MASLOW: Holistic Dynamic Theory

- Humanistic theory
Assumptions:
- Holistic approach to motivation (the whole self is motivated)
- Motivation is complex (several, separate motives, unknown motives)
- People are continually motivated by needs (until they are satisfied)
- All people are motivated by the same needs
- Needs can be arranged on a hierarchy
Hierarchy of needs
- Lower level needs must be satisfied first before higher level needs can
become motivators
- Conative needs or basic needs; have a striving or motivational
character
- Higher needs are less basic to survival
Physiological > Safety > Love and belongingness > Esteem > Self-
actualization
A. PHYSIOLOGICAL
a. Food, water, oxygen, body temperature
b. Most prepotent
c. Appetite =/= Hunger
d. Only needs that can be completely or overly satisfied
e. Has a recurring nature
B. SAFETY
a. Physical security, stability, dependency, protection, freedom from
threatening forces, need for law, order, and structure
b. Cannot be overly satiated
c. Children have higher need for safety, and adults can retain irrational
fears
d. Basic anxiety developed when safety needs arent satisfied
C. LOVE AND BELONGINGNESS
a. Friendship, mate, children, family, community, sex, human contact,
give and receive love
b. When adequately satisfied, they do not panic when denied love and
have confidence that they are accepted by those important to them
c. When never experienced, they become incapable of giving love and
will eventually devalue and take its absence for granted
d. When experienced but not satisfied, they will be strongly motivated
to seek it
e. Compared to children, adults attempts to attain love are disguised.
i. Self-defeating behaviors and an aura of self-sufficiency can
mean a need for love
ii. Striving too hard and constant pleading can be detrimental to
the goal
D. ESTEEM
a. Self-respect, confidence, competence, knowledge that others hold
them in high esteem
b. Reputation perception of prestige, recognition, or fame of you by
others
 c. Self-esteem own feelings of worth and confidence
i. A desire for strength, achievement, adequacy, mastery ,
competence, confidence, independence, freedom
E. SELF ACTUALIZATION
a. Self-fulfillment, realization of ones potential, desire to be creative,
natural (i.e. they express their basic human needs and are not
suppressed by culture)
b. Does not follow directly when esteem needs are met
c. Depends on B-values (being values)
d. Self-actualizers are not dependent on lower level needs
Other needs
A. AESTHETIC need for beauty; dissatisfaction can lead to physical and
spiritual illness
B. COGNITIVE desire to know, solve mysteries, to understand, to be curious
a. When cognitive needs are blocked, the rest of the needs are
endangered, such that knowledge is necessary to satisfy all
conative needs
b. Healthy people desire to know more just for the satisfaction of
knowing
c. Impeded cognitive needs develop into a pathology (skepticism,
disillusionment, cynicism)
C. NEUROTIC nonproductive, reactive, serves as compensation for
unsatisfied basic needs
a. Leads only to stagnation and pathology
b. Perpetuate an unhealthy style of life
c. Still leads to pathology whether it is satisfied or frustrated
Reversed order of needs - apparent deviations to order of needs are not real
when unconscious motivations are determined
Unmotivated behavior not all determinants/causes are motives
A. Expressive behavior often an end in itself and serves no other purpose
than to be
a. Frequently unconscious, has no goals or aim, can occur even
without reinforcement
b. Mode of expression: ex. slouching, relaxing, looking stupid, showing
anger, joy
c. Also includes gait, gestures, voice, smile
d. Art, play, enjoyment, appreciation, wonder, awe, excitement
e. Unlearned, spontaneous, determined by forces within the person
rather than the environment
B. Coping behavior conscious, learned, effortful, determined by external
environment
a. Attempts to cope with the environment
b. Serves some aim or goal motivated by some deficit need
Deprivation of needs leads to pathology
- Physiological: malnutrition, fatigue, loss of energy, obsession with sex
- Safety: fear, insecurity, dread
- Love: defensive, overly aggressive, socially timid
- Esteem: self-doubt, self-depreciation, lack of confidence
 - Self-actualization: metapathology absence of values, lack of fulfilment,
loss of meaning of life
Instinctoid nature of needs needs can be innately determined but they can
be modified by learning
- Thwarting of instinctoid needs leads to pathology
- Are persistent and satisfaction leads to psychological health
- Are species specific
- Can be molded, inhibited, altered by environmental influences when it is
stronger
SELF-ACTUALIZATION
A. Free from psychopathology
B. Progressed through the hierarchy of needs
C. Embracing of B-values
a. Metamotivation characterized by expressive rather than coping
behavior, associated with B-values
b. Metaneeds:
c. GOODNESS
d. TRUTH
e. BEAUTY
f. WHOLENESS/TRANSCENDENCE OF DICHOTOMIES
g. ALIVENESS OR SPONTANEITY
h. UNIQUENESS
i. PERFECTION
j. COMPLETION
k. JUSTICE AND ORDER
l. SIMPLICTY
m. RICHNESS OR TOTALITY
n. EFFORTLESSNESS
o. PLAYFULNESS/HUMOR
p. SELF-SUFFICIENCY/AUTONOMY
D. Full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities
E. Absence of b-values create pathology, feelings of inadequacy,
disintegration, unfulfilment
F. Metapathology lack of meaningful philosophy of life
G. Characteristics:
a. More efficient perception of reality can detect genuineness,
comfortable with unknown
b. Acceptance of self, others, and nature
c. Spontaneity, simplicity, naturalness conventional but can go
against norm if needed
d. Problem-centering sees the worlds problems not just in relation to
themselves
e. Need for privacy being alone without being lonely
f. Autonomy
g. Continued freshness of appreciation
h. The Peak Experience ecstasies, mystical experiences that gives
a feeling of transcendence
i. Social interest community feeling, oneness with humanity
j. Profound interpersonal relations
k. Democratic character structure
 l. Discrimination between means and ends sees activities as ends in
themselves
m. Philosophical sense of humor non-hostile, not at the expense of
others
n. Creativeness
o. Resistance to enculturation individualized, less homogeneous than
others
H. Love & Sex B-Love love for the essence or being of the other
Desacralization type of science that lacks emotion, joy, wonder, awe, rapture
Jonah Complex fear of being ones best; running away from ones destiny
- The human body is not strong enough to withstand the ecstasy of
fulfilment for a length of time (to be overwhelmed)
- As a defense against sinful pride (compared to other successful people)

