to prove her point. He curtly disagreed with her, declaring thathe was the doctor, she was the nurse, and he was dead. A few days later he was right (Robinson,1992).

Placing Murray in Context: A Challenging Task

There does not seem to be a consensus on where Murray fits within the field of personality theory. Trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst, he is often grouped with the neo-Freudians. However, he has also been placed with the trait theorists, and he was a colleague of Gordon Allport. However, many personality theory textbooks don’t consider Murray worthy of significant attention. He is included alongside Maslow in this textbook because his work focused primarily on needs. In addition, the practical application of his Thematic Apperception Test in screening candidates for OSS assignments was similar to Maslow’s application of psychological principles in the business field.

The Thematic Apperception Test is certainly Murray’s claim to fame. It remains one of the best-known tests in psychology, having been applied in research, business, and therapeutic settings. Since Murray used the TAT in combination with the Rorschach Inkblot Test, he maintained his ties to traditional psychoanalysis and helped to advance the fame of the other renowned projective test. As such, his practical contributions to psychology seem to outweigh his theoretical contributions.

It has been said that the value of a theory can be measured by the research that follows. David McClelland’s use of the TAT to study the need for achievement is a common topic in introductory psychology textbooks. Thus, Murray’s contributions have inspired classic research in psychology. That alone should ensure a place of significance for Murray in the history of personality theory.

Human Needs

In Explorations in Personality(Murray, 1938), Murray describes people as “today’s great problem”. What can we know about someone, and how canwe describe it in a way that has clear meaning?Nothing is more important in the field of psychology:

The point of view adopted in thisbook is that personalities constitute the subject matter of psychology, thelife history of a single man being a unit with which this discipline has todeal… Our guiding thought was thatpersonality is a temporal whole and to understand a part of it one must havesense, though vague, of the totality.(pgs. 3-4; Murray, 1938)

Thus, Murray and hiscolleagues sought to understand the nature of personality, in order to helpthem understand individuals. He referredto this direct study of personality as personology,simply because he considered it clumsy to refer to “the psychology ofpersonality” instead.

Murray described the very elegant process by which theHarvard Clinic group systematically approached their studies, and thenpresented a lengthy series of propositions regarding a theory ofpersonality. The primary focus of thesepropositions came down to what Murray called a press-need combination. A need,according to Murray, is a hypothetical process that is imagined to occur inorder to account for certain objective and subjective facts. In other words, when an organism reliablyacts in a certain way to obtain some goal, we can determine that the organismhad a need to achieve that goal. Needsare often recognized only after the fact, the behavior that satisfies the needmay be a blind impulse, but it still leads toward satisfying the neededgoal. Press is the term Murray applied to environmental objects orsituations that designate directional tendencies, or that guide our needs. Anything in the environment, either harmfulor beneficial to the organism, exerts press.Thus, our current needs, in the context of current environmental press,determine our ongoing behavior (Murray, 1938).

Like Maslow, Murray separated needs into biological andpsychology factors based on how essential they were to one’s survival. The primary, or viscerogenic needs, include air, water, food, sex, harm-avoidance,etc. The secondary or psychogenic needs, which are presumedto derive from the primary needs, are common reaction systems and wishes. Although Murray organizes the psychogenicneeds into groups, they are not rank-ordered as was Maslow’s hierarchy, so we willnot consider the groups any further.Individually, there are a total of twenty-eight human needs (Murray,1938). A partial list, with definitions,includes the following:

