Self actualization
Encyclopedia
Self-actualization is a term that has been used in various psychology
theories, often in slightly different ways. The term was originally introduced by the organismic theorist
Kurt Goldstein
for the motive to realize one's full potential. In his view, it is the organism's master motive, the only real motive: "the tendency to actualize itself as fully as possible is the basic drive...the drive of self-actualization." Carl Rogers
similarly wrote of "the curative force in psychotherapy - man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities...to express and activate all the capacities of the organism." However, the concept was brought most fully to prominence in Abraham Maslow
's hierarchy of needs theory as the final level of psychological development that can be achieved when all basic and mental needs are fulfilled and the "actualization" of the full personal potential takes place.
in his article, A Theory of Human Motivation, Maslow explicitly defines self-actualization to be "the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency for him [the individual] to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." Maslow used the term self-actualization to describe a desire, not a driving force, that could lead to realizing one's capabilities. Maslow did not feel that self-actualization determined one's life; rather, he felt that it gave the individual a desire, or motivation to achieve budding ambitions. Maslow's usage of the term is now popular in modern psychology when discussing personality from the humanistic approach.
A basic definition from a typical college text book defines self-actualization according to Maslow simply as "the full realization of one's potential" without any mention of Goldstein.
A more explicit definition of self-actualization according to Maslow is "intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately of what is the organism itself...self-actualization is growth-motivated rather than deficiency-motivated." This explanation emphasizes the fact that self-actualization cannot normally be reached until other lower order necessities of Maslow's hierarchy of needs are satisfied. While Goldstein defined self-actualization as a driving force, Maslow uses the term to describe personal growth that takes place once lower order needs have been met, one corollary being that, in his opinion, "self-actualisation...rarely happens...certainly in less than 1% of the adult population." The fact that "most of us function most of the time on a level lower than that of self-actualization" he called the psychopathology of normality.
Maslow considered self-actualizing people to possess "an unusual ability to detect the spurious, the fake, and the dishonest in personality, and in general to judge the people correctly and efficiently."
Common traits amongst people who have reached self-actualization are:
For Goldstein, self-actualization was a motive and, for Maslow, a level of development; for both, however, roughly the same kinds of qualities were expressed: independence, autonomy, a tendency to form few but deep friendships, a "philosophical" sense of humor, a tendency to resist outside pressures and a general transcendence of the environment rather than "coping" with it.
Self-actualization has been discussed by Schott in connection with Transpersonal business studies
.
- becoming '"fully human"...maturity or self-actualization' - and is considered a part of the humanistic approach to personality. Humanistic psychology
is one of several methods used in psychology for studying, understanding, and evaluating personality. The humanistic approach was developed because other approaches, such as the psychodynamic approach made famous by Sigmund Freud
, focused on unhealthy individuals that exhibited disturbed behavior; whereas the humanistic approach focuses on healthy, motivated people and tries to determine how they define the self while maximizing their potential.
Stemming from this branch of psychology is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow, people have lower order needs that in general must be fulfilled before high order needs can be satisfied: 'five sets of needs - physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualisation'.
As a person moves up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, eventually they may reach the summit — self actualization. Maslow's hierarchy of needs begins with the most basic necessities deemed "the physiological needs" in which the individual will seek out items like food
and water, and must be able to perform basic functions such as breathing and sleep
ing. Once these needs have been met, a person can move on to fulfilling "the safety needs", where they will attempt to obtain a sense of security
, physical comfort
s and shelter, employment, and property. The next level is "the belongingness and love needs", where people will strive for social acceptance
, affiliations, a sense of belonging
ness and being welcome, sexual intimacy, and perhaps a family
. Next are "the esteem needs", where the individual will desire a sense of competence
, recognition of achievement by peers, and respect
from others.
Some argue that once these needs are met, an individual is primed for self actualization. Others maintain that there are two more phases an individual must progress through before self actualization can take place. These include "the cognitive needs", where a person will desire knowledge and an understanding of the world around them, and "the aesthetic needs" which include a need for "symmetry, order, and beauty". Once all these needs have been satisfied, the final stage of Maslow's hierarchy—self actualization—can take place.
