Self-Actualization
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Self-Actualization
Self-actualization is the psychological and emotional process of actualizing your Real Self.[1]
Notes
The term "self-actualization" was coined by Abraham Maslow to refer to a dynamic process, active throughout life" and not a final end state.[2]
"Self-actualization is 'intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately of what is the organism itself.[3]
Daniels notes that there is a considerable amount of terminological inconsistency in Maslow's theorization. Maslow, he argues, "never achieved a final coherent theory of self-actualization.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag </ref>
In Maslow's words, self-actualization is "...the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him [sic] 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." [4]. As Maslow notes, the specific form of the needs varies from individual to individual. For some self-actualization entails working towards being the ideal mother, in others it is to be a perfection musician, and so on.
Self-actualization is the fifth of a set of Needs specified by Abraham Maslow in his Hierarchy of Needs.[5]
There are elements of Ascension in Maslow's definition. "Maslow was always committed to the view that self-actualization is the actualization of the 'self'"[6] Note Maslow's secular view: "the self was always defined in a particular way - as a largely biological, but partly self-constructed,real self."[7] "self-actualization was always viewed in terms of the actualization of the individual's biological core."[8]
"The self-actualizing people I talk about are very healthy people, psychiatrically and psychologically healthy people. They could be called a superior segment of the population. Thus I, and others, have been studying not the whole human species, in an ordinary statistical sense'), not the average of the species, but a select sample, i.e., the most creative or most talented or perhaps most intelligent that we could find." [9]
"BY definition, self-actualizing people are gratified in all their basic needs (of belongingness, affection, respect, and self-esteem). This is to say that they have a feeling of belongingness and rootedness, they are satisfied in their love needs, have friends and feel loved and loveworthy, they have status and place in life and respect from other people, and they have a reasonable feeling of worth and self-respect. If we phrase this negatively - in terms of the frustration of these basic needs and in terms of pathology - then this is to say that selfactualizing people do not (for any length of time) feel anxiety-ridden, insecure, unsafe, do not feel alone, ostracized, rootless, or isolated, do not feel unlovable, rejected, or unwanted, do not feel despised and looked down upon, and do not feel deeply unworthy, nor do they have crippling feelings of inferiority or worthlessness (Maslow, 1967, p. 93).
when basic needs met, move beyond self-actualization to metamotivation, meta needs (Maslow, 1967)
It is my strong impression that the closer to self-actualizing, to fullhumanness, etc., the person is, the more likely I am to find that his &dquo;work&dquo; is metamotivated rather than basic-need-motivated. For more highly evolved persons, &dquo;the law&dquo; is apt to be more a way of seeking justice, truth, goodness, etc., rather than financial security, admiration, status, prestige, dominance, masculinity, etc. When I ask the questions: which aspects of your work do you enjoy most ? What gives you your greatest pleasures? ~1’hen do you get a kick out of your work? etc., such people are more apt to answer in terms of intrinsic values, of transpersonal, beyond-the-selfish, altruistic satisfactions, e.g., seeing justice done, doing a more perfect (Maslow, 1967, p. 102).
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Footnotes
- ↑ Daniels, M. “The Development of the Concept of Self-Actualization in the Writings of Abraham Maslow.” Current Psychological Perspectives 2 (1982): 71.
- ↑ Maslow quoted in Daniels, M. “The Development of the Concept of Self-Actualization in the Writings of Abraham Maslow.” Current Psychological Perspectives 2 (1982): 66.
- ↑ Maslow. “The Expressive Component of Behavior.” Psychological Review 56, no. 5 (September 1949): 264. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0053630.
- ↑ Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 382.
- ↑ Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396.
- ↑ Daniels, M. “The Development of the Concept of Self-Actualization in the Writings of Abraham Maslow.” Current Psychological Perspectives 2 (1982): 71.
- ↑ Daniels, M. “The Development of the Concept of Self-Actualization in the Writings of Abraham Maslow.” Current Psychological Perspectives 2 (1982): 71.
- ↑ Daniels, M. “The Development of the Concept of Self-Actualization in the Writings of Abraham Maslow.” Current Psychological Perspectives 2 (1982): 71.
- ↑ Maslow, A. H. (1969). The farther reaches of human nature. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1(1), 5.