Abraham Maslow
Toward a Psychology of Being
Van Nostrand 1968
The book and author under consideration in
this section present a documentation of the trend toward an
understanding of wholeness in psychology.
Wholeness is the concept we will use to understand Maslow's
investigation into the nature of Being, the Being of the individual, the level
of pure existence, because Being, we can say, exists in two values it
exists on the level of pure existence of tthe individual as pure consciousness,
as self-realization, and also Being is that wholeness which is
that which is more than the mere collection of constituent
parts. In the particular case of the
individual, constituent parts are environment, body or nervous system,
senses, mind, intellect, heart, feelingss, identity, and universal value, Being. Because the differentiation of the two values
of Being are not recognized by Maslow, we will find
the characteristics of wholeness an intermixture of that which is more than the
sum of the parts and that which is pure consciousness, or Being. It is
our feeling however that the differentiation in this instance is unimportant
and we will therefore use the term wholeness to refer to whichever is implied
in context. The concept of growth in
wholeness toward an integrated personal unity is called the trend toward
self-actualization by Maslow. Further, the realized state of and trends
toward self-actualization are parallel to the realize state of and growth
toward wholeness. We therefore begin with Maslow's
definition of self-actualization
"For the writers in these various groups (of
psychologists) notably, Fromm, Honey, Jung, Buhler, Angyal, Rogers, ^. Alport
Schachtel,
Lynd, and some catholic psychologists
growth of individual automony, self-actualization, self-development,
productiveness, self-realization, are all crudely synonymous, designating a vaguely perceived area
rather than a sharply defined concept.
In my opinion it is not possible to define this area sharply at the present
time."
Commentary: The sharp definition of the area of
self-actualization is in part self-contradictory. This stems from the realization that
consciousness itself does not admit of a particularizing definition, because it
embodies a coexistence of opposite values or contradictory qualities, any
single, monological characterization of which is
inherently limiting. Therefore a precise
definition of consciousness, in the sense of a technical statement, requires a
modification of our present concept of what it means to define a term. It is possible to sharply define, that is to say, concretize or more shaarply focus on the notion of consciousness, and therefore the
notion of self-actualization. Maslow's perception that it is not possible
to sharply define self-actualization at this point, is
in fact a fortunate conclusion on his part, because it implies the recognition
of the indeterminacy of
the state of knowledge with regard to consciousness. However,
all this precision, or its lack, does not detract
1. consciousness- is wisdom and creativity taken
together, inclusive of the whole, the aspeects of which are: activity and non-activity,
silence and motion, etc.
2. All of the
above remarks also refer to wholeness, in as much as wholeness is inclusive of
the pure non-expressed value of consciousness, and of that which is more than
the collection of expressed values of consciousness.
from the message
that consciousness is real.
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