SELF ACTUALIZATION "Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the

organism is." Abraham Maslow Maslow studied healthy people, most psychologists study sick people. The characteristics listed here are the results of 20 years of study of people who had the "full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities, etc.." Self-actualization implies the attainment of the basic needs of physiological, safety/security, love/belongingness, and self-esteem. Maslow's Basic Principles: 1. The normal personality is characterized by unity, integration, consistency, and coherence. Organization is the natural state, and disorganization is pathological. 2. The organism can be analyzed by differentiating its parts, but no part can be studied in isolation. The whole functions according to laws that cannot be found in the parts. 3. The organism has one sovereign drive, that of self-actualization. People strive continuously to realize their inherent potential by whatever avenues are open to them. 4. The influence of the external environment on normal development is minimal. The organism's potential, if allowed to unfold by an appropriate environment, will produce a healthy, integrated personality. 5. The comprehensive study of one person is more useful than the extensive investigation, in many people, of an isolated psychological function. 6. The salvation of the human being is not to be found in either behaviorism or in psychoanalysis, (which deals with only the darker, meaner half of the individual). We must deal with the questions of value, individuality, consciousness, purpose, ethics and the higher reaches of human nature. 7. Man is basically good not evil. 8. Psychopathology generally results from the denial, frustration or twisting of our essential nature. 9. Therapy of any sort, is a means of restoring a person to the path of self-actualization and development along the lines dictated by their inner nature. 10. When the four basic needs have been satisfied, the growth need or self-actualization need arises: A new discontent and restlessness will develop unless the individual is doing what he individually is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write--in short, what people can be they must be. Characteristics of Self Actualizing People Realistic Realistically oriented, SA persons have a more efficient perception of reality, they have comfortable relations with it. This is extended to all areas of life. SA persons are unthreatened, unfrightened by the unknown. they have a superior ability to reason, to see the truth. They are logical and efficient. Acceptance Accept themselves, others and the natural world the way they are. Sees human nature as is, have a lack of crippling guilt or shame, enjoy themselves without regret or apology, they have no unnecessary inhibitions. Spontaneity, Simplicity, Naturalness

Spontaneous in their inner life, thoughts and impulses, they are unhampered by convention. Their ethics is autonomous, they are individuals, and are motivated to continual growth. Problem Centering Focus on problems outside themselves, other centered. They have a mission in life requiring much energy, their mission is their reason for existence. They are serene, characterized by a lack of worry, and are devoted to duty. Detachment: The Need for Privacy Alone but not lonely, unflappable, retain dignity amid confusion and personal misfortunes, objective. They are self starters, responsible for themselves, own their behavior. Autonomy: Independent of Culture and Environment SA's rely on inner self for satisfaction. Stable in the face of hard knocks, they are self contained, independent from love and respect. Continued Freshness of Appreciation Have a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and things. Appreciation of the basic good in life, moment to moment living is thrilling, transcending and spiritual. They live the present moment to the fullest. Peak experiences "Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstacy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences." Abraham Maslow Maslow asked his subjects to think of the most wonderful experience or experiences of their lives--the happiest moments, extatic moments, moments of rapture, perhaps from being in live, or from listening to music or suddenly "being hit" by a book or a painting or from some great creative moment. He found that people undergoing peak experiences felt more integrated, more at one with the world, more in command of their own lives, more spontaneous, less aware of space and time, more perceptive, more self determined, more playful. Effects of peak experiences: y y y y y y y The removal of neurotic symptoms A tendency to view oneself in a more healthy way Change in one's view of other people and of one's relations with them Change in one's view of the world The release of creativity, spontaneity and expressiveness A tendency to remember the experience and to try to duplicate it A tendency to view life in general as more worthwhile.

