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Humanistic Psychology
The first needs that motivate us are physical survival needs such as the need for water, food, oxygen, and warmth. The next, more psychological need is for ‘safety and security.’ This then becomes a powerful motivator. When these basic needs are met, then we yearn for ‘love and belongingness.’ The next step up the need hierarchy is for ‘self-esteem and the esteem of others.’ (A good feeling about, and a positive mental image of one’s self.) Maslow also described self-esteem as 'dominance-feeling' whether it's dominance over people or over the environment, or an event. Finally, when all the lower needs are met we are moved by ‘self actualization or self-realization’ – the drive to realize one’s full potential and express one’s inner life and aptitudes in uniquely creative ways.. Maslow went on to describe how ‘self-actualizing’ people tend to experience life in a more integrated, harmonious, altogether.. even transcendental way. He called this phenomenon ‘B cognition’, the perception of Being, as opposed to ‘D cognition’, the perception of deficiency. According to Maslow, spiritual and mystical experience is the perception of Being.. as in meditation, and these perceptions are simply humanistic, occuring naturally at higher levels of integration and restfulness (alpha, theta and delta waves) in the human brain. (Whole brain functioning) Self-actualizers can also have ‘peak experiences’ and ‘plateau experiences’ - hey, a natural high? Go to it. All in all, humanistic psychology has remained extremely popular since the 1960s and its holistic-dynamic approach is generally favored by psychotherapists. There must, then, be a lot of truth in this theoretical model of how we are motivated, one need at a time, in a pyramid-like hierarchical structure.
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