Classical Adlerian psychotherapy
promotes this level of psychological development, utilizing the foundation of a 12-stage therapeutic model to realistically satisfy the basic needs, leading to an advanced stage of "meta-therapy," creative living, and self/other/task-actualization. Gestalt therapy
, acknowledging that 'Kurt Goldstein first introduced the concept of the organism as a whole ', built on the assumption that "every individual, every plant, every animal has only one inborn goal - to actualize itself as it is."
Maslow's writings are used as inspirational resources. The key to Maslow's writings is understanding that there are no keys. Self Actualization is predicated on the individual having their lower deficiency needs met. Once a person has moved through feeling and believing that they are deficient, they naturally seek to grow into who they are, that is self-actualize.
described as the game of '"Self-Expression"...based on the dogma "Feelings are Good"'.
Broader criticism from within humanistic psychology of the concept of self-actualization includes the danger that 'emphasis on the actualizing tendency...can lead to a highly positive view of the human being but one which is strangely non-relational'. According to Fritz Perls
there is also the risk of confusing "self-actualizing and self-image actualizing...the curse of the ideal." By conflating "the virtue of self-actualization and the reality of self-actualization," the latter becomes merely another measuring rod for the "topdog" - the nagging conscience: "You tell me to do things. You tell me to be - real. You tell me to be self-actualized...I don't have to be that good!"
Barry Stevens
remarks: "Abe Maslow was unhappy with what happened with many people when they read what he wrote about 'self-actualizing people'. What they did with it was very strange. I have received a fair number of letters saying 'I am a self-actualized person'. Maslow said that he must have left something out. Fritz (Perls) put it in. He saw that most people actualized a self-concept. This is not self-actualizing."
According to Paul Vitz
, this may be connected with the charge that "Rogers and Maslow both transform self-actualization from a descriptive notion into a moral norm."
In general during the early twenty-first-century, "the usefulness of the concepts of self and self-actualization continue to attract discussion and debate."
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
theories, often in slightly different ways. The term was originally introduced by the organismic theorist
Organismic theory
Organismic theories in psychology are a family of holistic psychological theories which tend to stress the organization, unity, and integration of human beings expressed through each individual's inherent growth or developmental tendency...
Kurt Goldstein
Kurt Goldstein
Kurt Goldstein was a German Jewish neurologist and psychiatrist who was a pioneer in modern neuropsychology. He created a holistic theory of the organism based on Gestalt theory which deeply influenced the development of Gestalt therapy...
for the motive to realize one's full potential. In his view, it is the organism's master motive, the only real motive: "the tendency to actualize itself as fully as possible is the basic drive...the drive of self-actualization." Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers
Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...
similarly wrote of "the curative force in psychotherapy - man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities...to express and activate all the capacities of the organism." However, the concept was brought most fully to prominence in Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
's hierarchy of needs theory as the final level of psychological development that can be achieved when all basic and mental needs are fulfilled and the "actualization" of the full personal potential takes place.
In Goldstein's theory
According to Kurt Goldstein's book, The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from Pathological Data in Man, self-actualization is "the tendency to actualize, as much as possible, [the organism's] individual capacities" in the world. The tendency toward self-actualization is "the only drive by which the life of an organism is determined." However, for Goldstein self-actualization cannot be understood as a kind of goal to be reached sometime in the future. At any moment the organism has the fundamental tendency to actualize all its capacities, its whole potential, as it is present in exactly that moment in exactly that situation in contact with the world under the given circumstances.Maslow's hierarchy of needs
The term was later used by Abraham MaslowAbraham Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
in his article, A Theory of Human Motivation, Maslow explicitly defines self-actualization to be "the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency for him [the individual] to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." Maslow used the term self-actualization to describe a desire, not a driving force, that could lead to realizing one's capabilities. Maslow did not feel that self-actualization determined one's life; rather, he felt that it gave the individual a desire, or motivation to achieve budding ambitions. Maslow's usage of the term is now popular in modern psychology when discussing personality from the humanistic approach.
A basic definition from a typical college text book defines self-actualization according to Maslow simply as "the full realization of one's potential" without any mention of Goldstein.