Gemeinschaftsgefuhl

Identification, sympathy, and affection for mankind, kinship with the good, the bad and the ugly, olderbrother attitude. Truth is clear to him, can see things others cannot see. Interpersonal relations Profound, intimate relationships with few. Capable of greater love than others consider possible. Benevolence, affection and friendliness shown to everyone. Democratic values and attitudes Able to learn from anyone, humble. Friendly with anyone regardless of class, education, political belief, race or color. Discrimination: means and ends, Good and Evil Do not confuse between means and ends. They do no do wrong. Enjoy the here and now, getting to goal-not just the result. They make the most tedious task an enjoyable game. They have their own inner moral standards (appearing amoral to others). Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor Jokes are teaching metaphors, intrinsic to the situation, spontaneous, can laugh at themselves, never make jokes that hurt others. Creativity Inborn uniqueness that carries over into everything they do, see the real and true more easily, original, inventive and less inhibited. Resistance to enculturation: Transcendence of any particular culture Inner detachment from culture, folkways are used but of no consequence, calm long term culture improvement, indignation with injustice, inner autonomy and outer acceptance. Transcend the environment rather than just cope. Imperfections Painfully aware of own imperfections, joyfully aware of own growth process. Impatient with self when stuck, real life pain, not imagined. Values Philosophical acceptance of the nature of his self, human nature, social life, nature, physical reality, remains realistically human. Resolution of dichotomies Polar opposites merge into a third, higher phenomenon, as though the two have united, work becomes play, most childlike person is most wise, opposite forces no longer felt as a conflict. Desires are in excellent accord with reason.

Maslow says there are two processes necessary for self-actualization: self exploration and action. The deeper the self exploration, the closer one comes to self-actualization. EIGHT WAYS TO SELF ACTUALIZE 1. Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you. 2. Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day. 3. Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel. 4. When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing. 5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular. 6. Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be. 7. Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not. 8. Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don't like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses--and then finding the courage to give them up. SELF ACTUALIZATION Maslow (1954), believed that man has a natural drive to healthiness, or self actualization. He believed that man has basic, (biological and psychological) needs that have to be fulfilled in order to be free enough to feel the desire for the higher levels of realization. He also believed that the organism has the natural, unconscious and innate capacity to seek its needs. (Maslow 1968) In other words, man has an internal, natural, drive to become the best possible person he can be. "...he has within him a pressure toward unity of personality, toward spontaneous expressiveness, toward full individuality and identity, toward seeing the truth rather than being blind, toward being creative, toward being good, and a lot else. That is, the human being is so constructed that he presses toward what most people would call good values, toward serenity, kindness, courage, honesty, love, unselfishness, and goodness." (Maslow, 1968, p. 155.) Maslow believed that not only does the organism know what it needs to eat to maintain itself healthy, but also man knows intuitively what he needs to become the best possible, mentally healthy and happy "being". I use the word "being" because Maslow goes far beyond what the average person considers good physical and mental health. He talked about higher consciousness, esthetic and peak experiences, and Being. He stressed the importance of moral and ethical behavior that will lead man naturally to discovering, becoming himself. "The state of being without a system of values is psychopathogenic, we are learning. The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense he needs sunlight, calcium or love. This I have called the "cognitive need to understand." The value- illnesses which result from valuelessness are called variously anhedonia, anomie, apathy, amorality, hopelessness, cynicism, etc., and can become somatic illness as well. Historically, we are in a value interregnum in which all externally given value systems have proven failures (political, economic, religious, etc.) e.g., nothing is worth dying for. What man needs but doesn't have, he seeks for unceasingly, and he becomes dangerously ready to jump at any hope, good or bad. The cure for this disease is obvious. We need a validated, usable system of human values that we can believe in and devote ourselves to (be willing to die for), because they are true rather than because we are exhorted to "believe and have faith." Such an empirically based Weltanschauung seems now to be a real possibility, at least in theoretical outline."(Maslow, 1968, p. 206.)

