Contents
The main question of practice is: how can one use the theory of self-actualization?
How to determine the direction of your growth and development
Does A. Maslow’s theory give clear clues on where to develop oneself?
A young man wants to develop himself and is in doubt: to develop his individuality or to work for the development of society? He revered Maslow, decided: okay, God bless him with society, we will develop ourselves, our individuality. Now, if you develop yourself, then, as far as the young man understands himself, he knows in himself the powerful talent of a digger, he feels the average talent of an artist in himself and sees the weak talent (but there are abilities) of an accountant. Money is paid in the reverse order: most of all to an accountant, least of all to a digger. Is it right for a young man to become a digger, to realize his calling? And the priests say that the highest human need is not in individual self-actualization at all, but in openness to the word of God and the acquisition of God’s grace. What to do? Where is the correct answer?
No, A. Maslow’s concept of self-actualization does not provide answers to such questions, and this is its weak side. At the same time, the strength of the theory of self-actualization is that although it does not give any clear clues, it makes you think about the need for growth and development.
Methods and technologies that promote self-actualization
Are there methods that allow you to grow or develop people in this direction? Are there techniques to help interested people move in this direction?
And the trouble is not that the answer will be: «No, there are no such methods.» The trouble is that the answer will be: «According to the ideas of humanistic psychology, of which A. Maslow was a representative, such methods cannot exist in principle.»
A. Maslow: “There can be only one best way to a good life for his patient: to be even more himself. Learning to release the repressed, to know one’s own Self, to listen to the «voice of impulse», to reveal one’s majestic nature, to achieve understanding, penetration, comprehend the truth — that’s what is required.
For the time, this was an appropriate answer. When brains were stamped on people, when human individuality was not respected, people were not listened to — this was relevant. Then it’s relevant. Today? Dear colleagues, would you be satisfied with such an answer in response to a request for a methodology? Today you will stop on such an answer?
I hope no. If we develop effective trainings that will make people want to become like A. Maslow described them, that will help them become like that, will teach them to be like that — I think that A. Maslow, if he were alive today, he would be with us.
A. Maslow’s concept of self-actualization as a feminine approach to growth and development
The humanistic approach in psychology is a feminine approach. Moms are always convinced that a child is golden at heart, that there is no need to rape him and force him with all these lessons, the main thing is that he is healthy, he will definitely grow up to be a wonderful person! In the theory of A. Maslow, there is no figure of the pope, who teaches the necessary, requires the necessary, pushes to the difficult. It can be said in another way: the figure of the pope is present only in a negative form, as something that presses, rapes and clogs, from which it is necessary to treat after. Actually, Maslow’s idea of assistance in personal growth is simple — you don’t need to teach anything, you just need to cure the client. You don’t need any technology or technique, you just need to warm and support. — The eternal opposition of male and female approaches.
Was there a similar confrontation between the male and female approach in Russia? — It was, A.S. wrote about this with pain. Makarenko:
“At the heights of the pedagogical Olympus, any pedagogical technique in the field of education itself was considered heresy. In «heaven» the child was seen as a creature filled with a special composition of gas, the name of which did not even have time to come up with. However, it was still the same old-fashioned soul, over which the apostles practiced. It was assumed (working hypothesis) that this gas has the ability to self-develop, it is not only necessary to interfere with it. Many books were written about this, but they all repeated, in essence, the sayings of Rousseau: “Treat childhood with reverence …”, “Be afraid to interfere with nature …”
The main tenet of this dogma was that in conditions of such reverence and consideration for nature, a communist personality must necessarily grow out of the above gas. In fact, in conditions of pure nature, only that which could naturally grow, that is, ordinary field weeds, grew up … ”- stated A.S. Makarenko.
You can see more and more about this in the article “The Limits of Humanistic Psychology and the Requirements of Realistic Psychology”