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.
Concept Map
Abraham Maslow Terms
B-Cognition, B-Realm, B-Values, Being-Guilt, Big Problem, D-Cognition, D-Realm, Deficiency Diseases, Eupsychia, Eupsychian Education, Eupsychian Psychology, Eupsychian Theory, Eupsychian Therapy, Good Person, Good Science, Good Society, Good Specimen, Growing-Tip Statistics, Hierarchy of Basic Needs, Hierarchy of Cognitive Needs, Human Diminution, Humanistic Psychology, Inner Signals, Intrinsic Conscience, Jonah Complex, Normalcy, Normative Biology, Peak Experience, Plateau Experience, Real Self, Self-Actualization, Transcending Self-Actualizers, Transhumanistic
Key Terms
Techniques
Notes
Needs Satisfying
Eupsychian Therapy is needs-satisfying. That's it. 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.[1] 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.[2] 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. "[3]
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.[4]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.[5] 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."
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"[6] 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."[7]
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. g 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 fo 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.[8]
Citation and Legal
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Footnotes
- ↑ Sosteric, M., & Ratkovic, G. (2020). Eupsychian Theory I: Reclaiming Maslow and Rejecting The Pyramid—The Seven Essential Needs. https://www.academia.edu/44676359/.
- ↑ Here Maslow is referring to to Environmental Needs.
- ↑ Maslow, Abraham H. “Higher Motivation and the New Psychology.” In Future Visions: The Unpublished Papers of Abraham Maslow, edited by Edward Hoffman. Sage Publications, 1996. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/future-visions/book8426. p. 89.
- ↑ On the LP we'd characterize what Maslow might have called the Being-State as a general state of improved and improving Alignment and Connection.
- ↑ Maslow, Abraham H. “Higher Motivation and the New Psychology.” In Future Visions: The Unpublished Papers of Abraham Maslow, edited by Edward Hoffman. Sage Publications, 1996. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/future-visions/book8426. p. 91.
- ↑ On the LP , reconnecting with Spiritual Ego
- ↑ Maslow, A. H. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature New York: Viking, 1971. p. 33.Italics added.
- ↑ Rogers, Carl. Rogers on Personal Power: Inner Strength and Its Revolutionary Impact. Delacorte, 1977.