Morality then is natural. If we use our capacity to think, are honest, sincere and open, we arrive at moral and ethical behavior naturally. The problem is to not destroy our ability to become ourselves. "Pure spontaneity consists of free, uninhibited uncontrolled, trusting, unpremeditated expression of the self, i.e., of the psychic forces, with minimal interference by consciousness. Control, will, caution, selfcriticism, measure, deliberateness are the brakes upon this expression made intrinsically necessary by the laws of the social and natural world, and secondarily, made necessary by the fear of the psyche itself." (1968, p. 197.) To me, this means listening to the inner self, the unconscious, the spirit. "This ability of healthier people to dip into the unconscious and preconscious, to use and value their primary processes instead of fearing them, to accept their impulses instead of always controlling them, to be able to regress voluntarily without fear, turns out to be one of the main conditions of creativity." "This development toward the concept of a healthy unconscious and of a healthy irrationality, sharpens our awareness of the limitations of purely abstract thinking, of verbal thinking and of analytic thinking. If our hope is to describe the world fully, a place is necessary for preverbal, ineffable, metaphorical, primary process, concrete-experience, intuitive and esthetic types of cognition, for there are certain aspects of reality which can be cognized in no other way." (p. 208) Meditation, self-hypnosis, imagery and the like are sources of discovering our inner being. To become self-actualized, Maslow said we need two things, inner exploration and action. "An important existential problem is posed by the fact that self-actualizing persons (and all people in their peak- experiences) occasionally live out-of-time and out-of-the- world (atemporal and aspatial) even though mostly they must live in the outer world. Living in the inner psychic world (which is ruled by psychic laws and not by the laws of outer-reality), i.e., the world of experience, of emotion, of wishes and fears and hopes, of love of poetry, art and fantasy, is different from living in and adapting to the nonpsychic reality which runs by laws he never made and which are not essential to his nature even though he has to live by them. (He could, after all, live in other kinds of worlds, as any science fiction fan knows.) The person who is not afraid of this inner, psychic world, can enjoy it to such an extent that it may be called Heaven by contrast with the more effortful, fatiguing, externally responsible world of "reality," of striving and coping, of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood. This is true even though the healthier person can also adapt more easily and enjoyably to the "real" world, and has better "reality testing," i.e., doesn't confuse it with his inner psychic world." (p. 213) Maslow has made a case for natural, human goodness. Man is basically good, not evil, he has the capacity to be an efficient, healthy and happy person. But he must nurture the capacity with awareness, honesty, introspection and maintain his freedom: to freely respond to internal and external events (values), to be himself at all costs. The knowledge that man has this capacity motivates him to realize it. It also obliges him to actively work toward self realization. We cannot not respond to the call that a value makes on us. This whole discussion shows the importance of studying Values and Ethics. We are obliged to discover the range of our possible moral behavior. If we are capable of being healthy and happy, then we are obliged to work toward that goal.

Abraham Maslow one of the founders of humanistic psychology and is often best recognized for developing the theory of human motivation now known as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. A psychologist, Maslow noted that some human needs were more powerful than others. He divided those needs into five general categories, from most urgent to most advanced: physiological, safety, belonging/love, esteem, and self-actualization.

Abraham Maslow Abraham Harold Maslow was born April 1, 1908 in Brooklyn, New York. He was the first of seven children born to his parents, who themselves were uneducated Jewish immigrants from Russia (adapted from theWebspace.ship.edu website. His parents, hoping for the best for their children in the new world, pushed him hard for academic success. Not surprisingly, he became very lonely as a boy, and found his refuge in books. To satisfy his parents, he first studied law at the City College of New York (CCNY). After three semesters, he transferred to Cornell, and then back to CCNY. He married Bertha Goodman, his first cousin, against his parents wishes. Abe and Bertha went on to have two daughters. He and Bertha moved to Wisconsin so that he could attend the University of Wisconsin. Here, he became interested in psychology, and his school work began to improve dramatically. He spent time there working with Harry Harlow, who is famous for his experiments with baby rhesus monkeys and attachment behavior. He received his BA in 1930, his MA in 1931, and his PhD in 1934, all in psychology, all from the University of Wisconsin. A year after graduation, he returned to New York to work with E. L. Thorndike at Columbia, where Maslow became interested in research on human sexuality. He began teaching full time at Brooklyn College. During this period of his life, he came into contact with the many European intellectuals that were immigrating to the US, and Brooklyn in particular, at that time - people like Adler, Fromm, Horney, as well as several Gestalt and Freudian psychologists. Maslow served as the chair of the psychology department at Brandeis from 1951 to 1969. While there he met Kurt Goldstein, who had originated the idea of self-actualization in his famous book, The Organism (1934). It was also here that he began his crusade for a humanistic psychology -- something ultimately much more important to him than his own theorizing. He spent his final years in semi-retirement in California, until, on June 8 1970, he died of a heart attack after years of ill health.

