Biography
Abraham Harold Maslow was born April 1st, 1908 in Brooklyn, New York. He was the oldest of seven children. He came from a poor uneducated Jewish family, however they did believe in education. His whole life he was bullied and experienced a lot of racism and ethnic prejudice. He had no friends so books, reading, and learning became his only interest in life. He was diagnosed as mentally unstable by a psychologist as a child. He wrote in his one book "I was a little Jewish boy in the non-Jewish neighborhood. It was a little like being the first Negro enrolled in an all-white school. I was isolated and unhappy. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends" (Hall, 1968, …show more content…
He often questioned the way other psychologists came to their conclusions and often times did not agree. Although he did not completely disagree he called his type of discipline “humanistic psychology”. Later he had two new mentors who he admired both personally and professionally; one of which was an anthropologist Ruth Benedict, and psychologist Max Wertheimer. Both mentors inspired him to spend his life-long research and thinking about mental health and human potential. He became a resident fellow in California at the Laughlin Institute. He realised his time was limited after experiencing an almost fatal heart attack, and then considered himself a psychological pioneer. He then retired shortly after due to his health and illnesses. Later Abraham Harold Maslow suffered a fatal heart attack on June 8th, 1970 at the age of 62 while jogging in Menlo Park, California.
Maslow’s Self-Actualization Theory
Maslow’s Self-Actualization Theory is solely based on a person’s whole potential and realisation of that potential. He first published this theory in 1943. The theory suggest that human needs can only be fulfilled one level at a time. His theory is a model of a pyramid, with the most basic needs at the bottom. There are 5 levels of needs; they include Physiological Needs, Safety Needs, Belonging Needs, Esteem Needs, and Self-Actualization.
1. The first level is Physiological needs these include the needs we have for oxygen, water, food, sex, sleep, and