MASLOW’S PEAKS

.................................... by Stanley

.......Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was one of the founders of humanistic psychology. He coined the term ‘peak experience’ to describe the non-religious, mystical-type experience of happiness. He was an empirical scientist who wanted to examine the realities of wellbeing rather than the pathologies of sickness. He was not selling positivism, but trying to find some further truths about human nature.
....... Critics of humanistic psychology regard the notion of ‘peak experiences’ as a hedonistic philosophy - a morality based on pleasure. Psychologist James Hillman observed that peaks and highs say nothing of the worth of the person having them, for they can occur among psychopaths and criminals, inferring that a serial killer can have a high for each victim he strangles. Transcendence by means of a high on drugs, he said, is a psychopathological state in disguise.
.......Such overall criticism is too hopelessly pessimistic. In seeking criteria for what is worthwhile, if we want to know what is valuable in life, where else can we look but to the experience of happiness?
.......But an arsonist’s thrill, a sadistic bully’s arousal, an evangelist’s mania, an abuser’s titillation, a glue-sniffer’ high, a shoplifter’s adrenalin buzz, can hardly be called states of happiness. Perhaps they do give a distant glimmer of the real thing, but they are twisted, divisive and manic, burdened and convoluted with repression. They only give only a slither of sensation when sensibility is all but suppressed, where the true experience of happiness is no longer possible. Such highs are cut off and out of touch; they are certainly not the ‘peak experiences’ that Maslow describes.
.......Maslow was interested in creative people who were, as he said, ‘self-actualising’ and more liable to have ‘peak experiences’. But he knew that ‘self actualisation’ was not limited to ‘especially creative people’, to artists, poets, writers and so on. He did not wish to exclude the creativity of ordinary people. He maintained that ‘a first rate soup is better than a second rate painting’.
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