A more explicit definition of self-actualization according to Maslow is "intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately of what is the organism itself...self-actualization is growth-motivated rather than deficiency-motivated." This explanation emphasizes the fact that self-actualization cannot normally be reached until other lower order necessities of Maslow's hierarchy of needs are satisfied. While Goldstein defined self-actualization as a driving force, Maslow uses the term to describe personal growth that takes place once lower order needs have been met, one corollary being that, in his opinion, "self-actualisation...rarely happens...certainly in less than 1% of the adult population." The fact that "most of us function most of the time on a level lower than that of self-actualization" he called the psychopathology of normality.
Maslow considered self-actualizing people to possess "an unusual ability to detect the spurious, the fake, and the dishonest in personality, and in general to judge the people correctly and efficiently."
Common traits amongst people who have reached self-actualization are:
- They embrace reality and facts rather than denying truth.
- They are spontaneous.
- They are "focused on problems outside themselves."
- They "can accept their own human nature in the stoic style, with all its shortcomings," are similarly acceptant of others, and generally lack prejudice.
For Goldstein, self-actualization was a motive and, for Maslow, a level of development; for both, however, roughly the same kinds of qualities were expressed: independence, autonomy, a tendency to form few but deep friendships, a "philosophical" sense of humor, a tendency to resist outside pressures and a general transcendence of the environment rather than "coping" with it.
Self-actualization has been discussed by Schott in connection with Transpersonal business studies
Transpersonal business studies
Since the foundation of transpersonal psychology by Abraham Maslow in the late 1960s, other transpersonal disciplines, considered by Boucouvalas , have been considered...
.
In psychology
Self actualization is at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needsMaslow's hierarchy of needs
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity...
- becoming '"fully human"...maturity or self-actualization' - and is considered a part of the humanistic approach to personality. Humanistic psychology
Humanistic psychology
Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the work of early pioneers like Carl Rogers and the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology...
is one of several methods used in psychology for studying, understanding, and evaluating personality. The humanistic approach was developed because other approaches, such as the psychodynamic approach made famous by Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, focused on unhealthy individuals that exhibited disturbed behavior; whereas the humanistic approach focuses on healthy, motivated people and tries to determine how they define the self while maximizing their potential.
Stemming from this branch of psychology is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow, people have lower order needs that in general must be fulfilled before high order needs can be satisfied: 'five sets of needs - physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualisation'.
As a person moves up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, eventually they may reach the summit — self actualization. Maslow's hierarchy of needs begins with the most basic necessities deemed "the physiological needs" in which the individual will seek out items like food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
and water, and must be able to perform basic functions such as breathing and sleep
Sleep
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...
ing. Once these needs have been met, a person can move on to fulfilling "the safety needs", where they will attempt to obtain a sense of security
Security
Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
, physical comfort
Comfort
Comfort may refer to:*Comfort , by the rock group Failure*Comfort *Comfort Air, German airline*Comfort food*Comfort noise, artificial background noise used in radio and wireless communications to fill the silent time in a transmission*Comfort object, an object used to provide psychological...
s and shelter, employment, and property. The next level is "the belongingness and love needs", where people will strive for social acceptance
Acceptance
Acceptance is a person's agreement to experience a situation, to follow a process or condition without attempting to change it, protest, or exit....
, affiliations, a sense of belonging
Belonging
Belonging is an English-language Welsh television drama series, produced by BBC Wales and broadcast on BBC One Wales.The programme revolved around the lives of the Lewis family, and their various trials and tribulations in the changing environment of their South Wales town Bryncoed and modern Wales...
ness and being welcome, sexual intimacy, and perhaps a family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
. Next are "the esteem needs", where the individual will desire a sense of competence
Skill
A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills...
, recognition of achievement by peers, and respect
Respect
Respect denotes both a positive feeling of esteem for a person or other entity , and also specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem. Respect can be a specific feeling of regard for the actual qualities of the one respected...
from others.
Some argue that once these needs are met, an individual is primed for self actualization. Others maintain that there are two more phases an individual must progress through before self actualization can take place. These include "the cognitive needs", where a person will desire knowledge and an understanding of the world around them, and "the aesthetic needs" which include a need for "symmetry, order, and beauty". Once all these needs have been satisfied, the final stage of Maslow's hierarchy—self actualization—can take place.
