The biggest development in psychology between the 1930s and the 1950s, in my view, was the arrival of Abraham Maslow. Today, tens of millions of people around the world are familiar with at least some of Maslow’s thinking. In my new novel, We Are Like Fire, my main character and narrator, Ren Prothero, is a Maslow-inspired psychotherapist. In my estimation, it only takes ten minutes to understand Maslow’s thinking. Ren and Dieter and Maslow himself do this in three scenes.
Ren’s brief introduction, 1957:
“Maslow is an explorer, a pioneer. He’s done innovative work, far-reaching work. He’s studied the very best that human beings can be. Not averages. Not our shortcomings. Our strengths. Our achievements, our success, our potential. He’s made breakthroughs. And he’s come up with a comprehensive new theory of human motivation . . .
“Maslow’s focus is on our innate tendency toward growth. He’s interested in well-lived lives. He has an imagination for people at our best. He’s about us constantly using our talents and capabilities and challenging ourselves as we reach our potential . . .
“Just one other thing. Maslow’s vision is a vision of the human being in a state of wholeness, fulfillment, integrity, and optimal psychological health.”
Ren and Dieter talking, 1958:
“Tell me more,” he says.
Where do I start?
“You already know some of this. Maslow believes that we reach our full potential as we ascend through meeting a series of our needs. The five stages of needs.”
“The first is physiological,” says Dieter. “Food, liquid, shelter, sleep, and oxygen.”
“Know the second?”
“Our safety needs. For a consistent, fair, and predictable world.”
“Yep.”
“Then our belonging needs. For healthy, affectionate, and loving relationships and a place in our group.”
“You got it, Dieter. Fourth?”
“Our esteem needs. Let’s see. Strength and confidence and self-respect. Competence. Mastery. Achievement.”
“All those. And acceptance and appreciation. And attention and respect from other people. Those are our esteem needs. What’s our fifth and final and highest stage of needs?’
He shrugs. “Self-actualization.”
I nod, tip my head back, lay a hand over my heart, sigh, and smile. “Ah. Self-actualization.”
“So whom does Maslow regard as self-actualizing?”
“Well, among well-known people, Goethe—”
“—Ach, Goethe, splendid!”
“—Benjamin Franklin, Jane Addams, the composer Joseph Haydn, the poet Robert Browning, William James, Aldous Huxley. Martin Buber. People like that.”
“Got it. What’s the goal? What’s the ideal?”
“A life of goodness, faith, values, ideals, ethics, courage, beauty, poetry, music, art. For those of us in the Third Force, life is about ideal behavior, kindness, generosity, friendships, compassion, self-sacrifice, love, joy, psychological health and maturity, human well-being, and personal fulfillment.”
Dieter tilts his head to the side and nods slowly. “Fulfillment, yes.”
“And of wise, benevolent people who are discovering and developing all that is good, true, and beautiful within themselves. People who are sociable, friendly, and loving and who have close personal relationships and a deep feeling of kinship with the whole human race.”
Dieter smiles. “Hard to disagree with any of that. That’s what life is all about.”
He’s charging me up. “To be self-actualizing is to be fully human. Ego-transcending, altruistic, dedicated to our duties to other people.”
“Yes!”
“To be self-actualizing is to identify with humanity. To be self-accepting and accepting of others. To balance our autonomy and uniqueness with good relationships with other people. To do what is good and just and fair and benevolent. To be democratic rather than authoritarian. To balance richness and simplicity in our life. To be alive and fully-functioning.”
Dieter’s eyes soften as his smile keeps building. He glides his fingers across his chin. But then his smile suddenly vanishes.
“How many people become self-actualizing?”
“According to Maslow’s research, only two percent of people.”
Dieter frowns. “Why only two percent?”
“Blocks, fears, doubts. We get diminished or stunted along the way in life. Our views of our self, of other people, and of the world get dampened. We become deficient.”
“I don’t see how someone gets there,” Dieter laments.
“It can be done by almost anyone.”
“How so?”
“This past year or two, Maslow has described how self-actualizing people also have frequent peak experiences. And so they feel whole and complete and enjoy an ever-fresh appreciation for beauty and a sense of wonder, a good-natured sense of humor and playfulness, and both joy and grace.”
“How does Maslow define one of these – a peak experience?”
