Self-Actualization (page 2)

tec

Nice -

I wonder if someone reaches 'self-actualization'... do they even think of it in such terms? My guess is not. They just... are who they are.

Peace,

tammy

mindseye

Very informative posts, frankiespeakin. Maslow's hiearchy of needs was one my favorite concepts from psych class.

Farkel, I can understand the benefits of "doing". But I disagree with " stop trying to figure out stuff and DO something". I think some self-reflection and analysis is good for putting one's life in perspective. Not seminars and pop-psych books, but real psychology, can benefit a person's life.

Farkel

mindseye,

I understand your sincerety.

: Not seminars and pop-psych books, but real psychology, can benefit a person's life.

It didn't keep Sigmund Freud from being a cocaine addict. Maybe that was the source of his "real psychology." I certainly wouldn't want a drug addict to take my fragile ego and mess with it. Ok. Maybe it is not that "fragile", but it's still my ego.

Seriously, psychology is more an art than a science. I was in therapy for quite a while after my divorce. I hated the notion of me going into therapy, but the therapist was a pretty kewl guy.

It didn't take me long, though, to figure out that he was nothing more than a shoulder to cry on and someone who would let me whine and rant for hours on end. I finally concluded that (at least in my experience) psychology was nothing more than "having a best friend you can talk with, can vent with and who will never judge you. He was merely a "best friend" that most people never really have in life. Now, THAT is a tragedy. My melodrama was no tragedy because of that epiphany I had during that time.

I assert without any evidence whatsoever that a genuine best friend is the best therapy for those with minor neuroses and short-term setbacks. Best of all, best friends don't charge $300 per hour!

For seriously fucked-up people, well that is a different matter. Perhaps more prayer to an imaginery friend, regular meeting attendance, studying "Bible Based" literature and field service is just the ticket!

Farkel

mindseye

Thanks for the response, Farkel. Most psychologists would probably say that their profession has come a long way since Freud. With cognitive psychology, the biological underpinnings of neuroscience play a much bigger part. Still, I still think the old guys like Freud, Jung, and Maslow give many good insights that resonate on an intuitive level. That Freud was into coke and Jung talked to spirits never bothered me much - their neurotic experiences probably informed their psychology more than anything else.

Whether psychology 'works' depends on the person and the psychologist. Some people I know have had some major breakthroughs with therapy. Others not so much. I agree with you that sometimes the psychologist just serves as the 'shoulder to cry on'. Maybe this is not such a bad thing. Friends can serve a similar function, but they're usually too emotionally involved to offer any unbiased assessment of a situation.

frankiespeakin

Mystical Experience using Psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms) a paper found at the US National Library of Medicine:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050654/?tool=pmcentrez

panhandlegirl

I wonder if someone reaches 'self-actualization'... do they even think of it in such terms? My guess is not. They just... are who they are.

tec, I think you are right about these people not thinking they are "self-actualized," but I think they would have a feeling of being complete and being comfortable in their own skin and confident in themselves; maybe someone like Nelson Mandela, who did so much to help his people even though it meant years of prison for himself.

frankiespeakin

Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences, By A H Maslow:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/maslow.htm

Part of one chapter:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/maslow5.htm

Abraham H. Maslow

Chapter V. Hope, Skepticism, and Man's Higher Nature

The point of view that is rapidly developing now—that the highest spiritual values appear to have naturalistic sanctions and that supernatural sanctions for these values are, therefore, not necessary—raises some questions which have not been raised before in quite this form. For instance, why were supernatural sanctions for goodness, altruism, virtue, and love necessary in the first place?
Of course the question of the origins of religions as sanctions for ethics is terribly complex, and I certainly don't intend to be casual about it here. However, I can contribute one additional point which we can see more clearly today than ever before, namely that one important characteristic of the new "third" psychology is its demonstration of man's "higher nature." As we look back through the religious conceptions of human nature—and indeed we need not look back so very far because the same doctrine can be found in Freud—it becomes crystal clear that any doctrine of the innate depravity of man or any maligning of his animal nature very easily leads to some extra-human interpretation of goodness, saintliness, virtue, self-sacrifice, altruism, etc. If they can't be explained from within human nature—and explained they must be—then they must be explained from outside of human nature. The worse man is, the poorer a thing he is conceived to be, the more necessary becomes a god. It can also be understood more clearly now that one source of the decay of belief in supernatural sanctions has been increasing faith in the higher possibilities of human nature (on the basis of new knowledge). [1] Explanation from the natural is more parsimonious and therefore more satisfying to educated people than is explanation from the supernatural. The latter is therefore apt to be an inverse function of the former.

panhandlegirl

frankiespeakin, are you taking a class, reading, or just sharing this information with us? Just curious.

PHG

tec

tec, I think you are right about these people not thinking they are "self-actualized," but I think they would have a feeling of being complete and being comfortable in their own skin and confident in themselves; maybe someone like Nelson Mandela, who did so much to help his people even though it meant years of prison for himself.

I think so also.

Peace,

tammy

doofdaddy

I like K Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration

Self-Actualization

Abraham H. Maslow

Chapter V. Hope, Skepticism, and Man's Higher Nature

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