T3 - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Self-Actualization

Up until now, we've been dealing with the four lower levels of Maslow's pyramid. These levels make up what Maslow called the Deficit Needs, because if a person doesn't have enough of something--i.e., a deficit--they feel the need. Maslow's theory was that Self-Actualization occurs when a person not only meets the lower, deficit needs, but masters them.

When a person reaches Self-Actualization, they reach their full potential. People desire to be everything that they are capable of being, becoming more and more of what they are. It's a state of harmony and understanding. This is a broad concept for Self-Actualization, but when applied to individuals, it can be very specific.

One character might desire to be an author or a good parent. Someone else might want to be a pro football player or invent something special. When these things happen, among others, these individuals will have a Peak Experience. A Peak Experience is a profound moment when the person is supremely happy, full of love and understanding, where they feel whole, vibrant, and aware. Self-Actualizing people have many Peak Experiences.

When I started thinking about characters in our books, this theory can dovetail off of Debra Dixon's Goal, Motivation & Conflict (GMC). What our character most wants, his ultimate goal, could also be called his Self-Actualization. The conflict would be the Deficit Needs going unmet or being derailed. I figured the motivation to reach a person's Self-Actualization would originate from one of the Deficit Needs not being met--perhaps for a long time, like a childhood hurt of learning your birth parents gave you up for adoption, or a lifelong hurt of never feeling safe and always having to look over your shoulder. A person could be motivated to be the best financial provider for his family (Self-Actualization) because his father left them and his mother always struggled to make ends meet. See how this could fit with GMC?

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Maslow had a theory. It may or may not float your boat, or it may be a useful way or organizing and prioritizing a character's needs. There has been little evidence found for why Maslow ranked the needs on his pyramid like he did. Some researchers didn't find evidence for a hierarchy at all.

One thing that is definitely true: characters can skip around or jump through the hierarchy, and as blogger buddy Livia Blackburne pointed out, the theory could explain why it's so interesting or admirable when a character skips around on the pyramid.

Livia wrote, "Girls swoon over Edward Cullen because he breaks the expectations of the pyramid -- ignoring his need for food in order to meet a 'higher' need. In the same way, we admire a monk who fasts for a month in order to get religious enlightenment. Jumping the pyramid makes you larger than life -- and in some cases, storyworthy."

Couldn't agree more and couldn't have said it better myself. Give a character enough of a motivation or conflict, and you can really play around with these levels.

Q4U: Have you ever purposefully had a character "jump the pyramid" (even if at the time, you didn't know that was what he or she was doing)? How'd it turn out for you?

BONUS Q4U: Any suggestions you might have of some topic you might want covered for Thursday Therapeutic Thoughts?

Gail Sattler's The Narrow Path Review

Gail Sattler's The Narrow Path released this month, and I had the privilege of reading an advanced copy of it.

Here's a blurb from Gail's website about the book:

CAN TWO PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT WORLDS FIND LOVE SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE?

Miranda feels like she’s been transported back to Little House On The Prairie, and Ted’s head spins when Miranda reads her Bible on her cell phone. Yet Miranda Klassen and Ted Wiebe must find a way to make peace to meet their common goal to open the doors of Ted’s Old Order Mennonite church and community. Will they also find love in the process?

I read this book almost in one sitting. It was light-hearted yet deep, funny and serious in just the right places. And I have to say....she has one of the absolute best "I love you" scenes I've ever read. I sighed SO long afterward.

The aspect of this book I liked the most from a therapeutic perspective is how Gail tackles the very important issue of opposites attracting. Just how important is it for two people to be on the same "page" when they are dating or considering marriage?

As a therapist, I've had to tackle this issue from both sides of marriage: couples who married and realized after the fact how different they are and couples who wondered if marriage was right for them considering their extremely different backgrounds/values/insert-various-dilemmas-to-overcome-here.

Gail does such a good job of showing the characters struggle with this very issue. The reader travels along with them as they encounter their differences with initial shock and dislike, gradual compromise, and eventual embrace of their dissimilarities.

