Eupsychian Therapy

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Eupsychian Therapy

Eupsychian Therapy is therapy devoted to creating the Good Person and the Good Society (i.e., EupsychiaEupsychian therapy is needs-satisfying. It is organized around helping the client satisfy one or more of their unsatisfied Essential Needs.

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Eupsychia >

• Eupsychian Education
• Eupsychian Management
• Eupsychian Psychology
• Eupsychian Theory
• Eupsychian Therapy
• Humanistic Psychology
• Transpersonal Psychology

Notes

Needs Satisfying

Eupsychian Therapy is needs-satisfying. The needs-satisfying nature of Eupsychian Therapy is clearly expressed by Maslow, Rogers, and possibly other Humanistic and Transpersonal theorists.

For example, Maslow was very clear that satisfaction of essential needs was the prequisite to human health, well being, and the full actuation of individual and collective (i.e., human) potential. For him, self-actualized people (or more appropriately self-actualizing people) where those who basic needs (on the LP, Outer Needs) had "already been satisfied. ...those whose basic needs have been satisfied and who generally feel safe and secure rather than anxious in the world. In essence, they feel a sense of belonging, of being part of the human family and not outside of it. Their love and affective relationships are good. Deep down, they feel worthy of love and affection. They have friends and, if fortunate, someone to love intensely.Their self-esteem problems have been settled well enough so that they respect themselves. They are not drowned with inferiority feelings; they have a vital sense of self-worth....In virtually all of these cases, these individuals have a clear sense of mission about their lives, that is, a meaningful vocation or calling. "

Statements to this effect, statements which point with more or less clarity directly at unmet needs as the cause of neurosis and psychosis, are peppered throughout the humanistic and transpersonal corpus.

In the Farthest Reaches of Human Nature, Maslow speaks of the therapeutic importance of helping people recognize and recover "inner signals." On the LP we would say therapists have to help individuals meet their needs for both Alignment (with these "inner signals") and Connection to one's Real Self (in Maslow's terms).

In Chapter 14 of the book Future Visions entitled "Living in the World of Higher Values," Maslow gives therapeutic suggestions aimed at those individuals seeking to spend more time in what Maslow calls the Being-Realm.His thoughts here include suggestions primarily focused on meeting the Psychological Needs for meaning, purpose, connection, alignment, esteem, and so on. Very Important Note: Folks living in what Maslow called Being-Values did not "exude halos. They wore shirts, belts, and shoes like everyone else. They simply followed their path, which could be anything from being the "clan mother" or a healer (psychiatrist, psychologist, doctor, etc.) to a plumber or electrician using specialized skills to help others maintain their homes. People living in the being-realm where motivated by love and the desire to heal, help, and transform, and not by money. They were is living through what Maslow called "ultimate values."

Interestingly, Maslow points directly to what I call Deficit Mode. "It may be relevant to observe here that ordinary neurosis and even the value pathologies like delinquency may consequently be viewed as efforts toward the gratification of basic needs and metaneeds but under the conditions of anxiety, fear, and lack of courage."

Consequences of Thwarted Needs

For Maslow, thwarted needs led to mental illness. For example, in the following quote Maslow refers to thwarted needs for Alignment and Connection and how "recovering the self" is an essential prerequisite of healthy personality, suggesting that "most neuroses" and "many other disturbances" are characterized by Disconnection and Disjuncture .

Thinking in this way has had for me at least the one special advantage of directing my attention sharply to what I called at first "the impulse voices" but which had better be called more generally something like the "inner signals" (or cues or stimuli). I had not realized sufficiently that in most neuroses, and in many other disturbances as well, the inner signals become weak or even disappear entirely (as in the severely obsessional person) and/or are not "heard" or cannot be heard. At the extreme we have the experientially empty person, the zombie, the one with empty insides. Recovering the self must, as a sine qua non, include the recovery of the ability to have and to recognize these inner signals, to know what and whom one likes and dis­likes. what is enjoyable and what is not, when to eat and when not to, when to sleep, when to urinate, when to rest. The experientially empty person, lacking these directives from within, these voices of the real self, must turn to outer cues for guidance, for instance eating when the clock tells him to. rather than obeying his appetite (he has none). He guides himself by clocks. rules, calendars. schedules. agenda. and by hints and cues from other people."