Acquisition: the need to gain possessions and property
Retention: the need to retain possession of things, to refuse to give or lend
Order: the need to arrange, organize, put away objects, to be tidy and clean
Construction: the need to build things
Achievement: the need to overcome obstacles, to exercise power, to strive to do something difficult as well and as quickly as possible
Recognition: the need to excite praise and commendation, to demand respect
Exhibition: the need to attract attention to oneself
Defendance: the need to defend oneself against blame or belittlement
Counteraction: the need to proudly overcome defeat by restriving and retaliating, to defend one’s honor
Dominance: the need to influence or control others
Deference: the need to admire and willingly follow a superior
Aggression: the need to assault or injure another, to harm, blame, accuse, or ridicule a person
Abasem*nt: the need to surrender, to comply and accept punishment
Affiliation: the need to form friendships and associations, to greet, join, and live with others, to love
Rejection: the need to snub, ignore, or exclude others
Play: the need to relax, amuse oneself, seek diversion and entertainment
Cognizance: the need to explore, to ask questions, to satisfy curiosity

Accordingthe Murray, in the course of daily life these needs are often interrelated. When a single action can satisfy more thanone need, we can say that the needs are fused.However, needs can also come into conflict. For example, an individual’s need fordominance may make it difficult to satisfy their need for affiliation, unlessthey can find someone with a powerful need for abasem*nt. Such a situation is one of the ways in whichpsychologists have tried to understand abusive relationships. In other words, when someone with a strongneed for affiliation and debasem*nt becomes involved with someone with a strongneed for affiliation and dominance (particularly in a pathological sense), theresults can be very unfortunate.

Anyobject, or person, that evokes a need is said to “be cathected” by the personbeing studied. In other words, they haveinvested some of their limited psychic energy (libido) into that object. Murray believed that an individual’spersonality is revealed by the objects to which that person is attached by thecathexis of libido, especially if you can recognize the intensity, endurance,and rigidity of the cathexis. Thisprocess not only applies to individuals, but institutions and cultures alsohave predictable patterns in terms of their cathected objects. Put more simply, we can strive to understandindividuals, including doing so from a cross-cultural perspective, by examiningthe nature and pattern of needs they seek to satisfy in their daily lives(Murray, 1938).

Morris Stein, who worked with Murray in the OSS and thenearned a Ph.D. at the Harvard Clinic, combined Murray’s work on identifyinghuman needs and Jung’s concept of psychological types. By looking at patterns in the rank-order ofneeds among industrial chemists and Peace Corps volunteers, Stein was able todivide each group into separate psychological types (Stein, 1963). For example, there were five basic types ofindustrial chemists: Type A wasachievement oriented but still worked well with others; Type B focused onpleasing others, often at the expense of their own ideas; Type C wasachievement oriented, but more driven and hostile than Type A; Type D wasmotivated by achievement and affiliation, but with an emphasis on order thatprotected them from criticism or blame; and Type E was particularly focused onrelationships marked by cooperation and trust.As interesting as these types may be, they are quite different than thepersonality types identified amongst the Peace Corps volunteers (Stein,1963). Thus, although Stein’sinvestigation suggests that personality types can be identified based onpatterns of need, this approach probably would not provide a general theory ofpersonology that could be applied to anyone.

Discussion Question: Consider Murray’s list of psychogenic needs. Which needs are the ones that affect you the most? Are you able to fulfill those needs?

The TAT and the OSS

Murray is typically credited with the development theTAT. However, the original article hasChristiana Morgan as the first author (Morgan & Murray, 1935), and in Explorations in Personality most of theTAT work is described by Morgan (Murray, 1938).Apparently, when the test was revised and republished in 1943, Murraydid most of the revision, partly because Morgan was quite ill at the time. The TAT consists of a series of picturesdepicting potentially dramatic events (although the pictures are actuallyrather vague). The person taking thetest is asked to provide a story that relates events preceding the picture tosome final outcome of the situation. Itis expected that the subject will project their own thoughts and feelings intothe picture as they create their story.In order for this to be possible, Morgan and Murray made sure that inmost pictures there was at least one person with whom the subject could easilyempathize and identify themselves. TheTAT became one of the most popular projective tests ever developed, andcontinues to be widely used today.

