Abraham Maslow frequently asked his psychology students:
“Who among you will write a great novel, or become a great leader or composer? He went on to describe how is students reacted. "Generally everybody starts giggling, blushing, and squirming until I ask: 'If not you, then who else?' If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You will be evading your own capacities, your own possibilities.” --From his book: The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
Maslow was the first president of the American Psychological Association. At the time his profession was exclusively dedicated to the study of pathological conditions like Huntington's Disease or Alzeheimers. But if psychologists only looked at what goes wrong in the human brain, how will we come to know of the upper reaches of the human nature?
His new ideas on how to understand the fullness of the human mind grew into a new discipline now known as Humanistic Psychology His groundbreaking studies looked at self actulization, the motive to realize one's full potential, to become what one is fully capable of becoming.
Self-actualization, achieving one's full potential, is at he upper reaches of his hierarchy.
Which leads us to the purpose of this web site. Here we will continue the groundbreaking work of Abraham Maslow by studying and interviewing highly self actualized people, both professionally and personally, throughout the world. Think of the most wonderful people you know, those accomplished in both realms. Let's take notes about them and their behavior and what these point to in the world of human potential.
To our readers:
"All life is education and everybody is a teacher and everybody is forever a pupil." --Abraham Maslow
So now, I hope to continue that tradition with you. Though you are reading this little book, learning some of what I have learned, I too hope to learn from you. Keep in touch. --Toby Manzanares
[][][][][] Case Studies.
Let's start with a friend I first met in September of 2015. Though he passed away in 2018, his short time with me illustrates the Farthest Reaches of what we humans are capable. I had to go all the way to Niimi, Okayama Japan to find him, and I'd do it again in a New York heartbeat.
Take a look at the short documentary: My Friend Yuji.
Yuji's kindness was the first indication of his self-actualized character, but now that I look back I wonder if that common character I've observed over my 9 trips to Japan... I wonder if self-actualization is what sets the Japanese culture apart from the euro-centric way of living? I'll continue the study of self-actualization as part of my next trip to Japan.
Let's make a list of people who are living a life of Self-actualization and Peak Experiences, how is it that they are so neurologically unique?
I'm sure you know someone like this, someone who has reached their full potential. We’d love to include them. Send your nomination to: 1tobymanzanares@gmail.com
An old man going a lone highway Came at the evening, cold and gray, To a chasm, vast, and deep and wide, Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim; The sullen stream had no fear for him; But he turned, when safe on the other side, And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near, "You are wasting strength with building here; Your journey will end with the ending day; You never again will pass this way; You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide- Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head: "Good friend, in the path I have come," he said, "There followeth after me today, A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me, To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be. He, too, must cross in the twilight dim; Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."
Photo credit: Muza-chan.net
The Shinkyo (神橋) Bridge from Nikko, crossing the Daiya river.
“An experience of perfection will produce a peak experience."
"The higher the level of psychological the greater the frequency of peak experiences. The higher they reach, the more intense, the more illuminated, the more cognitive they are... the more you learn from them."
While teaching at Brandeis near Boston he wrote in Motivation and Personality:
”The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side... It has revealed to us much about man's shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but little about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable aspirations or his psychological health. It is as if psychology had voluntarily restricted itself to only half its rightful jurisdiction.... We must find out what psychology... might be, if it could free itself from the stultifying effects of limited, pessimistic and stingy preoccupations with human nature." http://pws.cablespeed.com/~htstein/hoff2.htm
In 1938, at the behest of his friends Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, both anthropologists at Columbia University, Maslow conducted field work among Canada's Blackfoot Indians. The experience convinced him that we can learn much from studying the daily lives of people in other cultures. It also convinced him that people around the world are far more alike than they are different, and that we all share certain inborn needs and drives. These conclusions began to guide his research on emotional security as a trait that has a profound impact on our social relations.
see Edward Hoffman, Ph.D., is a New York City psychologist and author of The Right to Be Human: A Biography of Abraham Maslow, recently published by Tarcher/St. Martin's Press.
Peak experiences, feelings of limitless horizons...
“And they were angels, my professors. I’ve always had angels around. They helped me when I needed it, even fed me. --maslow
Behaviourism and Psychoanalysis were then the predominant psychological models. Maslow would later, of course, help to give birth to the ‘Third Force’ – humanistic psychology. Whilst at Wisconsin, however, his doctorate focused on dominance and sexuality in monkeys.
Maslow also believed that human beings were living systems that strove towards fulfilling their potential. At this time, however, the world was in chaos and America joined World War II.
