COMMENTS ON DR.

FRANKL'S PAPER
A. H. MASLOW Brandeis University THIS is obviously a most important paper which deserves the closest study and attention. Possible misunderstandings or mis-readings should be cleared away at once. We can then concentrate our attention on the true differences of opinion, which, hopefully, will then be debated and ultimately researched. One apparent difference of opinion is mostly, I think, a difference in strategy in advancing knowledge. Clinical and theoretical contributions have two kinds of usefulness. One is through their per se contributions to our understanding and enlightenment. If they are really insightful and correct, they change the reader and they change his view of the world. But these contributions also have a second kind of usefulness, in that they lay the ground for research; not only of the kind that plunges on into new territory, but also of the more technical kind that seeks for higher levels of reliability and firmer verifications, i.e., that improves the knowledge we already have. I see no conflict whatsoever between these two functions if they are perceived in an integrative and hierarchical fashion (Maslow, 1966). In such a view, the advancement of knowledge occurs in stages or levels, starting with simpler, exploratory beginnings and moving on up to more and more careful and technological work, toward higher and higher levels of confidence, etc. The controlled and pre-designed crucial experiment is a sort of last or highest step in such a progression (definitely not a beginning and definitely not the only method of science). If one accepts and integrates both of these functions of theoretical work, as I try to do, then this makes a real difference even in the first presentation of clinical or personological observations and conclusions. Most important, I believe, is the effort to phrase these first affirmations and conclusions as tentative, as hypotheses for testing. This implies phrasing them in one way rather than another; i.e., in a confirmabledisconfirmable form. This generally means moving from more inclusive and cosmic words to less inclusive ones, from more abstract to more concrete phrasings, from more poetic to less poetic, from more richness of implication to more delineated words, from words which mean different things to different people to words which mean the same things to different people, from words for which we don't yet have techniques of measuring and managing toward words for which we do have such techniques. This is all part of the strategy of moving onward and upward from

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the great insights and illuminations which set us into intellectual motion but which cannot yet be proved. It can also be seen as a kind of courtesy to other men presumed to be of good will - well-intentioned colleagues who are just as interested in the truth as is oneself. It is like saying, "I am convinced from various private experiences of mine that this is true. But I can understand that you might not be convinced. Indeed, you should not be since you haven't yourself experienced these particular perceptions and intuitions. Therefore, it is always in order to be amiably skeptical, to ask for evidence, to see with your own eyes, to check and verify, to put to the test, to repeat." One can then make such verification possible or not possible - by the way in which one phrases one's affirmations. Thus, I agree entirely with Frankl that man's primary concern (I would rather say "highest concern") is his will to meaning. But this may be ultimately not very different from phrasings by Buhler (1962), for instance, or Goldstein, or Rogers or others, who may use, instead of "meaning," such words as "values" or "purposes" or "ends" or "a philosophy of life" or "mystical fusion." As things stand now, different theorists use these and similar words in an overlapping or synonymous way. It would obviously help if they could be defined somewhat more carefully( not too carefully, however, until more data come in). Another general consequence of this "levels" conception of knowledge and of science is that an all-inclusive, over-arching generalization, however true, is very difficult to "work with" or to improve in clarity, usefulness, exactness, or in richness of detail. Thus, I certainly agreed with Goldstein, Rogers, and others that the one ultimate motivation is for self-actualization, but it has proven very helpful to spell this out in more detail (Maslow, 1954), to subject it to holisticanalysis, to give it operational definition, and then to compare the results of different operations. This "liaison work" between the "ideaman" and the tester and checker is already paying off, e.g., in making possible Shostrom's (1962) standardized test of self-actualization. Frankl's "will to meaning" and also Buhler's "four basic tendencies" are, I feel, compatible both with my empirical-personological description of self-actualizing people (1954) and with my theoretical statements in which self-actualization is used as a concept. First of all, not all grown people seek self-actualization and of course few people achieve it. There are other ways and goals of life as Buhler has maintained. The theoretical statement that all human beings in principle seek self-actualization and are capable of it applies ultimately to newborn babies. It is the same as saying that neurosis, psychopathy, stunting, diminishing, atrophy of potentials are not primarily inborn but are made. (This statement does not apply to the psychoses, where the evidence is not yet clear. It cannot be ruled out that heredity plays an important role.) It may also apply to adults in the sense that we shouldn't give up hope altogether even for those with a bad prognosis, e.g., drug addicts, psychopaths, as well as certain types of smug "normality" and "good adjustment" (to a bad society), resignation, apathy,
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etc. This parallels the medical profession's insistence on trying to save life even when it looks hopeless. Such an attitude is quite compatible with being completely "realistic." Secondly, my experience agrees with Frankl's that people who seek self-actualization directly, selfishly, personally, dichomotized away from mission in life, i.e., as a form of private and subjective salvation, don't, in fact, achieve it (unless the selfishness is for the sake of the call, vocation, or work, thereby transcending the dichomoty between unselfishness and selfishness). Or to say it in a more positive and descriptive way, those people in our society selected out as self-actualizing practically always have a mission in life, a task which they love and have identified with and which becomes a defining-characteristic of the self. And there was no instance in which I did not agree that it was a worthy job, worthwhile, important, ultimately valuable. This descriptive fact can be called self-actualization, authenticity, fulfillment, the achievement of meaning, self-transcendence, finding oneself, the unitive life, or by other names. The instances that I have seen in which persons sought direct, shortcut self-actualization were originally cases in which private "lower" pleasure, self-indulgence, and primitive hedonism ruled for too long a period of time. More recently, my impression is that impulsivity, the unrestrained expression of any whim, the direct seeking for "kicks" and for non-social and purely private pleasures (as with some who use LSD merely for "kicks' rather than for insight) is often mislabelled selfactualization. Or to say this from still another perspective, all self-actualizing persons that I have ever known were good workers, even hard workers - though they also knew how to not-work, to loaf, and to saunter (Maslow, 1965a). It is such facts that we have to deal with, these and, of course, many others of this sort. It is well to admit that there are, in principle, many abstract systems or languages that can organize and integrate these facts equally well or almost so. I am not inclined to make a big to-do about the particular labels so long as they do not obscure or deny the facts. Indeed, at this level of knowledge I think it useful to have various points of view on the same world of facts because, through other people's eyes, we can see more than we can with only our own. It is better to consider this intellectual situation synergic (Maslow, 1965a) or collaborative rather than rivalrous. Science, at least as I define it (1966), is a division of labor among colleagues. I think a similar type of discussion is in order with reference to Dr. Frankl's remarks on peak-experiences. I feel I know what Dr. Frankl is trying to say and I agree with his intention, as I did with his cautionary remarks on the mistakes that can be made with self-actualization. I'm pretty sure that we have understood each other in conversation and in correspondence. And yet it is well to spell everything out for others, and also to add what I have learned more recently. Hunting peak-experiences directly doesn't ordinarily work. Gener-