Classical Adlerian psychotherapy
Classical Adlerian Psychotherapy
Classical Adlerian individual psychotherapy, brief therapy, couple therapy, and family therapy follow parallel paths. Clients are encouraged to overcome their feelings of insecurity, develop deeper feelings of connectedness, and to redirect their striving for significance into more socially...
promotes this level of psychological development, utilizing the foundation of a 12-stage therapeutic model to realistically satisfy the basic needs, leading to an advanced stage of "meta-therapy," creative living, and self/other/task-actualization. Gestalt therapy
Gestalt therapy
Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating...
, acknowledging that 'Kurt Goldstein first introduced the concept of the organism as a whole ', built on the assumption that "every individual, every plant, every animal has only one inborn goal - to actualize itself as it is."
Maslow's writings are used as inspirational resources. The key to Maslow's writings is understanding that there are no keys. Self Actualization is predicated on the individual having their lower deficiency needs met. Once a person has moved through feeling and believing that they are deficient, they naturally seek to grow into who they are, that is self-actualize.
Criticism
Maslow early noted his impression that "impulsivity, the unrestrained expression of any whim, the direct seeking for "kicks" and for non-social and purely private pleasures...is often mislabelled self-actualization." In this sense, "self-actualization" is little more than what Eric BerneEric Berne
Eric Berne was a Canadian-born psychiatrist best known as the creator of transactional analysis and the author of Games People Play.-Background and education:...
described as the game of '"Self-Expression"...based on the dogma "Feelings are Good"'.
Broader criticism from within humanistic psychology of the concept of self-actualization includes the danger that 'emphasis on the actualizing tendency...can lead to a highly positive view of the human being but one which is strangely non-relational'. According to Fritz Perls
Fritz Perls
Friedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
there is also the risk of confusing "self-actualizing and self-image actualizing...the curse of the ideal." By conflating "the virtue of self-actualization and the reality of self-actualization," the latter becomes merely another measuring rod for the "topdog" - the nagging conscience: "You tell me to do things. You tell me to be - real. You tell me to be self-actualized...I don't have to be that good!"
Barry Stevens
Barry Stevens (therapist)
Barry Stevens, born Mildred Fox, was a writer and Gestalt therapist. She developed her own form of Gestalt therapy body work, based on the awareness of body processes. For the human potential movement of the 1970s, she became a kind of "star", but she always refused to accept that role.She worked...
remarks: "Abe Maslow was unhappy with what happened with many people when they read what he wrote about 'self-actualizing people'. What they did with it was very strange. I have received a fair number of letters saying 'I am a self-actualized person'. Maslow said that he must have left something out. Fritz (Perls) put it in. He saw that most people actualized a self-concept. This is not self-actualizing."
According to Paul Vitz
Paul Vitz
Paul C. Vitz ) is a Psychologist at New York University.He graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1957 and with a Ph.D in Psychology from Stanford University in 1962...
, this may be connected with the charge that "Rogers and Maslow both transform self-actualization from a descriptive notion into a moral norm."
In general during the early twenty-first-century, "the usefulness of the concepts of self and self-actualization continue to attract discussion and debate."
Further reading
- Harrington, Anne: Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler, Princeton University Press, 1999. (Anne Harrington dedicates a comprehensive chapter to Kurt Goldstein and his work.)
See also
- IndividuationIndividuationIndividuation is a concept which appears in numerous fields and may be encountered in work by Arthur Schopenhauer, Carl Jung, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, David Bohm, and Manuel De Landa...
- Maslow's hierarchy of needsMaslow's hierarchy of needsMaslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity...
- Outline of self
- HumanismHumanismHumanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
- Perfectionism (philosophy)Perfectionism (philosophy)In ethics and value theory, perfectionism is the persistence of will in obtaining the optimal quality of spiritual, mental, physical, and material being. The neo-Aristotelean Thomas Hurka describes perfectionism as follows:...
- Power processPower processThe power process is a theoretical process necessary to fulfil one's psychological need to exert power to fulfil goals, discussed in Theodore Kaczynski's manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future...
- NirvanaNirvanaNirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...