Self-Revealing

Eupsychian therapy must help reveal the inner self, its nature and quality.

I have argued vigorously that effective counseling and psychotherapy are Taoistic and uncovering rather than involving mainly shaping, molding, or indoctrinating Of course, pure Taoism is impossible in principle. Yet effective counselors and therapists move far in this direction.They really respect the other person’s inner core and regard themselves asobstetricians, horticulturists, or midwives who simply help the person givebirth to himself or herself and help him or her grow, in his or her own style,toward self-fulfillment.

Maslow makes the fascinating observation that "positive human traits" like self-respect, security, safety, being lovable, loving someone else..." are strengthened and confirmed by revelation (what he calls "uncovering and insight.") and that "negative human trains like cruelty, sadism, or masochism are destroyed by successful Taoistic, uncovering..." Basically, evil can't exist in the light.

Judgmental and Choosy

For Maslow, Eupsychian Psychology made value statements. When it came to the questions of Human Nature and Human Potential, of what the Good Society should look like and what it should focus on, it made value statements. It said, "'this' is is better than 'that,' gave empirically grounded reasons, and gently suggested (in a very Taoistic sort of way) that you should do "this" and not "that."

Non-Directive

Maslow argued that effective therapy is Taoistic and uncovering (helping the person give birth to themselves).

Democratic

Maslow's Eupsychian requirement was that people be given clear choices. "In any discussion of self-actualization," he said, "there arises my requirement that people must have a choice of values."

Therapist should feel confident...

Uplifted By Faith

Eupsychian psychology had the "concept of the 'Good Chooser'" which basically suggested that given the proper supports, people would make the right choices and they would move naturally "toward self-actualization."

Grounded in Science

Specificailly longitudinal methodology

As he says, "the normal equipment of science must be invoked and considered absolutely necessary, because all inspirations, illuminations, peaks, and insights need to be externally validated, verified, and confirmed. Currently, the only way wc know how to accomplishthis task is to examine what occurs after the illumination and to check andrecheck it. This notion can even be phrased in the old religious way: “Howdoes one distinguish whether the inner voices are of God or the devil?” Theanswer is to see pragmatically what happens to the person in later time."

Quotes

This therepuetic approach is "genuinely different.... It aims directly toward the greater independence and integration of the individual rather than hoping that such results will accrue if the counselor assists in solving the problem. The individual and not the problem is the focus. The aim is not to solve one particular problem but to assist the individual to grow, so that he can cope with the present problem and with later problems in a better integrated fashion. If he can gain enough integration to handle one problem in more independent, more responsible, less confused, better organized ways, then he will also handle new problems in that manner.

“If this seems a little vague, it may be made more specific. … It relies much more heavily on the individual drive toward growth, health, and adjustment. him to do something about himself. It is instead a matter of freeing him for normal growth and development, of removing obstacles so that he can again move forward.

Therapy is not a matter of doing something for the individual, or of inducing him to do something about himself. It is instead a matter of freeing him for normal growth and development, of removing obstacles so that he can again move forward.

Abraham Maslow Terms

Aggridant, B-Cognition, B-Needs, B-Realm, B-Values, Being-Guilt, Big Problem, D-Cognition, D-Realm, Deficiency Diseases, Diminished Human Being, Eupsychia, Eupsychian Education, Eupsychian Management, Eupsychian Psychology, Eupsychian Theory, Eupsychian Therapy, Good Chooser, Good Person, Good Science, Good Society, Good Specimen, Growing-Tip Statistics, Hierarchy of Basic Needs, Hierarchy of Cognitive Needs, Horticultural Model, Human Diminution, Human Motivation, Human Potential, Humanistic Psychology, Inner Signals, Intrinsic Conscience, Jonah Complex, Metapathology, Motivation, Normalcy, Normative Biology, Peak Experience, Plateau Experience, Real Self, Sculptural Model, Self-Actualization, Transcending Self-Actualizers, Transhumanistic, Transpersonal Psychology

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