The TAT has been used in two particularly interestingsettings outside of clinical psychology: to study the need for achievement (seethe next section), and to screen agents for the Office of Strategic Servicesduring World War II. Murray used the TATas part of a program to help select members of the OSS for critical, dangerous missions. Even before joining the OSS, Murray workedfor the government in support of the war effort. In conjunction with Gordon Allport, heprovided an analysis of the personality of Adolf Hitler, along with predictionsas to how Hitler might react after Germany was defeated. He also helped to develop a series ofquestions for the crew of a captured German U-boat. The OSS program involved assessingcandidate’s responses to highly stressful situations. In addition to psychological testing, usinginstruments such as the TAT, the candidates were put into highly stressfulsituations. For example, they were toldto pick two men to help them put together a five-foot cube with wooden poles,blocks, and pegs. However, the availablemen were all secretly on Murray’s staff.One of them would act helpless and passive, whereas the other madestupid suggestions and constantly criticized the recruit. The task was, of course, never completed, butit provided Murray with the information he needed on how the candidateperformed under stress (Brian, 1995; Robinson, 1992).

In the next chapter we will see that the existentialpsychologist Rollo May talked about our need for myths, in order to make senseout of our often senseless world.Although this was not a need included by Murray, he did have an interestin mythology. The imagination that isnecessary to create a story around a picture in the TAT often involvessymbolism that arises from the depths of the whole self (Murray, 1960). In this regard, Murray sounds quite similarto Jung and his theory of archetypes, and Murray discussed some classic imagesfrom our historical mythology. Ofparticular interest to Murray, however, is whether or not we will establish newmyths in the future. There are oldermyths that remain oriented to our future, such as the apocalyptic myths or themyth of the Promised Land (Murray, 1960).The existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre lamented thedemythologizing of the universe by science, and he advocated a remythologizingof the self (see McAdams, 1992). Giventhat Murray did include a need for cognizance, the need to explore, to askquestions, and to satisfy curiosity, perhaps there will be new myths created inour future. If so, psychologists willneed to keep current with the cultural phenomena that influence people’sunconscious projections onto the TAT and other projective tests.

David McClelland and the Need for Achievement

David McClelland, who joined the faculty of HarvardUniversity a few years before Murray retired, conducted some well-knownresearch utilizing the TAT to examine the needfor achievement. The research beganshortly after World War II, and was supported by the Office of NavalResearch. McClelland and his colleaguesmade an interesting point, in the preface to their book The Achievement Motive (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell,1953), about studying just one of Murray’s needs: “concentration on a limited research problemis not necessarily narrowing; it may lead ultimately into the whole of psychology.” Indeed, they felt that they learned a greatdeal about personality by studying one of the most important of human needs.

McClelland and his colleagues used the TAT and borrowedheavily from Murray’s procedures and scoring system. However, they made a number ofmodifications. They used additionalpictures of their own, they often presented the pictures on a screen to a groupof subjects, those subjects were all male college students, and some of theirexperimental conditions were designed to evoke achievement-oriented responses,or responses based on success or failure.An important aspect of this study was that the TAT (and similar picturesdeveloped by McClelland) requires writing imaginative stories of what thesubject projects onto the picture.Therefore, situations that stimulate achievement-oriented imaginationcan result in higher scores on the need for achievement, something thatMcClelland and his colleagues confirmed in Navaho children during the course oftheir research (suggesting it is a universal phenomenon). Overall, they found that individuals who arehigh in their need for achievement perform more tasks during timed tests,improve more quickly in their ability to perform those tasks, set higher levelsof aspirations, remember more of the tasks they failed to perform, and they aremore future-oriented and recognize achievement-oriented situations (McClellandet al., 1953). In addition, they found apositive correlation between the need for achievement and cultures and familiesin which there is an emphasis on the individual development of children, withearly childhood being of particular importance.After examining eight Native American cultures (Navaho, Ciricahua-Apache,Western Apache, Hopi, Comanche, Sanpoil, Paiute, and Flatheads), McClelland andhis colleagues determined that the need for achievement in each culture(measured from classic legends involving the archetypal trickster “coyote”)correlates highly with both an early age onset and the severity of independencetraining (McClelland et al., 1953). Insummary, the need for achievement is a motivational force that develops inearly childhood, and which pushes individuals toward accomplishing life’stasks.