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ally they happen to a person. We are ordinarily "surprised by joy." Also it becomes increasingly clear that it is wise, for research strategy, to stress the separability of the emotional aspect from the cognitive
aspect of peak-experiences. It is more clear to me now that peakemotions may come without obvious insight or growth or benefit of any kind beyond the effects of pleasure itself. Such raptures may be very profound and yet be almost contentless. The prime examples are sex and LSD, but there are others as well. Sex, LSD, etc., may bring illumination, or they may not. Furthermore, insight (B-Cognition) can come without emotional ecstasies. Indeed, B-Cognition can come from pain, suffering, and tragedy, as Dr. Frankl has helped to teach us (1959). Also, I would today stress even more than I have in the past, the prime importance of "resistance to peak-experiences," which I once called in a humorous moment "non-peaking." People may either not have peak-experiences or they may repress or suppress them, be afraid of them, and deny them or interpret them in some reductive and desacralizing way. The consequences of being a "non-peaker" loom larger and larger as the years go by. I agree with Colin Wilson (in his Introduction to the New Existentialism) in attributing to this one factor much of the difference between pessimistic, hopeless, anguished NaySaying cn the one hand, and coping, striving, hopeful, unconquerable Yea-Saying, on the other hand. Dr. Frankl's remarks on tension and overcoming are very relevant and very useful in this connection. As for the similarity of all pleasures, certainly there is a subjective quality which is generally different from suffering, or despair, or pain. In this sense, any pleasure is a pleasure and falls within the same class as any other pleasure. And yet there is also a hierarchy of pleasures (the cessation of pain, the moratorium of drunkenness, the relief of urination, the pleasure of a hot bath, the contentment of having done a job well, the satisfaction of success, on up through the happiness of being with loved friends, the rapture of being in love, the ecstasy of the perfect love act, on up to the final pleasure-beyond-pleasure of the mystical fusion with the universe). Thus, in one very real sense, all pleasures are similar; in another equally real sense, they are not. We must certainly accept Dr. Frankl's cautions about contentless pleasure and about the necessity for relating pleasure to its trigger, to its context, and also to its consequences. (One day we shall have to go even further for we shall soon have to grapple with the difficult problem of pleasurable emotions coming from neurotic or psychotic or perverted sources. Like the medieval theologians who had to differentiate the voice of God within from the voice of the devil within, we shall soon have to start questioning the absolute and sacred authority accorded by many today to the "inner voice," "the voice of conscience,' etc.) And yet once we have agreed with Dr. Frankl on the intellectual dangers of making pleasure into a deity, we can then feel quite free to enjoy the small and harmless pleasures of life. Even if they teach us nothing, they are still a blessing. Pleasure itself is not a danger; it is