“An experience of wonder, awe, beauty, serenity, happiness, ecstasy, or joy. When we are in touch with the grandeur and splendor of the universe. When we’re aware of the meaningfulness of life. When we feel strong yet humble. Free of doubt. Beyond self-consciousness yet aware of the meaningfulness of our life. Beyond neurosis. Sure of ourselves. Integrated. Reverent. Fully functioning. And able to withstand opposition.”
Dieter lifts his palms up and looks up, beaming. “Who could be against all this?”
“Maslow believes a peak experience to be more than a mood or state of mind. He believes it’s a genuine revelation of reality.”
Dieter looks back down at me, raises his eyebrows. “An audacious claim.”
“Not really. This oceanic experience validates itself to us. It’s intrinsically valid. We behold it – the way we’d gaze at an infant or our beloved or a great painting. A new horizon, beyond our usual limits, opens up to us. The experience is complete, sufficient in itself, perfect. We receive the insights. We receive the experience. We’re absorbed in it.”
“Beautiful,” says Dieter.
He has another question ready.
“So how do self-actualizing people live their lives?”
“With reverence. With a consistent choosing of good over evil, and finding it easy to do so. With an earnest desire to improve the lot of humanity. With dedication to our mission. With creative responses to problems. With healthy self-respect yet enough humility to be open to learning from other people. With a continued freshness of appreciation. With aesthetic sensitivity.”
Dieter closes his eyes. Savoring the possibilities?
I smile. “We notice how lovely each flower is, how beautiful each sunset is. We are moved to tears by beauty, by joy, by tragedy. And yet we are more objective, seeing life clearly, not as we wish it to be, not letting our hopes and wishes distort our observations. We have clear perceptions of reality and sound judgment.”
Dieter reopens his eyes and lets out a whistle. He pumps his fist in the air. “Yes, Ren, that’s the whole thing!’
“That’s pretty much it, Dieter. When we actualize our true self, we realize our latent, unrealized potential. We live by higher motivations and we’re guided by our own inner directives. We keep our individuality even as we identify deeply with the human race. And we care about and respect other people in profoundly affectionate, even altruistic, ways. We live from a fullness of our humanity.”
Ren and Dieter in a diner near Denver’s airport, 1958:
“Maslow will be here shortly. Insisted on taking a taxi.”
Dieter sits up straight in his chair. “Good. How many times have the two of you met?”
“Let’s see. Six times. At psychology conferences.”
“So you Third Force guys are not at all like the Freudians or the Behaviorists?”
I shake my head. “Not at all.”
“Which is which again?”
“The Freudians are the Second Force guys. The Behaviorists are the First Force guys.”
“Right. And what’s wrong with them again?”
“Well, the Freudians are pessimists about human life. And the Behaviorists see human beings as stimulus-response machines – as lab rats who can speak and write.”
“I grant you that. Behaviorism has no room for deeper desires or higher purpose. The human species is clearly unique from other animal species.”
Abraham Maslow strides into the restaurant and gives both Dieter and I a warm smile as he shakes our hands. After we eat, I direct him toward our shared profession. “What’s new since last we met?”
“These days, Ren, I get the feeling of my writing being a communication to my great-great-grandchildren who are not yet born. An expression of love for them. Counsel. Lessons that might help them.”
Dieter smiles at him. “Wonderful way to think about it. What’s your essential message to people?”
“Dieter, is it?” A nod back. “That we’ve been selling human nature short, Dieter. That we need a change in the image of the human individual and change of basic thinking along the total front of human endeavors.”
“How did you end up on this path?” Dieter inquires. “When did your sense of mission take hold?”
Maslow seems relaxed with Dieter and he looks right at him as he answers. “In 1942. I had a vision of a peace table, with people sitting around it, talking about human nature and hatred and war and peace and brotherhood. I realized that the rest of my life must be devoted to discovering a psychology for the peace table. That moment changed my whole life.”
I lean forward. “Filled you with direction, energy, purpose.”
“I’ve never forgotten it, Ren.”
Dieter smiles. “So you research people, living and historical, whom you regard as self-actualizing?”
He nods. “I study self-fulfilling individuals. I’ve been observing humanity’s best. What I am doing is exploring the theory that you can find the values by which humanity ought to live, and for which people have always sought, by digging into the best people in depth.”
I nod. “Has always made perfect sense to me, Abraham.”
