Customer Reviews

Toward a Psychology of Being

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Challenging read for someone not too familiar with psych jargon, but very managable for anyone with a few psychology courses under his or her belt. This book will definitely assist one in their endeavors to define self-actualization on a personal/internal level. I feel that after a deliberate reading I personally gained some insight about my true nature. Maslow does an outstanding job of clarifing for the reader what it is like to veiw the world as its own ends versus the means. He helps define how living a life of being differs from a life of becoming. Good book, I highly recommend it to anyone in a counselling profession or one seeking philisophical enrichment.

Discovering this book back in the 1960s changed my life and led me into the field of first, Humanistic Psychology and then into Transpersonal Psychology, where I found my life-work and purpose.

Read it, and if you are searching for some real meaning in your life, you will find the beginning of the way. Then read all the books in the list of references, and that will be even better!

It opens up a whole new world!

I had to read this for an Organizational Leadership class in graduate school. When I first got it I thought, "This is going to be like reading a VCR manual." That is, it appeared to be boring theoretical way out there stuff, with sentences lasting a full paragraph.

However, it is one of the best books I have ever read in helping me to understand people and why they are the way they are. This is a quick written self help book. Rather, it explains the fundamental causes of people's behavior in life.

Do not buy the 2011 Edition of "Toward a Psychology of Being" --- it is an edited edition and leaves out much of Maslow's actual words. I did not know it was an abrieved edition ... and am very, very disappointed in this edition. It has reduced the quality and richness of Maslow's original work.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. author of "Self-Actualization Psychology"

...and easier going than the more technical FARTHER REACHES. A good intro to Maslow's thought and to humanistic psychology in general, it lays out many of his key ideas in a plain and simple style.

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was an American psychologist best known for his conceptualization of a "hierarchy of human needs" and "self-actualization." He (along with Carl Rogers) is considered the founder of humanistic or "Third Force" psychology.

Maslow states in the Preface to the first edition of this 1968 book, "This book is a continuation of my 'Motivation and Personality,' published in 1954. It was constructed in about the same way, that is, by doing one piece at a time of the larger theoretical structure. It is a predecessor to work yet to be done toward the construction of a comprehensive, systematic and empirically based general psychology and philosophy which includes both the depths and the heights of human nature... I consider this book to be in the realm of science, or pre-science, rather than of exhortation, or of personal philosophy, or literary expression."

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

Self-actualization "stresses 'full humanness,' the development of the biologically based nature of man, and therefore is (empirically) normative for the whole species rather than for particular times and places, i.e., it is less culturally relative." (Preface)
"Since this inner nature is good or neutral rather than bad, it is best to bring it out and encourage it rather than to suppress it. If it is permitted to guide our life, we grow healthy, fruitful, and happy." (Ch. 1)
The humanistic school "(in the extreme instance) is equally vulnerable, for they tend to see through rose-colored glasses and generally slide over the problems of pathology, of weakness, of FAILURE to grow. One is like a theology of evil and sin excusively; the other is like a theology without any evil at all, and is therefore equally incorrect and unrealistic." (Ch. 4)
"The peak experience is felt as a self-validating, self-justifying moment which carries its own intrinsic value with it." (Ch. 6)
"If this essential core (inner nature) of the person is frustrated, denied or suppressed, sickness results, sometimes in obvious forms, sometimes in subtle and devious forms." (Ch. 14)

A better understanding Maslow can best be accomplished if we are able to set aside preconceptions about what a human being is. Dr. Maslow wrote for his colleagues, not for the masses. His work is very hard sledding for laypersons. However, those who make the effort will find it a rewarding journey. "Toward a Psychology of Being" is a valuable read for psychologists and scientists, as well as religionists and philosophers. But perhaps patient lay persons will be best rewarded because they will be less hampered by the logic tight compartments of science, religion and philosophy. Maslow defied the Aristotelian barriers between the disciplines and suggests a model of humankind that is vastly more profound than Freud or Watson or Skinner. He observes in "Toward a Psychology of Being" that a biologist had recently announced that he had found the missing link between anthropoid apes and civilized man: "It is us!" Indeed, we are in the process of becoming, and in this book he begins to unfold his more astonishing concepts about peak experiences and metamotivations. Dr. Maslow declares in this book that his "Psychology of Science" will carry his expanding vision of human possibilities even farther, and clearly demonstrate "... that the life of science can be a life of passion, of beauty, of hope for humankind, and a revelation of values." Maslow's life was all these things. Regrettably perhaps, as Colin Wilson pointed out, his most valuable later works (such as "Toward a Psychology of Being," "The Psychology of Science: a reconnaissance," "The Farther Reaches of Human Nature," and "Religions, Values and Peak Experiences,") are generally stuff for the 21st century.

This book was not written as a textbook - it was written as a standard work of non-fiction. 15 years ago it cost $8. How can they charge $50 for it?

I believe we have to take these factors into account when discussing the merits of a book. This price is really out of hand.

We've almost all heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This book describes it, though, the triangle diagram is nowhere present.

The best way i can think of to describe this book is that it is life-affirming. By that, i mean that Maslow recognizes that we have legitimate needs that must be met in order to be a healthy, growing person - he affirms the legitimacy of these needs, that repressing them can lead to becoming neurotic but meeting them in a healthy manner can enable one to self-actualize. I've underlined something on just about every page. He affirms "that our deepest needs are not, in themselves, dangerous or evil or bad," (p. 122) which he compares with "a special tendency in Western culture...to assume that these instinctoid needs of the human being, his so-called animal nature, are bad or evil. As a consequence, many cultural institutions are set up for the express purpose of controlling, inhibiting, suppressing, and repressing this original nature of man," (p. 126). The book gives a good understanding of what it means "to become more fully human," (127). I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and felt like it was very therapeutic to do so.

"Heaven lies waiting for us through life". Undoubtedly, A. Maslow is the great founding figure with regards to Self-Actualization psychology. His important research, studies, ideas of the fully growing and self-fulfilling human being, his digging into healthy people & peak experiences; and the psychology of Being, rather than Becoming are the true foundation of the PNL and NeuroSemantics houses that were then constructed.