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only the man-made theories about pleasure that are a danger. It may be apropos to summarize here my own intepretation of these same facts, if only for purposes of comparison. I have already published brief resumes of the theory of Meta-motivation in recent books (1964, 1965a). Also relevant is my paper "After Self-Actualization, What?" in Bugental's forthcoming volume on Humanistic Psychology. Investigation of self-actualizing people shows that in all cases they are devoted to a cause or calling beyond themselves. When I tried to classify and condense perhaps 1,000 single statements these people made about their work, revealing the reasons why they were committed to it and the rewards they got from it, I found that the categories of this condensation or classification were approximately the same as what I have called the B-Values (1964). It could then be said that the calling was a vehicle of or an embodiment or incarnation of the ultimate values of truth, goodness, beauty, justice, oneness, order, comprehensiveness, perfection, etc. It could then be said that these people, who were already gratified in their basic needs (and so were no longer motivated by them), were motivated essentially by the eternal verities, by the spiritual values, by the religious values, by the ultimate nature of Being itself. (And it can be phrased in other traditional and nontraditional ways as well.) These values can also be seen as needs (metaneeds) since their absence produces particular kinds of pathology (metapathologies). That is, they are good for the person. For this and all the other reasons listed (Maslow, 1965b, pp. 33-47) they may be characterized as instinctoid. If my conclusion holds up and is confirmed, then it will be possible to say that what has been called the higher life or the spiritual life, etc., is founded solidly in the biological nature of the human species. But these motivators of self-actualizing people are different in some ways from basic needs and deficiency-motives. For one thing, they are identified with by the person, interiorized, introjected, taken into the self. Indeed, they become the self, for they become defining-characteristics of it. But this obliterates the wall between self and other, inner and outer, selfish and unselfish. For if I am identified with truth or beauty or justice, then it is outside of me as well as inside of me. Thus, the highest meanings of the world outside become part of the self, and, also, the highest self and its highest aspirations or yearnings or meanings are now seen as truly part of the world, just as impersonal as they are personal. While there is still a useful conceptual difference between drives and yearnings, pushes and pulls at most levels, the difference becomes shadowy and may even be transcended at this highest level in which the highest values of the world and of the person become the same. We come very close to a Spinozistic position here, since discovering and loving one's task in life, one's life-work, is much like uncovering one's physiological or constitutional destiny or fate. This is so because we find what we are able to do best for constitutional and temperamental reasons of capacity, of skill, of endowment. This process of

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then becomes one with one's work. Then of course we love our fate and blissfully embrace it, so to speak. Even the term "motivation" is not quite right for describing this level of functioning. It might be better to talk of "love for" rather than "need for," of "yearning toward" or "aspiring to" rather than "motivated by." Surrendering now becomes no different from willing. Certainly we need a new vocabulary here. In any case, it is possible to be gratified in the basic needs and yet if we are not then also committed to the metaneeds or Values of Being, we seem to fall prey to meaninglessness, existential vacuum, anomie, noogenic neurosis, valuelessness, etc., i.e., to general metapathology. The metapathologies which are the consequences of deprivation of truth, beauty, justice, goodness, order, etc., are "higher" illnesses than the neuroses, which seem rather to come from the deprivation of the basic needs for security, for love, for respect and self-esteem. My hope is that such a theoretical schema will (a) give more detailed meaning to the word "self-transcendence" and (b) will open up clearly visible paths of research.

discovering our vocation is certainly part of the process of discovering our identity, the most real self. In the best instance, one's self and one's work discover each other, fall in love with each other, and fuse. One

REFERENCES
BUHLER, CHARLOTTE. Values in psychotherapy. Free Press, 1962. FRANKL, V. From death-camp to existentialism. Beacon Press, 1959. MASLOW, A. H. Motivation and personality. Harper & Bros., 1954. MASLOW, A. H. Religions, values, and peak-experiences. Ohio State Univer. Press, 1964. MASLOW, A. H. Eupsychian management: a journal. Irwin, Dorsey, 1965a. MASLOW, A. H. Criteria for judging needs to be instinctoid. In M. R. Jones (Ed.), Human motivation: a symposium. Univer. Nebraska Press, 1965b. MASLOW, A. H. The psychology of science. Harper & Row, 1966. SHOSTROM, E. Personal orientation inventory. San Diego, Calif.: Educational & Industrial Testing Service, 1962.

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