Toward a Psychology of Being

Do you, like many philosophers have over the years, believe in the concept of human nature? 

Abraham Maslow certainly did –⁠ but his vision of it was unique. Unlike other philosophies, his didn’t require recourse to some higher authority like God. It just required a deep understanding of human psychology. Maslow felt that people’s inner nature could be studied scientifically –⁠ discovered rather than just theorized about. 

Maslow believed each person has an inner nature that’s partially individual and partially shared with the rest of humankind. It’s not strong or overpowering, like animal instinct, and it’s intrinsically neutral or good, not evil. As a consequence, it should be encouraged to grow rather than suppressed. 

This instinctual drive is what Maslow called self-actualization.

The key message here is: Humans have an innate need to self-actualize. 

From Maslow’s perspective, people’s inner nature –⁠ their drive toward self-actualization –⁠ constantly pressures them to express it. People deeply desire to fulfill their greatest potential and talents. They want to realize their missions, fates, or vocations; they want to become more internally unified, integrated, and synergized. In short, they want to know who they are.

However, many people repeatedly deny their drive to self-actualize –⁠ and illness is often the result. Every time people deny their natures, Maslow believed, that denial gets recorded in their unconscious. If a person has a natural inclination to be an artist and he chooses to sell socks instead, that’s a denial of his nature – for which he’ll end up despising himself. Similarly, if someone is intelligent but repeatedly hides it so she doesn’t intimidate others, she’s denying her nature and will also come to despise herself. These repeated instances eventually result in pathologies or neuroses. 

Unfortunately, in Maslow’s time, psychology tended to be hyperfocused on those pathologies and neuroses. Its job was to cure people and make them “not sick” – not necessarily to make them healthy. 

It was under these conditions that Maslow set out to develop a new form of psychology –⁠ one that studied the traits, habits, and choices of healthy, self-actualizing people. He called this a psychology of Being, with a capital B. Nowadays, it’s more commonly referred to as positive psychology. 

Maslow believed that self-actualization was humanity’s shared destiny – something that each individual human and humanity as a whole could achieve. But, paradoxically, he also estimated that very few individuals do ultimately become self-actualized –⁠ just one in a hundred or even one in two hundred. The next blink will look at why.