People often see other people as walking-need-fulfillers for them themselves – “What can that person do for me?”, on a subconscious level; “... these needs which are essentially deficits in the organism, empty holes, so to speak, which must be filled up for health’s sake, and furthermore must be filled from without by human beings other than the subject...” These are dependency, as opposed to being. Someone who abandons the need to have these needs met for them is “self-actualized”, with an ego/sense of self that more or less withers away, though it can come back if certain “needs” are not met. When being, one can better perceive reality, and have increased acceptance of self, others, and nature. Maslow says the needs satisfaction are a process of maturation, and one passes from one to the other; Peterson disputes this, saying that there can be some kind of higher-level life-satisfaction without fully fulfilled basic needs (citing example of Viktor Frankl). One can also enjoy and embrace deficiency needs if one typically gets them and they can be counted upon in the future; this mirrors Horney, which says “neurosis” results from needs-frustration. The needs-dependent person must be attuned to others because he depends on them to satisfy his needs. If your perception is “desireless”, you can see “what is” (Jiddu) more clearly, and don’t think as much in terms of dichotomies, but rather in terms of continuums; “...much clearer and more insightful perception and understanding of what is there... detached perception... attain[ed] without trying for [it]”. As opposed to “rubricizing” employing “... a kind of taxonomy, a classifying, a ticketing off into one file cabinet or another.” People want to be respected for themselves and their uniqueness; the child brushed off as having problems characteristic of their age will become angry, ex., “You don’t understand me mom!”. Anxiety can be a healthy thing, i.e. anxiety about a lack of food either now or in the near future. Self-actualization is something the average person does not achieve, maybe one in one hundred; Maslow says it is possible for anyone, though. Thus, the “just-live-your-life" of Fromm/Maslow doesn’t seem like a good societal prescription. The notion that self-actualization is selfish is wrong, it actually involves a form of altruism, realizing the needs to others and a good society, what our duty is, etc. Horney said we “Register” things we are proud of internally, and also things which we are ashamed of, a net result being either self-respect and acceptance, or despising ourselves. Positive psychology asks more than, “How to get unsick” -- what one does with freedom. “Personality problems” may depend on who is doing the asking; a personality “problem” can crush your true inner nature, such as by a tyrannical husband who demands to control his wife. “If grief and pain are sometimes necessary for growth of the person, then we must learn not to protect people from them automatically as if they were always bad... Not allowing people to go through their pain, and protecting them from it, may turn out to be a kind of overprotection, which in turn implies a certain lack of respect for the integrity and the intrinsic nature and the future development of the individual.” “Another consequence for my thinking of this stress on the twofold nature of man is the realization that some problems must remain eternally insoluble.” There is no final solution, there will always be good and bad, etc. “It is when the shallow life doesn’t work that it is questioned and that there occurs a call to fundamentals.” M. Scott Peck’s “question everything.” “...the ‘authentic person’... assumes a new relation to his society... he not only transcends himself in various ways; he also transcends his culture... he becomes more detached from his culture and from his society. He becomes a little more a member of his species...” Notes that we do not like to be categorized, we like to be treated for who we are; “...as a money-giver, a food supplier, a safety-giver, someone to depend on, or as a waiter or other anonymous servant... When this happens we don’t like it at all... We dislike being ‘used.’” Karen Horney said,
“How is it possible to lose a self? The treachery, unknown and unthinkable, begins with our secret psychic death in childhood—if and when we are not loved and are cut off from our spontaneous wishes. (Think: what is left?) … He has not been accepted for himself as he is. ‘Oh, they ‘love’ him, but they want him or force him or expect him to be different! Therefore he must be unacceptable. He himself learns to believe it... he has truly given himself up;... His performance is all that matters. His center of gravity is in ‘them,’ not in himself... And the whole thing is entirely plausible; all invisible, automatic, and anonymous! This is the perfect paradox. Everything looks normal; no crime was intended; there is no corpse, no guilt. All we can see if the sun rising and setting as usual. But what has happened? He has been rejected, not only by them, but by himself. (He is actually without a self.) What has he lost? Just the one true and vital part of himself: his own yes-feeling, which is his very capacity for growth... But alas, he is not dead. ‘Life’ goes on, and so must he. From the moment he gives himself up... all unknowingly he sets about to create and maintain a pseudo-self... a ‘self’ without wishes. This one shall be loved (or feared) where he is despised, strong where he is weak; it shall go through the motions (oh, but they are caricatures!) not for fun or joy but for survival... it is a defense mechanism against death. It is also the machine of death. From now on he will be torn apart by compulsive (unconscious) needs or ground by (unconscious) conflicts into paralysis, every motion and every instant canceling out his being, his integrity; and all the while he is disguised as a normal person and expected to behave like one. In a word, I saw that we become neurotic seeking or defending a pseudo-self, a self-system; and we are neurotic to the extent that we are self-less.”