He was too old to join-up, but one incident set the direction for his future life. Abe told Edward Hoffman:
“I felt I must try to save the world, and to prevent the horrible wars and the awful hatred and prejudice. It happened very suddenly.
“One day just after Pearl Harbor, I was driving home and my car was stopped by a poor, pathetic parade. Boy Scouts and old uniforms and a flag and someone playing a flute off-key.
“As I watched, the tears began to run down my face. I felt we didn’t understand – not Hitler, nor the Germans, nor Stalin, nor the Communists.
“We didn’t understand any of them. I felt that if we could understand, then we could make progress.
“I had a vision of a peace table, with people sitting around it, talking about human nature and hatred, war and peace, and brotherhood.”
“I was too old to go into the army. It was at that moment I realized that the rest of my life must be devoted to discovering a psychology for the peace table. That moment changed my whole life.
“Since then, I’ve devoted myself to developing a theory of human nature that could be tested by experiment and research.
“I wanted to prove that humans are capable of something grander than war, prejudice, and hatred.
“I wanted to make science consider all the people: the best specimen of mankind I could find. I found that many of them reported having something like mystical experiences.”
People can explore the further reaches of human nature
Abe was fascinated by ‘self-actualisers’ who used their talents to help other people. (There are obviously – and unfortunately – some people who get their ‘highs’ by hurting others.)
Maslow studied people who, in the broadest sense, were committed to ‘doing good’.
These included, for example, Abraham Lincoln, Jane Adams and Eleanor Roosevelt. So how did such people achieve peak experiences? George Boeree outlines these in his excellent overview at:
Self-actualisers demonstrated some of the following characteristics
They followed their values. They were ‘real’ – being true to themselves rather than ‘fake’. They had a strong sense of autonomy and resisted pressure to conform.
They found solutions – treating life’s-problems as challenges to be solved. They frequently saw the ‘means’ – the journey – as being as important as the ‘ends’.
They enjoyed solitude and preferred to have deep relationships with a few people. They also had a positive sense of humour, rather than laughing at others misfortunes.
They accepted themselves and, within limits, other people. At the same time, they wanted to improve themselves if they saw the benefits.
They had a strong sense of respect towards others. Maslow called this quality ‘human kinship’.
They believed in certain values – and were prepared to ‘fight’ for them – but also appreciated and enjoyed differences in others. They were prepared to draw the line, however, if people did not show respect to others or certain values.
They had strong ethics. These were often ‘spiritual’ in nature, rather than ‘religious’.
They had the ability to be creative, imaginative and original. They had a sense of wonder – a ‘freshness of appreciation’ – which stretched to seeing the extraordinary in ordinary things.
They had more peak experiences than most people. Such experiences sometimes gave them a sense of transcendence.
George Boeree added:
“Maslow doesn’t think that self-actualizers are perfect, of course. There were several flaws or imperfections he discovered along the way as well:
“First, they often suffered considerable anxiety and guilt – but realistic anxiety and guilt, rather than misplaced or neurotic versions.
“Some of them were absentminded and overly kind. And finally, some of them had unexpected moments of ruthlessness, surgical coldness, and loss of humor.”
“Two other points he makes about these self-actualizers: Their values were ‘natural’ and seemed to flow effortlessly from their personalities.
“And they appeared to transcend many of the dichotomies others accept as being undeniable, such as the differences between the spiritual and the physical, the selfish and the unselfish, and the masculine and the feminine.”
Boeree explains that Maslow believed self-actualisers needed certain qualities in their lives to be happy. These included: truth, honesty, beauty, unity, aliveness, uniqueness, perfection, completion, justice, simplicity, playfulness, self-sufficiency and meaningfulness.
Boeree says that Maslow recognised that everybody might crave for these needs.
He points out, however, that if a person does not have enough to eat or has nowhere to live, those needs take precedence.
Self-actualisers were in the more fortunate position of being able to focus on their higher needs. They were able to explore the further reaches of human nature.
There are several books about Maslow. Edward Hoffman wrote a biography The Right To Be Human. Whilst Frank Goble wrote an excellent portrayal of Maslow’s influence called The Third Force.
Maslow's pioneering studies of women's sexuality preceded Alfred Kinsey's famous sexological studies by several years, and influenced Kinsey and others. "I thought that working on sex was the easiest way to help mankind," Maslow later recalled. "If I could discover a way to improve the sexual life by even 1 percent, then I could improve the whole species."