Wikipedia: Abraham Maslow The following has been adapted from the Wikipedia: Abraham Maslow website. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a theory in psychology that Abraham Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended to include his observations of man's innate curiosity. His theory contends that as humans meet 'basic needs', they seek to satisfy successively 'higher needs' that occupy a set hierarchy. Maslow studied exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy." Maslow's hierarchy of needs can be represented as a pyramid with the more primitive needs at the bottom. The four lower levels are grouped together as deficiency needs associated with physiological needs, while the top level is termed growth needs associated with psychological needs. While deficiency needs must be met, growth needs are continually shaping behavior. The basic concept is that the higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus once all the needs that are lower down in the pyramid are mainly or entirely satisfied. Growth forces create upward movement in the hierarchy, whereas regressive

forces push prepotent needs further down the hierarchy. The physiological needs of the organism, those enabling homeostasis, take first precedence. These consist mainly of: the need to breathe the need to drink water the need to regulate homeostasis the need to eat the need to dispose of bodily wastes If some needs are not fulfilled, a human's physiological needs take the highest priority. Physiological needs can control thoughts and behaviors, and can cause people to feel sickness, pain, and discomfort. Maslow also places sexual activity in this category as bodily comfort, activity, exercise, etc. While several of these activities are important, many are not essential to survive. Safety needs When physiological needs are met, the need for safety will emerge. Safety and security rank above all other desires. These include: Physical security - safety from violence, delinquency, aggressions Security of employment Security of revenues and resources Moral and physiological security Family security Security of health Security of personal property against crime Sometimes the desire for safety outweighs the requirement to satisfy physiological needs completely.

Love/Belonging needs After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs is social. This involves emotionally-based relationships in general, such as: friendship sexual intimacy having a supportive and communicative family Humans generally need to feel belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group (clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs) or small social connections (family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants). They need to love and be loved (sexually and non-sexually) by others. In the absence of these elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and depression. This need for belonging can often overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure. i.e. an anorexic ignores the need to eat and the security of health for a feeling of belonging. Esteem needs According to Maslow, all humans have a need to be respected, to have self-respect, and to respect others. People need to engage themselves in order to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution and self-value, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at

this level can result in low self-esteem, inferiority complexes, an inflated sense of self-importance or snobbishness. There are two levels to Esteem needs. The lower of the levels relates to elements like fame, respect, and glory. The higher level is contingent to concepts like confidence, competence, and achievement. The lower level is generally considered poor. It is dependent upon other people, or someone who needs to be reassured because of lower esteem. People with low esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again are dependent on others. However confidence, competence and achievement only need one person and everyone else is inconsequential to one's own success. (Steven Covey has written extensively on this subject.) Cognitive needs Maslow believed that humans had the need to increase their intelligence and thereby chase knowledge. Cognitive needs is the expression of the natural human need to learn, explore, discover, create, and perhaps even dissect in order to get a better understanding of the world around them. Aesthetic needs Based on Maslow's beliefs, it is stated in the hierarchy that humans need beautiful imagery or something new and aesthetically pleasing in order to continue up towards Self-Actualization. Humans need to refresh themselves in the presence and beauty of nature while carefully absorbing and observing their surroundings to extract the beauty that the world has to offer. Growth needs Though the deficiency needs may be seen as "basic", and can be met and neutralized (i.e. they stop being motivators in one's life), self-actualization and transcendence are "being" or "growth needs" (also termed "B-needs"), i.e. they are enduring motivations or drivers of behavior. Self-actualization Self-actualization is the instinctual need of humans to make the most of their abilities and to strive to be the best they can. Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is. Maslow writes the following of self-actualizing people: They embrace the facts and realities of the world (including themselves) rather than denying or avoiding them. They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions. They are creative. They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others. Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives. They feel a closeness to other people, and generally appreciate life. They have a system of morality that is fully internalized and independent of external authority. They judge others without prejudice, in a way that can be termed objective. In short, self-actualization is reaching one's fullest potential. Self-transcendence At the top of the triangle, self-transcendence is also sometimes referred to as spiritual needs. Maslow believes that we should study and cultivate peak experiences as a way of providing a route to achieve personal growth, integration, and fulfillment. Peak experiences are unifying, and ego-