ROGERS: Person-Centered Theory

Assumptions:
- Formative tendency matter evolves from simpler to more complex
forms
- Actualizing tendency moving of an organism towards completion or
fulfilment of potentials; the only motive people possess
o Maintenance lower level needs, resistance to change,
conservative in nature
o Enhancement need to become more, to develop, to achieve
growth even if not immediately rewarding
o Actualization in humans can only be achieved in a relationship of
congruence, empathy, and unconditional positive regard
o These three conditions permit (not cause) actualization and are both
necessary and sufficient
Awareness concept of self; the symbolic representation of some portion of
our existence
Self-actualization tendency to actualize the self as perceived in awareness
Organismic self entirety of being
Self-concept aspects of ones being and experiences that are perceived in
awareness, though may be inaccurate
Ideal self self that one wishes to be
Incongruence exists when there is a gap between ideal self and self-concept
Levels of awareness:
A. Ignored out of awareness; focused on something else
B. Denied out of awareness but influences conscious behavior
C. Accurately symbolized freely admitted into self-structure; in congruence
with self-concept
D. Distorted reshaping experiences that do not fit the self-concept
Becoming a person starts with contact
- Positive regard need to be loved and accepted by others
- Positive self-regard prizing/valuing oneself
i. preceded by positive regard by others, but once achieved can
stand alone
ii. autonomous and self-perpetuating
Barriers to psychological health
A. Conditions of worth
a. Others accept them only if they meet their expectations and
approval
b. Can become the criterion by which we accept or reject our
experiences and its assimilation to our self-structure
c. Can create incongruence when we try to accept other peoples
values; or can be distorted to fit our self-concept
d. External evaluations perceptions of other peoples view of us;
do not foster psychological health since they prevent us from being
open to our own experiences
B. Incongruence inaccurately symbolizing organismic experiences into
awareness because they are inconsistent with our self-concept
a. Source of psychological disorders
b. Can start from conditional worth in childhood, form a false self-
concept with distortions and denials, then create incongruence
c. Vulnerability when we are unaware of the discrepancy between
their organismic self and their significant experience; behaving in
ways that are incomprehensible to others and oneself
d. Anxiety starts with awareness of incongruence; unknown
uneasiness/tension
e. Threat evolves from anxiety; awareness that our self is no longer
whole or congruent
f. Both anxiety and threat can be steps toward psychological health
C. Defensiveness protection of self-concept against anxiety and threat
through denial or distortion
a. Distortion misinterpreting an experience to fit into some aspect
of our self-concept; failing to understand meaning
b. Denial refusing to perceive an experience in awareness, or
keeping some aspect of it from reaching symbolization
D. Disorganization occurs when the realization is too soon or too great
a. People can behave consistently with their organismic self or with
their self-concept
Psychotherapy
Conditions:
A. Congruence genuineness; organismic experiences are matched by an
awareness and an ability and willingness to openly express these feelings
a. Involves feelings, awareness, and expression
b. There can be breakdown between feelings and awareness, or
awareness and expression
c. May not exist outside of therapy
 B. Empathy accurately sensing the feelings of the client and are able to
communicate these perceptions without prejudice, projection, or
evaluation
a. Seeing things from the POV of the client
C. Unconditional positive regard warm, positive, accepting attitude
towards the client without possessiveness, evaluations, and reservations
a. Permissive in therapy (nondirective)
D. Contact with therapist with the abovementioned qualities
E. Perception of qualities in therapist
F. Occurrence over some time
Process:
1. Unwillingness to communicate anything about oneself rigid and resistant
to change
2. Less rigid, discusses external events and other people, no
acknowledgment of own feelings (only objectively seen)
3. Talks more freely about self but only objectively talks about feelings in
the past or future, deny individual responsibility
4. Talks about deep feelings but not ones presently felt
5. Expresses feelings in the present but not accurately symbolized
6. Allowing experiences into self-structure, develops unconditional self-regard
7. Becomes fully functioning persons of tomorrow
Person of Tomorrow
A. More adaptable
B. Open to their experiences
a. Trust in organismic selves
C. Live fully in the moment existential living
D. Harmonious relations with others
E. More integrated, whole
F. Basic trust of human nature
G. Greater richness in life