Category » Applied Philosophy & Psychology
Last week we ended with this quote: Self-actualizing people are, without one single exception, involved in a cause outside their own skin, in something outside of themselves. They are devoted, working at something, something which is very precious to them—some calling or vocation in the old sense. They are working at something which fate [or […]
Here’s a concise definition of purpose: “1. The object toward which one strives or for which something exists; goal; aim” (Morris, 1975, p. 1062). Many wise people have said that an essential component of a well lived life is purpose. Abraham Maslow was one of those wise people. This blog looks at some of what […]
There was an optimism in the baby-boom era that I still miss in this time of hear-no-truth, speak-no-truth. Maslow’s comment on love, which is our middle stage of growth, captures that sense: “We must understand love; we must be able to teach it, to create it, to predict it, or else the world is lost […]
This entry continues the strand begun in the last five blogs on Maslow. We move from general- and security-based needs to growth needs. Per Figure 1, that means we’re at the base of the sail and out of the hull. Figure 1: Kaufman’s revised Maslovian needs. (Image: Andy Ogden in Harper, 2020). Part of Kaufman’s […]
We’ll begin this blog with some quotes on today’s theme: Maslovian self-esteem as the final security need required to foster growth, as revised by Kaufmann (2020). “All people in our society (with a few pathological exceptions) have a need or desire for a stable, firmly based, (usually) high evaluation of themselves, for self-respect, or self-esteem, […]
One of the many rewards of reading Kaufman’s (2020) take on Maslow was the biographical sketches such as that of Maslow working as a grad student with Harry Harlow. The chapter on connection, middle band in the boat’s hull, Fig. 1, below, discusses the concern both men had with their contemporary psychologists’ ignorance of love […]
Looking at the little sailboat, below, Figure 1, the next few blogs with go through all the parts of the hull and then the sail, working skyward. This week we’re deep in the water looking at the revised safety needs Kaufman (2020) wrote about. Two years ago, I wrote about Maslow’s most fundamental needs based […]
Last week we began a revised understanding of Maslow’s work, particularly as that work affects our perception of his hierarchy of needs—which turned out to be not as hierarchical as initially thought. A paragraph, right near the beginning of Kaufman (2020, p. 10) lays out important assumptions about being human and the flux that involves: […]
I just read a line from one of my favourite fiction writers, Irwin Shaw. In The Young Lions (1949), one of the protagonists, Noah, is thinking about how he met the woman he loves, marries, and has a child with. “Accident, the only law of life.” It is a position with a great deal of […]
This blog is the result of requests from a few participants of the SMART Recovery group for addictive behaviours. Late last year, people began questioning the reality of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and it’s cousin, Attention Deficit Disorder. As a psych student, and as a training RP (registered psychotherapist), I have too little expertise in […]