HOLISTIC-DYNAMIC THEORY

BY ABRAHAM MASLOW

Presented by:Mary Anne A. Portuguez, MP, RPm

MASLOW'S SELF-

ACTUALIZATION POSITION

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY• Abraham Harold (Abe) Maslow had, perhaps, the most lonely and

miserable childhood. Born in Manhattan, New York, on April 1, 1908, Maslow spent his unhappy childhood in Brooklyn. Maslow was the oldest of seven children born to Samuel Maslow and Rose Schilosky Maslow.

Cheesy EventHe was deeply in love, a condition that made it difficult to concentrate on school work. Being hopelessly shy, the young man could not muster the courage to approach his beloved in any romantic fashion. Interestingly, the young woman who was the object of his affections was also his first cousin. This situation allowed him to visit his cousin on the pretext of calling on his aunt. He loved his cousin in a distant, bashful sort of way, having never touched her nor expressed his feelings. Then, suddenly a fortuitous event changed his life. While visiting his aunt, his cousin’s older sister shoved the young man toward his cousin, virtually ordering him to kiss her. He did, and to his surprise his cousin did not fight back. She kissed him, and from that time on his life became meaningful.

Humanistic Biology and Self-Actualization

• Self-actualization: process whereby the healthy development of people’s abilities enables them to fulfill their own true natures

• Humanistic biology: the basic nature of human beings is potentially good and capable of pushing people in the direction of self-realization if the right social conditions prevail

Basic Tenets• First, Maslow (1970) adopted a holistic approach to motivation: That

is, the whole person, not any single part or function, is motivated.• Second, motivation is usually complex, meaning that a person’s

behavior may spring from several separate motives.• A third assumption is that people are continually motivated by one

need or another.• Fourth, all people everywhere are motivated by the same basic needs.• Fifth, needs can be arranged on a hierarchy

Overview• Maslow (1970 cited by Feist & Feist, 2009) referred to it as a holistic-

dynamic theory because it assumes that the whole person is constantly being motivated by one need or another and that people have the potential to grow toward psychological health, that is, self-actualization.

Hierarchy of Human Needs

• Humans have two basic sets of needs that are rooted in their biology:• Deficiency needs (basic needs): lower needs that must be gratified

before it becomes possible to move into the growth area• Growth needs (meta needs): higher needs that may emerge once the

basic needs have been satisfied

The Hierarchy of Human Needs

• Basic needs:• Physiological: needs for food, water, sex, air, sleep• Safety: needs for feeling safe, protection, structure, freedom within

limits• Belongingness and love: needs to feel that we have a place and that

we are loved• D-love: selfish love in which the individual is more concerned with

receiving love and gratifying his or her needs than with giving love to another; also known as deficiency-love

• B-love: mature form of love in which the person is more concerned with giving love to benefit others than in receiving love from others to gratify his or her needs; also known as being-love

The Hierarchy of Human Needs (cont'd.)

• Basic needs (cont'd.):• Esteem: needs for respect and recognition

• Self-esteem: respect based on our own competence, independence, and achievements

• Esteem from others: respect and recognition accorded us by others

The Hierarchy of Human Needs (cont'd.)

• Meta needs:• Once the basic needs have been sufficiently gratified, the needs for

self-actualization and cognitive understanding become salient• Jonah complex: fear that exercising our abilities to the maximum

will bring with it responsibilities and duties that we will be unable to handle; an unwillingness to sacrifice current safety and security for the unknown

The Hierarchy of Human Needs (cont'd.)

• Meta needs (cont'd.):• Authoritative parenting: disciplinary style in which children are

consulted by parents in the establishment of disciplinary rules• Permissive parenting: disciplinary style in which parents make few

demands on their children and use little punishment; “dopey parents”• Authoritarian parenting: disciplinary style in which parents

discourage verbal give-and-take with their children and instead, expect unquestioning obedience to their judgments

B-Cognition and Actualization

• B-cognition: state of experiencing that is nonjudgmental and self-validating

• D-cognition: state of experiencing that involves judgments of approval and disapproval

• Peak experience: intense, mystical experience in which an individual exists in a temporary state of joy and wonderment

Additional important term:

B-values: These “Being” values are indicators of psychological health and are opposed to deficiency needs; “metaneeds”

Characteristics of Self-Actualizing People

• Self-actualizers: individuals who have gratified their basic needs and developed their potentialities to the point that they can be considered healthy, more fully functioning human beings

• Characteristics of self-actualizers:• Problem-centered• Democratic character• Not prejudiced• Cosmopolitan in outlook• Socially responsible• Resist enculturation, where appropriate• Capable of unselfish love• Fresh appreciation of events

Assessment Techniques

• Personal Orientation Inventory (POI): measure of self-actualization; This inventory consists of 150 forced-choice items, such as (a) “I can feel comfortable with less than a perfect performance” versus (b) “I feel uncomfortable with anything less than a perfect performance”; (a) “ Two people will get along best if each concentrates on pleasing the other” versus (b) “Two people can get along best if each person feels free to express himself ”

Theory's Implications for Therapy

• Neurotics are those who have been unable to satisfy their basic needs and thus have been precluded from moving toward the

ultimate goal of self-actualization • Therapy must be interpersonal in nature

Evaluative Comments

• Comprehensiveness: not quite as comprehensive as it first appears• Precision and testability: not very precise and somewhat difficult to test

adequately• Parsimony: fails to meet the parsimony criterion; too simplistic• Empirical validity: empirical support is not consistent • Heuristic value: theory has been very stimulating to researchers in a

large number of disciplines; strong heuristic value• Applied value: strong applied value in pastoral and educational

counseling and in the business world