transcending, bringing a sense of purpose to the individual and a sense of integration. Individuals most likely to have peak experiences are self-actualized, mature, healthy, and self-fulfilled. All individuals are capable of peak experiences. Those who do not have them somehow depress or deny them. Maslow originally found the occurrence of peak experiences in individuals who were self-actualized, but later found that peak experiences happened to non-actualizers as well but not as often. In 1969, Abraham Maslow, Stanislav Grof and Anthony Sutich were the initiators behind the publication of the first issue of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology Counterpositions While Maslow's theory was regarded as an improvement over previous theories of personality and motivation, it has its detractors. For example, in their extensive review of research that is dependent on Maslow's theory, Wahba and Bridwell (1976) found little evidence for the ranking of needs that Maslow described, or even for the existence of a definite hierarchy at all. For example, less individualistic forms of society than described by Maslow in this theory, might value their social relationships (e.g. family, clan or group) higher than their own physiological needs. The concept of self-actualization is considered vague and psychobabble by some behaviorist psychologists. The concept is based on an Aristotelian notion of human nature that assumes we have an optimum role or purpose.[citation needed] Self actualization is a difficult construct for researchers to operationalize, and this in turn makes it difficult to test Maslow's theory. Even if self-actualization is a useful concept, there is no proof that every individual has this capacity or even the goal to achieve it. Transcendence has been discounted by secular psychologists because they feel it belongs to the domain of religious belief. But Maslow himself believed that science and religion were both too narrowly conceived, too dichotomized, and too separated from each other. Non-peakers, as he would call them, characteristically think in logical, rational terms and look down on extreme spirituality as "insanity" because it entails a loss of control and deviation from what is socially acceptable. They may even try to avoid such experiences because they are not materially productivethey "earn no money, bake no bread, and chop no wood". Other non-peakers have the problem of immaturity in spiritual matters, and hence tend to view holy rituals and events in their most crude, external form, not appreciating them for any underlying spiritual implications. Maslow despised such people because they form a sort of idolatry that hinders religions. This creates a divide in every religion and social institution. (Maslow. "The 'CoreReligious' or 'Transcendent,' Experience.") It is important to note, however, that Maslow considered himself to be an atheist--thus, by his conceptualization of transcendence, any individual can have such experiences.

Abraham Maslow

The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short. The modern era gave birth to a new field, the study of human behavior or

psychology. Engrossed in the study of pathology, mainstream.psychologists such as Freud and Skinner did not give as much thought to the sources of happiness as to the roots of unhappiness. One of the earliest psychologists to focus attention on happy individuals and their psychological trajectory was Abraham Maslow, who is most well known for his hierarchy of needs. Inspired by the work of the humanistic psychologist Erich Fromm, Maslow insists that the urge for self-actualization is deeply entrenched in the human psyche, but only surfaces once the more basic needs are fulfilled. Once the powerful needs for food, security, love and self-esteem are satisfied, a deep desire for creative expression and self-actualization rises to the surface. Through his hierarchy of needs, Maslow succeeds in combining the insights of earlier psychologists such as Freud and Skinner, who focus on the more basic human instincts, and the more upbeat work of Jung and Fromm, who insist that the desire for happiness is equally worthy of attention. Human life will never be understood unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence (and other ways of phrasing the striving upward) must by now be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal human tendency Abraham Maslow essentially made self-fulfillment and happiness a central part of his lifes work. In a break from the other experts of his time, he wanted to understand what motivated the great people of history and to understand human potential; he wanted to know what humans are capable of as their healthiest self.

MASLOW: A LITTLE BACKGROUND

Maslows studies in psychological health and happiness are rooted in a surprisingly sad and frustrated early life. His father was frequently absent physically as well as emotionally while he openly expressed hatred towards his mother, calling her schizophrenogenic (schizophreniainducing) ignorant and cruel (Hoffman 1999, p. 8-9). He was largely socially isolated as a Jew in a non-Jew community; and while he was later tested at an IQ level of 195, he found himself on academic probation during his freshman year of college, which he left only to go on to quit law school after a few weeks and Cornell University after one semester (Hoffman 1999, p. 28). But fortunately for us, a series of experiences redirected the course of Maslows life (Hoffman 1999, p. 137-139). He gained a sense of purpose, mission and a profound optimism that would color all of his theories and works.

