Eupsychia
Eupsychia is Abraham Maslow's term for a "psychologically healthy culture--rather than just another materially based Utopia."[1] A Eupsychia would be a society in which all our Seven Essential Needs would be met and we would all grow up healthy, happy, whole, compassionate, aware, and connected.[2]
Related Terms
Human Development > Active Need Fulfillment, Ahimsa, Assault, Boundary Violation, Essential Needs, Eupsychia, Health, Needs, Neurodecolonization, Polyvagal Theory, School of Human Development, Socialization
Syncretic Terms
Divine World Order > Age of Aquarius, Garden of Eden, Heaven, Heaven of Reality, New Creation, New Earth, Pure Land, Shambhala, Zion
Notes
Maslow wanted to develop a new psychology. The new psychology would include a Eupsychian Theory aimed at creating a eupsychian society, i.e. a good society that would create happy, fully developed humans.
The Eupsychian theory would provide new systems of meaning where religion has so thoroughly failed [3] and would contribute to a reconceptualizaton of “every area of human knowledge: e.g., economics, sociology, biology, and every profession: e.g., the family, education, religion, etc.” [4]. He was explicit about his goals [5] and active in developing curriculum [6] He was also clear that even though the work that had been done as of 1970 was only the “bare beginning” [7], nevertheless progress had been made. In 1969 he writes that “There is now available a new conception, of a higher possibility, of the healthy society. There are tools now available to judge and compare societies. One society can be judged to be better than another society, or healthier or possessing more ‘growth-fostering-potential.’ We can talk about the value of the society, or the function of the society-that is, the greatest coming to fulfillment of the people in the society” [8].
The Journal of Humanistic Psychology and the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, both of which Maslow helped to found, were originally intended as steps towards a Eupsychian psychology and society.
Footnotes
- ↑ Maslow, Abraham. “Eupsychia—The Good Society.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 1, no. 2 (1961): p. 2.
- ↑ Sosteric, Mike, and Gina Ratkovic. “Eupsychian Theory: Reclaiming Maslow and Rejecting The Pyramid The Seven Essential Needs.” PsyArXiv Preprints, 2020. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/fswk9.
- ↑ A. H. Maslow, Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1964), https://amzn.to/2U2Rhgq
- ↑ A. H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality (2nd Ed.) (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), x, https://amzn.to/2OSRmlX.
- ↑ A. H. Maslow, Towards a Psychology of Being (2nd Edition) (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1968).
- ↑ A. H. Maslow, “Some Fundamental Questions That Face the Normative Social Psychologist.,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 8, no. 2 (April 1968): 143.
- ↑ Maslow, Motivation and Personality (2nd Ed.), xxi.
- ↑ Maslow, A. H., “The Farthest Reaches of Human Nature,” The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 1, no. 1 (1969): 7.