"If the only way to maintain the self is to lose others, then the ordinary child will give up the self.” Especially if this choice is imposed by adults. Regarding growth vs. Safety, “If we wish to help him grow... then all we can do is help him if he asks for help out of suffering... We can’t force him to grow, we can only coax him to, make it more possible for him... Only he can prefer it; no one can prefer it for him. If it is to become part of him, he must like it. If he doesn’t, we must gracefully concede that it is not for him at this moment.” “All the techniques of the therapist are in one way or another truth-revealing, or are ways of strengthening the patient so he can bear the truth.” Regarding defense mechanisms, “The child, too, can play this same trick, denying, refusing to see what is plain to anyone else: that his father is a contemptible weakling, or that his mother doesn’t really love him. This kind of knowledge is a call for action which is impossible. Better not to know.” “Something similar can be seen in the exploited, the downtrodden, the weak minority or the slave. He may fear to know too much, to explore freely. This might arouse the wrath of his lords. A defensive attitude of pseudo-stupidity is common in such groups...” The self-actualized people are “almost like a different breed of human beings.” Here is the potential for someone to mistakenly think themselves “self-actualized,” and thus feel superior, calling attention to the supposed state by giving it a name. The mature person can impersonally accept life’s evils, as they exist in nature, the tornado or the earthquake, "[A]ccepts evil as he does the seasons and the storms.” As with Frankl, he points out the need for and presence of humor, to have a certain jovial nature about things. He has a “calm sureness and rightness, as if they knew exactly what they were doing... without doubts...” And having a “godlike gaiety (humor, fun, foolishness, silliness, play, laughter)” “...incompleteness... may be incompatible not only with serenity, peacefulness and psychological well-being, but also with physical well-being...” “Very often this feeling of gratitude [of the self-actualized] is expressed as or leads to an all-embracing love for everybody and everything, to a perception of the world as beautiful, and good, often to an impulse to do something good for the world... even a sense of obligation.” It is not a selfish way of being. They are, “‘[U]nderstanding and accepting the intrinsic human situation,’ i.e., facing and accepting courageously, and even enjoying, being amused by the ‘shortcomings’ of human nature instead of trying to deny them.” Maslow points out that the self-actualized, I.e. Einstein, are in a sense free-riders, depending on others to do things for them, I.e. his wife, his school, his friends, etc., allowing him to be highly specialized in his focus on knowledge. Points out the “...problem of social responsibility of the more mature for the less mature who may confuse B-acceptance with D-approval... of... crime or irresponsibility, arising out of deep understanding, may be misunderstood as inciting to emulation. For the B-cognizer who lives in a world of frightened and easily misled people, this is an additional burden of responsibility to bear.” Points out that creativity and self-actualized type experiences are not limited to painters and poets; a conventional housewife (this written in the early 60s) can be a marvelous cook, a great homemaker, with great taste in homewares, excellent furniture, first-rate cooking, etc.; anything can be creative (as is the businessman, would say Rand). The self-actualized, “...were less afraid of being laughed at or of being disapproved of. They could let themselves be flooded by emotion. In contrast, average and neurotic people wall off through fear, much that lies within themselves. They control, they inhibit, they repress, and they suppress. They disapprove of their deeper selves and expect that others do, too.” “The normal adjustment of the average, a common sense, well-adjusted man implies a continued successful rejection of much of the depths of human nature... a splitting of the person. It means that the person turns his back of much in himself because it is dangerous. But it is now clear that by so doing, he loses a great deal too, for these depths are also the source of all his joys, his ability to play, to love, to laugh...” Thus, a bit of us dies out of necessity in adjustment to the constraints of reality, but we must make conscious effort to cultivate our true inner-nature in order that we can have happiness. “Capacities clamor to be used... capacities are needs, and therefore are intrinsic values as well. To the extent that capacities differ, so will values also differ.” Thus, a chicken and the egg scenario when it comes to valuing things like learning and education. “Self-knowledge and self-improvement is very difficult for most people. It usually needs great courage and long struggle.” Echoes Rogers, we must be understanding and very humble as regards people’s states. “... one of the proper goals of therapy is to move from dichotomizing and splitting toward integration of seemingly irreconcilable opposites [Isaiah Berlin]. Our godlike qualities rest upon and need our animal qualities. Our adulthood should not be only a renunciation of childhood, but an inclusion of its good values and a building upon it.” The self-actualized person moves to “real problems rather than pseudo-problems.” “...when they know what is the right thing to do, they do it.” I.e. stressing over what to eat for dinner is a pseudo-problem. “To the extent that we try to master the environment... to that extent do we cut the possibility of full, objective, detached, non-interfering cognition. Only if we let it be, can we perceive fully. Again, to cite psychotherapeutic experience, the more eager we are to make a diagnosis and a plan of action, the less helpful do we become. The more eager we are to cure, the longer it takes... to be humble is to succeed.” It is better to take an accurate gauge of the situation before immediately resorting to action. “Every superior person confronts us with our own shortcomings.” Enter hatred, resentment, jealousy of the good values. “Still deeper than this, however, is the ultimate existential question of the fairness and justice of fate. The person with a disease may be jealous of the healthy, who is no more deserving than he.” It is the “frustrating unyieldingness of physical reality... and of other people that we learn about their nature, and thereby learn to differentiate wishes from facts [Glenn Greenwald]... and are thereby enabled to live in the world and adapt to it as necessary.” We cannot wish the way we want things to be into reality. “Overprotection implies that the child’s needs are gratified for him by his parents, without effort of his own. This tends to infantilize him, to prevent development of his own strength, will and self-assertion... it may teach him to use other people rather than to respect them... it implies a lack of trust and respect for the child’s own powers and choices... and can help to make a child feel worthless.” “The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense that he needs sunlight, calcium or love. This I have called the ‘cognitive need to understand.’” Maslow thinks we need a universal value system to be developed. “What man needs but doesn’t have, he seeks for unceasingly [Tolstoy], and he becomes dangerously ready to jump at any hope, good or bad.” “One for whom no future exists is reduced to the concrete, to hopelessness, to emptiness. For him, time must be endlessly ‘filled.’”