“We spend a great amount of time studying criminality,” Maslow adds. “Why not study law-abidingness, identification with society, social conscience?”
Dieter releases an appreciative sigh. “Yes.”
Maslow looks at him. “If we want to know the possibilities for growth and development in human beings, then I maintain we can learn best by studying our most moral, ethical, or saintly people.”
This relaxed, earnest, easygoing man has a gentle, ever-calm tone and a warm, endearing smile.
Dieter takes on more and more of a look of curiosity. “So you’ve introduced this Third Force in the field of psychology.”
“Not alone, but yes. It’s an introduction of a positive force to supplement Freudian pessimism and Behaviorist relativism.”
“And it starts from what you’ve learned about self-actualizing people.”
“Precisely, Dieter. Every age but ours has had its model, its ideal. All of these have been given up by our culture – the saint, the hero, the gentleman, the knight, the mystic. Perhaps we shall soon be able to use as our guide and model the fully growing and self-fulfilling human being, the one in whom all his or her potentialities are coming to full development, the one whose inner nature expresses itself freely, rather than being warped, suppressed, or denied.”
“You’ve also shown, Abe, that self-actualizing people have frequent peak experiences.”
“And we all need to welcome peak experiences, don’t you think, Ren?” I give him a nod. “If we lose our sense of the mysterious, of the numinous, if we lose our sense of awe, of humility, of being struck dumb, if we lose our sense of good fortune, then we have lost a very real and basic human capacity and are diminished.”
Dieter slowly shakes his head. “A tragic loss of potential.”
“At the moment of the peak experience,” Maslow tells us, “we see wonderful possibilities and inscrutable depths in humanity. We feel that life is worthwhile because beauty, honesty, play, goodness, truth, and meaningfulness exist.”
Dieter breathes deep. “That’s outstanding. Why do so few have peak experiences and self-actualize?”
“Fear, Dieter. We fear our highest possibilities. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments, under conditions of great courage. We enjoy and even thrill to the extraordinary possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments. And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these very same possibilities.”
I look at the floor. “But we pay a high price for being less.”
“If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of becoming, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You will be evading your own capacities, your own possibilities.”
However calm Maslow is, he’s also dynamic. He radiates magnetism, enthusiasm, passion, aliveness, boldness, and brilliance.
“Can anyone achieve this?” Dieter asks. “Reverse these negative patterns and become self-actualizing?”
“I think of the self-actualizing person not as an ordinary person with something added, but rather as the ordinary person with nothing taken away.”
I smile. “Great way to think about it.”
Maslow looks my way again. “Anyone can have a lifetime fulfillment of aspirations to be a good doctor or be a good carpenter or be a good human being. The human being can become good and then become better and better.”
Dieter leans in. “And arrive at a wholly different quality of life.”
Maslow nods at him. “It is within our power to improve our personality. To turn away from hypocrisy, meanness, prejudice, cruelty, cowardice, and smallness. To turn toward honesty, affection, self-respect, and intellectual and aesthetic growth.”
Somehow, without ever raising his voice, Abe Maslow has galvanized both of us with new energy.
Dieter tilts his head to one side. “Where does a person begin?”
“With an affirmative answer to existence,” Maslow declares. “With love for the highest values. With an active will toward health and growth. With this, we reach toward the full use and actualization of our talents, capacities, potentialities. Then we do the best we are capable of doing. We become everything we are capable of becoming. We fulfill ourselves.”
Dieter’s been nodding through this whole answer. “And this can bring about social progress.”
“Most definitely. Our task is to create an environment where more and more of these innate instincts can find expression.
“The single most important disease afflicting humanity today – a pandemic, even in the United States – is the authoritarian character structure.”
“And in my Germany, of course.”
Maslow gives him a solemn nod. “What we need instead is to move toward centering on human needs aspirations, and fulfillment as the fundamental bases from which to derive our philosophy, ethics, and social institutions.”
Dieter focuses intently. “What’s your ultimate advice to us?”
Maslow gazes back at both of us. “Be all that you can be in life. It’s the best way to be happy.”
Maslow was one of the most important and prplific psychologists of our recent past. His theory of self-actualization goes beyond a study of human nature but it is a roadmap for fulfilling one's full potential. Thanks Mike for such a wonderful essay. Francisco
Amazing summary. I’d like to see a sequential series with Vaillant, Kohut, Kernberg, Jung, Lorenz...