MASLOW VERSUS TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGIES

Like Mencius, Maslows theories are essentially optimistic about human nature and human possibilities. His theories grew from his intuitive hunch that deep down human nature is good or neutral and not inherently bad or evil. Maslow thought Freudian psychologists placed too much emphasis on human weaknesses, obscuring a deeper understanding of psychological health. This would be, in some sense, throwing out the baby with the bath water. Maslow felt that the baby (in this case, human nature) shouldnt be so easily mistaken for the bathwater (the problem itself). Maslow felt that psychoanalysis and its emphasis on neuroses had its place. Yet he intended his

studies on happiness and health to complement those of the established schools of psychology. And so he turned his attention towards what he saw as the best and brightest in human history and society in order to determine human potential. From this happy point of departure, we move to highlight some of the many contributions Maslow brings to the pursuit of happiness:

HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
The more we learn about mans natural tendencies, the easier it will be to tell him how to be good, how to be happy, how to be fruitful, how to respect himself, how to love, how to fulfill his highest potentialities The thing to do seems to be to find out what one is really like inside; deep down, as a member of the human species and as a particular individual (Maslow 1987, p. 6).

One of Maslows lasting and most significant contributions to psychology is what he calls the hierarchy of needs. In his quest to understand human motivation and the pursuit of happiness, he formulated a list of basic human needs that had to be fulfilled for maximum psychological health. Through his interviews and studies, he came to categorize a hierarchical list of needs that need be fulfilled for increasing life satisfaction:
Physiological Needs

The Physiological Needs such as breathing, food, drink, sleep, sex, excretion are largely (and obviously) biological and physical requirements. When they are not fulfilled, people become preoccupied with filling those needs above all else. For example, starving people in a war zone can be oblivious to danger when in search of food (Maslow 1987, p. 15-17).
Safety needs

Once the basic needs are fulfilled, other needs invariably arise (Maslow 1987, p. 17-18). In Maslows hierarchy, the safety needs come after the physiological needs. Maslow used the word safety to mean more than just physical safety. Economic, social, vocational, psychological security all fall underneath this second tier of human needs. While safety needs are less immediate or demanding than the physiological needs, when one loses ones job, family, home, life savings, health insurance, etc, one is likely to feel terribly insecure and unprotected. Fulfilling the safety needs might be likened to providing a bumper or airbags on a car; while you dont always need them, having them gives you

some confidence that you can face minor bumps and bruises along the road of life (Maslow 1987, p. 18-20).
Belongingness and love needs

As social beings, family, friendships and intimate connections get many people through the ups and downs of life. Numerous studies have shown that the healthiest, happiest people tend to be more involved in their communities. While there is debate on whether one causes the other is unclear, there is some sense that having wider social connections and relationships are an important part of being happy. Lack of interactions, human relationships and the sense of belonging may result in depression or loneliness while an abundance of love and community often sustain people through difficult times (Maslow 1987, p. 20-21).
Esteem needs

Maslow felt there was a clear distinction between love and respect or esteem. He felt that an ability to feel self-esteem and personal uniqueness sprung from being loved and embraced by families and communities. As individuals, we naturally wish to excel or be exceptional, to be noticed for our unique talents and capabilities. Once one has some measure of self-esteem and confidence, one gains the psychological freedom to be creative and to grow as well as to be more generous to others (Maslow 1987, p. 21-22).

SELF-ACTUALIZATION
What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualizationIt refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him 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. The top pier of Maslows hierarchy is dubbed self-actualization. Maslow studied happy people in order to determine what it was that made them happy or, self-actualized (Maslow 1987, p. 22). Self-actualizing people enjoy life in general and practically all its aspects, while most other people enjoy only stray moments of triumph (Maslow 1999, p. 37) Maslow refers to peak experiences as the experience of happiness. He notes above that selfactualized people tend to experience a steadier, grounded sense of well-being and satisfaction with life. According to Maslow, self-actualizing people perceive reality accurately; they have a sense of awe, wonder and gratitude about life. They are not self-centered but rather problem-centered and focus on how to improve and are not deficiency-centered. They are independent thinkers and are not overly influenced by the general culture. Their sense of humor is not sarcastic or hurtful but rather life-affirming with a philosophical sense of humor. They have a deeply felt sense of kinship with the human race.

