Abraham Maslow

We owe a great debt of gratitude to the pioneering work of psychologist Abraham Maslow, founder of the school of Humanistic Psychology. His research set the tone for a new and positive direction in the field of psychology.

Maslow was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and was the oldest of 7 children. After high school he attended City College of New York but dropped out after a year because he hated the curriculum there. In 1927 he began studies at Cornell University but left after one semester because of poor grades. He went back to City College, completed his studies there, and then went on to the University of Wisconsin in 1935 where he got his degree in psychology. He went to graduate school at Columbia University where he met the man who would deeply influence him and the future creation of his theories of human nature, Alfred Adler.

In graduate school Maslow began to question how the field of psychology came to its conclusions about the human mind and mental illness. Therefore, in contrast to conventional psychology which solely studied the mentally ill and created theories of mental illness and pathology based upon that research, Maslow studied mentally healthy people who were generally happy, creative, and involved with life. Maslow said that if the field of psychology only studied and classified mental illnesses, we would continue to have a ‘sick psychology’. In order for the field of psychology to truly progress and to understand the full dynamics of the mind and human nature, psychology must also study creative, fulfilled, and well-adjusted people; those that Maslow referred to as peak achievers.

Maslow’s research boldly looked at how people develop feelings of safety, security, love, friendship, intimacy, accomplishment, and fulfillment. For those who lived life more in this transcendent realm of consciousness, peak experiences were the most important and most precious things in their lives. He found that peak achievers noticed the beauty and sacredness in everyday life more frequently, felt a deep connection with a Higher power, felt a reverence for the fragility of human nature, experienced more unconditional love and fewer judgments for themselves and others, and were a powerful source for manifesting harmony and good will. These attributes created the foundation for the human potential movement he inspired in the late 50’s and 60’s.

In 1986, organizational psychologist Marsha Sinetar wrote a fascinating book based upon the work of Maslow titled, Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics. Sinetar interviewed hundreds of people and came to the conclusion that ordinary people, people like you and me, can and do live in ways that express their highest and most cherished values, values that are the most prized universally and collectively throughout history.

Abraham Maslow was a trail blazer who taught us that we have an innate potential for greatness. One of his best books, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, created a much needed consciousness and balance within the field of psychology and was the inspiration for the transpersonal/spiritual psychology movement in the early 70’s.