SELF-ACTUALIZATION PSYCHOLOGY
The Psychology of the Bright Side of Human Nature
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantic Publications, 2008
Paperback, 280 pages, $25
Description: What is the actual “psychology” that fits for and describes
psychologically healthy people? If most of the history of psychology has described the sick and neurotic side of human nature, what psychology describes the bright side that’s healthy, robust, alive, and striving to become everything that’s possible? The answer is— Self-Actualization Psychology. This book covers the theory, premises, and nature of Self-Actualization Psychology as well as the history of the Third Force in Psychology.
Abraham Maslow launched the Third Force in Psychology in the 1940s as he modeled psychologically healthy people and created his Hierarchy of Needs model. This launched a new paradigm for the field of psychology—the positive psychology of growing and self-actualizing people. By shifting from abnormal and even normal psychology to studying the healthiest and best, the superior specimens of human beings, he began to pioneer “the farther reaches of human nature.” In the 1960 this led to the human potential movement and opened up many new approaches to human nature. And this is the psychology that Coaches—Personal Coaches, Executive Coaches, Business Coaches, etc. use.
While Maslow wrote five books on self-actualization, he never wrote the book that he wanted to on Self-Actualization Psychology. He never brought it all together as a model that makes explicit how the self-actualizing process actually works. So what Maslow did not do, due to his early and untimely death, Dr. Hall has completed.
This book also explores the demise of the Human Potential Movement as an exciting movement and all of the Growth Centers that arose during the 1960s and 1970s. What happened to that movement? Is it possible to launch a new human potential movement?
Self-Actualization Psychology completes what Maslow began and presents a full model of how self-actualization works, its premises and processes, its mechanisms and so takes Maslow’s work to the next level.
Style and Audience: This book complements Unleashed: A Practical Guide to Self-Actualization by identifying the psychology of self-actualization. As such it is an advanced book for those who want to understand this new psychology.