GROWTH MOTIVATIONS AND DEFICIENCY MOTIVATIONS

Growth takes place when the next step forward is subjectively more delightful, more joyous, more intrinsically satisfying than the previous gratification which we have become familiar and even bored (Maslow 1999, p. 53). In his hierarchy of needs, Maslow called the bottom four levels deficiency needs. He claims that the lower needs, such as the need for food, safety, love and esteem are needs that humans cannot do without. A deficiency in any of these interferes with ones psychological health and so one might react defensively, or at times, irrationally, from a place of weakness rather than strength. And so, consciously or unconsciously, one works to fill these needs literally or symbolically. But it is important to note that Maslow viewed these as needs and necessities. On the other hand, healthy people who have fulfilled these lower needs are able to act based on the desire to grow rather than being motivated by deficiencies. Simply put, their deficiencies do not determine their actions and instead, they are motivated by growth and fulfillment! It is from a position of psychological well-being that one is able to pursue what Maslow perceived as the universal human tendency to strive for growth, autonomy, identity and the excellence of self-actualization (Maslow 1987, p. 117-118).

A FEW NOTES ABOUT THE HIERARCHY

Maslow used the term hierarchy because, like a pyramid, the higher levels of needs rest upon the foundation of the lower level needs. Though pyramid shapes are frequently used to visually represent Maslows hierarchy of needs it may be more accurate to think of the needs as sitting not firmly atop the lower level of needs but nested inside the previous level. This suggests a much more organic, integrated relationship between each of the different stages. It is important to note that Maslow saw the hierarchy as a general description of a persons general needs. He points out that the levels are not fixed and that each need does not necessarily need to be fulfilled 100% in order for one to move on to the next level or for someone to feel the pull from the next level of needs. We can be struggling to fulfill our basic physical needs (food, drink, sleep, etc) but still feel a need to pursue stability in our homes and receive love and esteem within our communities. For some, love needs may come after esteem needs, but both are necessary in different ways and degrees (Maslow 1987, p. 57-59).

PEAK EXPERIENCES
Maslow described peak experience as a tremendous intensification of any of the experiences in which there is loss of self or transcendence of [self]. It is a rapturous emotional experience and similar to what religious people might call an ecstatic mystical experience where the divisions cease to exist (for example, the division between the head and the heart). Maslow found these peak experiences to be rare and difficult to describe. Their most important contribution is their ability to promote growth and cause one to change in a profound way (Maslow 1987, p. 138). Maslow notes that feelings of intense happiness associated with peak experiences would always be fleeting. In fact, he discouraged people from expecting peak experiences to be anything other than temporary. He seemed to feel that it was only when people accepted this that they were free to settle

into personal well-being and happiness. He found that not all self-actualizing people had peak experiences, but noted a higher degree of satisfaction for those who did experience them versus those who did not (Maslow 1987, p. xxii).

MENTAL ILLNESS
Maslow viewed psychological illnesses as a fallings away from full humanness, from the blooming of human nature and not as a physical or strictly biological affliction. He suggested, for instance, that neuroses were: related to spiritual disorders, to loss of meaning, to doubts about the goals of life, to grief and anger over a lost love, to seeing life in a different way, to loss of courage or of hope, to despair over the future, to dislike for oneself, to recognition that ones life is being wasted, or that there is no possibility of joy or love, etc. Though he acknowledged the possibility that psychological disorders may have some physical or biological factors, Maslow saw social, educational, political, familial, etc. factors as playing a far greater role. This view allows Maslow to be optimistic about reversing pathologies and neuroses. In fact, he sees neuroses as preferable to apathy because unlike those who have given up hope, the neurotic person manifests a timid, ineffectual striving towards full humanness. He is especially hopeful about being able to restore children back to psychological health by applying his principles of the hierarchy of needs. Simply put, if a child is lacking love, he/she should surrounded by love. If another is lacking self-confidence, he/she should be shown respect, etc. The point is, for Maslow, psychological illness does not have to happen and if it does, there are ways to reverse its effects or, at the very least, to improve the situation.