Anexcellent essay on the need for achievement, which addresses some of thecriticism this concept has endured, was written by McClelland in a newintroduction for the second printing of his book The Achieving Society (McClelland, 1976). This book also adds to the cross-culturalreach of McClelland’s work, since as he extends his theory on the need forachievement to the societies in which individuals live he also extends histheory to other societies around the world.First, the concept itself has typically been misunderstood:

…theword “achievement” cues all sorts of surplus meanings that the technicallydefined n Achievement variable doesnot have. It refers specifically to thedesire to do something better, faster, more efficiently, with less effort. It is not a generalized desire to succeed…(pg. A; McClelland, 1976)

In studying the role of needfor achievement within societies, McClelland focused on business and economicdevelopment as one of the most easily compared aspects of different cultures. He believed that nations possess somethinglike a “group mind,” which can lead the nation in certain directions. Again using literary sources as examples ofcultural perspectives on the need for achievement, McClelland found support forhis theory that high need for achievement preceded dramatic societaldevelopment in ancient Greece, pre-Incan Peru, Spain in the late middle ages,England leading up to the industrial revolution, and during the development ofthe United States (particularly in the 1800s).Once again, McClelland cautions against over-generalizing the meaning ofneed for achievement:

It is avery specific, rather rare, drive which focuses on the goal of efficiency andwhich expresses itself in activities available in the culture which permit orencourage one to be more efficient; and across cultures the most common formsuch activity takes is business. (pg. B; McClelland, 1976)

The question of where the need for achievement comes fromcontinued to perplex McClelland.Although early childhood appears to be when a lasting need forachievement develops, the need for achievement can be enhanced in adultsthrough training seminars. Moreimportantly, however, is the question of where need for achievement comes fromin the first place, how does it develop within a society? When McClelland was working in Ethiopia withthe Peace Corps, he studied the Gurage.This small tribal group was treated with disdain by both the dominantChristian Amhara and the Muslim Galla tribes.And yet the Gurage were recognized for their clever business strategies,and their children wrote stories filled with imagery indicative of a high needfor achievement. Since the Gurage haddeveloped without contact with Western Christian, Muslim, or Greco-Roman cultures,they seemed to have developed their own need for achievement. Unfortunately, so little is known about theirhistory, that McClelland was unable to identify the source of their motivation(McClelland, 1976).

In support of the contention that studying the need forachievement could provide insights into many aspects of personality, McClellandpursued a number of interesting topics throughout his career, including howsocieties can motivate economic growth and identify talent (McClelland,Baldwin, Bronfenbrenner, & Strodtbeck, 1958; McClelland & Winter,1969), the power motive (McClelland, 1975), the development of social maturityand values (McClelland, 1982a; McClelland, 1982b), and a cross-cultural studyon the role of alcohol in society (McClelland, Davis, Kalin, & Wanner,1972). Moving in a quite differentdirection, McClelland also wrote a book entitled The Roots of Consciousness (McClelland, 1964), in which he arguesthat Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis is really an expression of Jewish spiritualmysticism known as Kabbalah. We willexamine Kabbalah, as well as Christian and Islamic mysticism, as a positiveapproach to one’s lifestyle in Chapter 18.

Discussion Question: McClelland found support for his ideas on the development of the need for achievement amongst Native Americans, but he did not find that same support among the Gurage tribe in Ethiopia (they had a strong need for achievement, but the source was unclear). How important do you think it is for us to re-examine psychological theories in multiple cultures, and what would it mean for psychology if we often find contradictions?

A Final Note: Humanistic or Existential?

