The other self-actualization: What's the difference between Maslow and Rogers?

a post by Matt Davis for the Big Think blog

Most of us have heard of Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs, but Maslow doesn't have a monopoly on self-actualization.

• Along with Maslow, Carl Rogers helped pioneer the field of humanistic psychology.
• Although most associate the term "self-actualization" with Maslow, it's a concept that's frequently found in humanistic psychological literature.
• What's the difference between Maslow's and Rogers' versions of self-actualization, and what can we learn from Rogers?

One could be forgiven for thinking that the term "self-actualization" was developed entirely by Abraham Maslow. Today, there are very few contexts where one can hear the term outside of Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs. But in fact, the twentieth century featured many humanistic psychologists who used the term to mean one thing or another. It was first coined by psychologist Kurt Goldstein, who used it to refer to something very similar to what Maslow would later focus on: the tendency for human beings to become all that they can, that "what a man can be, he must be."

Continue reading

---