Actualizing Maslow with Neuro-Semantics

In the last Reflection (#6), I described Maslow’s model for Self-Actualization Psychology, the critical distinction he made between lower and higher needs, and how that he missed meaning. In this, Maslow was not cognitive enough in his approach. While he became a good friend to Adler and incorporated some of Adlerian psychology not his approach as well as some of the cognitive anthropology of Benedict and Meade (and of Bateson), and while Maslow discovered Korzybski and even spoke at one of the International Conferences on General Semantics in Mexico and quoted him about “the map is not the territory,” Maslow missed the meaning- making role and so did not incorporate that into his model or understandings of self- actualization. And it is this gap that we have, in Neuro-Semantic, addressed as we have incorporated it into our newest models on Self-Actualization in order to extend Maslow’s pioneering work.

This now enables us to explains why even our lower need have a certain degree of plasticity within them so that we can deny them, ignore them, channel them (subliminate) and even alter them so much that we experience them as an over-drive need or as a non-existent need.

Take something as basic as food. As a basic need, our bodies need and absolutely require nourishment. What we use as “food” (or attempt to use as food), however, we have to learn; it is not a given. Also, as we use our mind to attribute meanings to food and about food, we can over-load food semantically so that it means too much to us. We can semantically frame food as reward, being good, success, the good life, love, winning, sociality, etc. Doing this enables us to psycho-eat, that is, eat for psychological reasons. Then we can eat for reward and love, to prove that we have success, for de-stressing, etc.

Conversely, we can give food negative meanings and create an entirely different phenomenon. We can view food as dangerous, as fattening, as being out-of-control, of threatening femininity, etc. Doing this can lead to the eating disorders of anarexia and bulimia. Then we not-eat for psychological reasons or meanings.

Even life, survival, not-dying can be over-riddened by meanings. Otherwise we would not have suicide or martyrdom. In fact, all “needs” can be over-ridden, altered, and changed, by meanings. The meanings we give and attribute to our lower needs govern how we experience those needs. The heart of the matter in human affairs is meaning. So we ask, “What does that mean to you?” And whatever it means, that’s what it is for that person in that person’s mind- body system. He or she will feel that meaning, experience that meaning, perceive that meaning, etc.

For us in Neuro-Semantics, the Meta-States model mediates the dynamic structuring of meaning. As we reflexively think-and-feel about our constructions, we construct higher and higher levels of meaning. Given that, we can now take Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs model to yet another level of development. We add meaning attribution to the pyramid. Over the static hierarchy we now overlay the spiraling whirlwind of meaning creation. What happens when we do this? We transform the static and rigid pyramid so that it becomes a dynamic picture of how our layeirng of meanings influences, informs, and governs our basic needs.

You can still see one of the ways I first sought to work with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s in an article on the website about Self-Actualization. At the time my thought was to think of the different faces of the pyramid as different developmental stages as our meaning-making develops from merely experiencing our needs, to developing coping mechanisms for handling our needs, to finally mastering our drives.

A more recent development shifts from the multiple-face representation to representing the communication loops of the layering of meaning inside the pyramid. Beginning with the meaning spiral inside, we picture the highest self-actualization needs (to know, to order, to create beauty, etc.) as bursting forth from the top of the pyramid. As you imagine the pyramid. opening up at the top, see the higher or meta-needs exploring like fireworks.

See the higher needs shooting off in many directions and revealing an inverse invisible spiraling pyramid above it. This spiraling of meaning represents our self-reflexive awareness that layers levels upon levels of meanings and then spirals downward to inform and govern our needs. We still have the hierarchy, but it is now becoming a holoarchy. Now we can represent both the biological needs and the cognitive-connative meaning-making that uniquely distinguishes the human kind of consciousness.

That’s but one way we have begun to expand and extend the work of Maslow. The Self- Actualization Quadrants introduces yet another. Built from the twin Axes of Meaning and Performance, the Quadrants reveal the pathway to the zone of Self-Actualization, the flow zone. It, in fact, emerges as we integrate and synthesize our best meanings and performances.

What these models offer is a way to actualize Maslow and his pioneering development of Self- Actualization Psychology. After all, since his death, 36 years ago (1970) Maslow’s model and ideas of self-actualization have remained stagnant and, for the most part, unuseable. Yes, it was a pioneering advance when he enabled us to recognize the distinction between lower and higher needs. Yet, the Hierarchy of Needs as such offers no practical application. What can we do with it? The problem is that as a metaphor, it is too static and rigid and so doesn’t allow for doing something with it.

Yet because our mind-body-emotion system is dynamic and ever-changing, and operates within layers of family, language, and cultural frames interacting with others, to understand our drives, needs, and motivations and work with it to facilitate self-actualization, we need a systemic model about meaning that’s dynamic and flexible enough. To that end I have mostly been applying the Meta-States model nad again finding that it is enabling us to expand Maslow’s work to generate the Holoarchy of Needs that enables us to recognize the place our psycho-logics play, the fluid logical levels of our meta-states, and how all of it creates our Self-Actualization Matrix.

What’s the bottom line? We can now facilitate the unleashing of potentials with greater efficiency. And that leads to The Ultimate Self-Actualization Workshop: The Construct, the Crucible, and the Zone coming soon to an Institute of Neuro-Semantics near you!