In this chapter we have examined the humanistic theoriesof Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. Inthe next chapter we will examine the existential theories of Viktor Frankl andRollo May. What really is thedifference? The distinction is subtle,based on definition, and may seem nonexistent at first glance. Indeed, both the humanistic and existentialtheorists have been influenced by the likes of Adler, Horney, Fromm, and OttoRank, and Rogers in particular often writes about existential choices in hisbooks. Even the cognitive therapistAlbert Ellis, himself profoundly influenced by Adler, considered RationalEmotive Behavior Therapy to be distinctly humanistic (see Humanistic Psychotherapy; Ellis, 1973). In 1986, the Saybrook Institute republished aseries of essays, which had appeared in the Journalof Humanistic Psychology, under the title Politics and Innocence: A Humanistic Debate (May, Rogers, Maslow,et al., 1986). In this volume, Rogersrefers to May as “the leading scholar of humanistic psychology.” May, for his part, concluded an open letterto Rogers in which he expressed “profound respect for you and your contributionin the past to all of us.” May alsomaintained a friendship and correspondence with Maslow (May, 1991). Clearly, the humanistic and existentialpsychologists have much in common, and the important figures here in Americacommunicated actively and with respect for the contributions of each other.

Personality Theory in Real Life: Seeking Self-Actualization

Carl Rogers described the actualizing tendency as something that exists within every living organism. It is a tendency to grow, develop, and realize one’s full potential. It can be thwarted, but it cannot be destroyed without destroying the organism itself. His person-centered approach was based on this belief, and the resulting trust that one can place in each person. In other words, we can trust that each person is driven forward by this actualizing tendency, and that under the right conditions it will flourish (Rogers, 1977, 1986/1989).

According to Abraham Maslow, life is a process of choices. At each point, we must choose between a progression choice and a regression choice. Although many people make safe, defensive choices, self-actualizing people regularly make growth choices (Maslow, 1971). Each growth choice moves the person closer to self-actualization, and the process continues throughout life.

So, consider your own life. Do you feel the actualizing tendency within you? Do you aspire to accomplish something great, or simply to be a good person in whatever path you choose? Think about your educational and/or career plans. Think about your life plans, and whether they include a family or special friends. Do you feel a calling that is pulling in one direction or another? The drive to accomplish, to make a contribution to your community or society, the belief that you are meant for great things, or simply that you are meant to be a source of support for others, all of these might be aspects of your actualizing tendency. Or are you moving through life without a plan, without goals? Do you skate along from day to day, with no destination in mind?

If you do feel your actualizing tendency, consider how you are living your life. Are you pursuing the steps necessary to accomplish your goals? Have you made choices, perhaps difficult choices, which have moved you forward toward those goals?

Basically, do you feel that you are on a path toward self-actualization, and do you think you should be? Is it reasonable to expect, or hope, that everyone might become self-actualized?

What might it be like to live a fully transcendent, self-actualized life? Although there are many different, and individual, answers to that question, we can find one example in the remarkable life of Peace Pilgrim (Friends of Peace Pilgrim, 1982). No one knows her original name, or exactly where or when she was born (other than it was on a small farm in the Eastern United States in the early 1900s). Her family was poor, but happy, and she enjoyed her childhood. Her life was fruitful, but eventually she found the world’s focus on self-centeredness and material goods to be unfulfilling. In 1953, she chose to leave her life behind. She adopted the name Peace Pilgrim, and began walking across America as a prayer for peace.

A pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose…Mine is for peace, and that is why I am a Peace Pilgrim…My pilgrimage covers the entire peace picture: peace among nations, peace among groups, peace within our environment, peace among individuals, and the very, very important inner peace - which I talk about most often because that is where peace begins…I have no money. I do not accept any money on my pilgrimage. I belong to no organization…I own only what I wear and carry. There is nothing to tie me down. I am as free as a bird soaring in the sky.

I walk until given shelter, fast until given food. I don’t ask - it’s given without asking. Aren’t people good! There is a spark of good in everybody, no matter how deeply it may be buried, it is there. It’s waiting to govern your life gloriously. (pg. 25; Peace Pilgrim cited in Friends of Peace Pilgrim, 1982)

Between 1953 and her death in 1981, she walked, and walked, and walked. By 1964, she had walked 25,000 miles, including walking across the United States twice and through every Canadian province. After that, she no longer kept track of her mileage, but she completed at least four more pilgrimages, including Alaska, Hawaii, and a pilgrimage in Mexico. Among the many friends and admirers she met along the way, there are two notable people (whom psychology students should be familiar with) who provided comments for the cover of her book: Elisabeth Kubler-Ross called her “a wonderful lady,” and the popular author/counselor Wayne Dyer said “she is my hero.” As for your own life, Peace Pilgrim has some simple advice:

There is no glimpse of the light without walking the path. You can’t get it from anyone else, nor can you give it to anyone. Just take whatever steps seem easiest for you, and as you take a few steps it will be easier for you to take a few more. (pg. 91; Peace Pilgrim cited in Friends of Peace Pilgrim, 1982).

Review of Key Points

Rogers began his clinical career searching for effective ways of conducting psychotherapy, since the techniques he had been taught were not providing adequate results.
Rogers believed that each person exists in their own, unique experiential field. Only they can see that field clearly, although even they may not perceive it accurately (incongruence).
Everyone has an actualizing tendency, according to Rogers. The term commonly applied to this tendency is self-actualization.
The self is that portion of the experiential field that is recognized as “I” or “me.” It is organized into a self-structure.
Rogers used the term personal power to describe each person’s ability to make choices necessary for the actualization of their self-structure and to then fulfill those choices or goals.
In order for a person to grow, they must fulfill a need for positive regard. This can only come from receiving unconditional positive regard from important family members and friends (typically beginning with the parents).
When people receive only conditional positive regard, they develop conditions of worth. Their self-regard then becomes tied to those conditions of worth.
When an individual’s self-regard and positive regard are closely related, the person is said to be congruent. If not, they are said to be incongruent.
Congruence and incongruence can be measured by understanding the gap between a person’s real self and their ideal self.
Rogers described individuals who are congruent and continuing to grow as fully functioning persons.
Relationships can serve to mirror our true personality, and to reveal incongruence we are unaware of ourselves.
Successful marriages, according to Rogers, seem to be based on dedication/commitment, communication, dissolution of roles, and maintaining each person’s separate self.
Rogers identified six necessary and sufficient conditions for positive therapeutic change, conditions that can exist in any interpersonal relationships (not just in therapy). The key factor in these relationships may be empathic understanding.
Rogers extended his study of clinical psychology into other groups designed to help all people grow and self-actualize, such as T-groups and encounter groups. He described his shift from purely clinical work to fostering growth in all people as a person-centered approach.
Maslow worked with an amazing range of people, from the renowned experimental psychologists Harry Harlow and Edward Thorndike, to the Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer and the personality theorists/clinicians Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, and Erich Fromm.
Values were very important to Maslow in his approach to psychology. He did not, however, advocate his own values. He reached beyond humanistic psychology to include areas of study such as existential psychology, existential theology, and Zen Buddhism.
Maslow described a hierarchy of needs, as follows: physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, and the need for self-actualization. Lower needs must be largely satisfied before the individual begins to focus on higher needs.
The lower needs can be described as deficiency-needs, whereas self-actualization is a Being-need.
In addition to the basic needs, there are also cognitive needs and aesthetic needs.
Maslow described fourteen characteristics of self-actualizing people. He developed his list by studying both contemporary and historical people who seemed to him to be self-actualizing.
Perhaps the best know characteristic of self-actualizing is the peak experience. This experience is often described in mystical terms, and Maslow believed it may have provided a basis for the creation of religion in the early history of the human species.
Maslow described two defense mechanisms that interfere with the process of self-actualizing: desacralizing and the Jonah complex.
Maslow proposed a Fourth Force Psychology based on Being-values and metaneeds. He felt that some people could suffer from a sickness of the soul, a so-called metapathology, and Maslow suggested a need for metacounselors.
Some individuals experience profound peak experiences, which Maslow described as transcendent. His concept of transcendence seems very close to the Buddhist perspective of interbeing.
Maslow proposed that organizations should seek Eupsychia, a realistically attainable environment in which the actualizing tendency of all the organization’s members are supported.
When Eupsychian management does support self-actualization, the actualization of each person benefits the others around them. The process is known as synergy.
Based on a management model that described Theory X and theory Y management styles, Maslow proposed Theory Z. Theory Z management seeks a transcendent management style that encourages and maximizes self-actualization and synergy in the work place.
Murray based “personology” on the study of needs. He distinguished between viscerogenic needs and psychogenic needs.
Christiana Morgan and Murray developed the Thematic Apperception Test, a famous projective psychological test. Murray used the test during World War II to select special agents for highly sensitive, dangerous missions.
Murray believed that a person’s ability to create a story around a picture in the TAT was based in large part on their personal mythology. He shared this interest in myth, and its role in psychology, with Carl Jung and Rollo May.
McClelland used the TAT to study the need for achievement. Initially, McClelland considered parental influence very important for the development of the achievement need, a finding he confirmed in Native Americans. However, he found contradictory evidence when he studied the Gurage tribe in Ethiopia. Thus, he considered the true source of the achievement need as something needing further research.
The distinction between humanistic psychology and existential psychology is not clear, and there is significant overlap in the thinking of representatives from both fields. In addition, there is a distinct humanistic element in the psychodynamic theories of Adler, Horney, Fromm, Murray, and others.

Personality Theory | Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, & Henry Murray (2024)

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What is the theory of personality according to Roger and Maslow? ›

While Maslow provides self-transcendence as a buffer for any malign, immoral tendencies of the self-actualiser, Rogers would suggest that the therapy would offer the individual the unconditional positive regard that is required to ensure that personality development is redirected and adjusted to account for moral ...

What is the personality theory of Henry Murray? ›

Murray believed that the study of personality should look at the entire person over the course of their lifespan – that people needed to be analysed in terms of complex interactions and whole systems rather than individual parts – and an individual's behaviors, needs and their levels, etc.

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What do Abraham Maslow's and Carl Rogers's theories have in? ›

What do Abraham Maslow's and Carl Rogers's theories have in common? They believe that each human being is free to choose his or her own destiny.

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What is the Rogers theory of personality? ›

What is Carl Rogers' Theory? Carl Rogers' theory is that there needs to be congruence between the real self and the ideal self. Rogers believed self-actualization was something every individual was seeking. Self-actualization is when an individual achieves their full potential.

Which type of psychology are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers associated with? ›

Humanistic psychology delves into the teachings of Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and other prominent humanists who advocated the belief in the inherent goodness of humanity.

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What are the key concepts of Maslow's humanistic theory? ›

People act to fulfill needs. Maslow's theory explained that every person is born with a set of basic needs: (1) physiological, (2) safety (3) belongingness or love, (4) self-esteem, and (5) self-actualization. He theorized that higher needs emerge as the lower-level needs are met.

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How do Maslow's and Rogers theories of personality contrast? ›

Maslow theory to improve a person's personality is base on self actualization. While the Rogers theory emphasizes with the environment.No one can improve yourself but yourself as well. The environment influences the development of persons personality.

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What is the central feature of personality according to Maslow and Rogers? ›

Self-concept was a central feature of personality for both Maslow and Rogers. Some rejected any standardized assessments and relied on interviews and conversations. Rogers sometimes used questionnaires in which people described their ideal and actual selves, which he later to judge progress during therapy.

What is the theory of personality theory? ›

Personality theories study how an individual develops their personality and can be utilized in studying personality disorders. These theories address whether personality is a biological trait or one that is developed through a person's interaction with their environment.

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What is the ego theory of personality? ›

The ego is the psychological component of the personality that is represented by our conscious decision-making process. The id is the instinctual, biological component , and the superego is the social component of our personality and conscience . Our behavior is determined by the interaction of these three components.

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