In my opinion, the ending--while very satisfying--wraps up the geographical point of difference between the couple rather abruptly. However, Ted and Miranda do come to a point in both their lives that is healthy and mature as they overcome their differences.

Bottom line, this was a great read, and one I'd recommend for ministers or therapists to keep on hand when faced with couples who might be in a similar situation. Differences can be like the frosting of a cinnamon bun rather than the mold! (Read the book to get this!)

You can read the first 3 chapters of Gail's book here.

Order The Narrow Path from Christianbook.com or Amazon.com or Cokesbury.com or Barnesandnoble.com.

Treatment Tuesday: OCD v. OCPD

This week's assessment is from Karissa. She wrote in wanting to know the difference between obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

How happy I am to oblige! I did a post not too long ago about Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) here, so I won't go into that again. But the analogy I used on that post was that if neurosis was water and a person was a sponge, a person with OCPD would be completely saturated while a person with OCD would just be wet.

People with OCD are trapped in a pattern of endless thoughts and behaviors that really don't make a lot of sense and can't be stopped. The obsessive thought drives the compulsive action in a vicious cycle.

Obsessions have 4 criteria that all have to be present:

1) Thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced as intrusive and inappropriate. They usually case marked anxiety or distress.

2) The thoughts are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems (like checking the doorknob and windows locks in a run-down neighborhood where break-ins are common).

3) The person attempts to ignore/suppress these thoughts or neutralize them with some other thought or action (the compulsion part of the equation).

4) The person recognizes that the obsessive thoughts are a product of their own mind.

Compulsions have 2 criteria:

1) Repetitive behaviors (like hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (like praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the person feelings driven to perform in response to an obsession (see above) or to be in accordance with some rigid set of rules they have in their life.

2) The behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress (like preventing some dreadful event---like a break-in), but they aren't connected in a realistic way or are clearly excessive.

So a person with OCD has to fit the above picture, but they also have to realize at some point that the obsessions and compulsions are excessive or unreasonable and they do the following:

1) cause marked distress

2) be time consuming (like more than 1 hour a day)

3) significantly interfere with the person's normal routine (occupation or academic fuctioning, as well as social activities or relationships

People with OCD don't want to be OCD. They don't relish it. Their mind is a mind that just won't quit. They have no peace, no calm. That's what it's an anxiety disorder.

So while people with OCPD might share similar characteristics with OCD sufferers, the biggest difference might be that people with the personality disorder aren't in as much mental anguish. Some might even enjoy being the way they are...perfectionistic, conscientious, detailed, devoted, overly productive.

Hopefully this clears it up. I'm glad Karissa asked, because I meant to clarify this more after that personality disorder post and forgot! So thanks for the reminder.

Q4U: Any OCD or OCPD people in your books? How do you/could you find a balance between showing the obsessions and the compulsions within the written page?

A Little Transparancy

We write what we know, right? From the roots of our pain or happiness or guilt can come words that can heal, trap, or free ourselves. Writing is just that powerful.

I recently finished an article that had it's origins in tender teenage years, and I decided to be transparent in the hopes that other teen girls might learn from my mistakes. My article for SAGE Girl's Ministry for May is out already, and I wanted to share this little piece of my painful history--and subsequent joyous revelation--with my blogging friends, as well.


Here's the link to my Parent Pointers article on Modest Waiting:

http://www.sageministries.org/parent-pointers-modest-waiting

If you know of a young person who might benefit from reading this and other articles like it, please share this site with them. While it's intended for young girls, parents and others can benefit as well.

Happy Monday!

T3 - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Esteem Needs

Now we're getting into the upper levels of needs according to Maslow. (If you missed the first three levels, click on the following to access them: Basic Needs, Safety Needs, and Social Needs.)

Aretha can sing it better than I can type it....so here's what Maslow's fourth level in his pyramid is all about:



People want to be respected, esteemed by others. This type of external respect is the lower order of Esteem Needs. You might say this is the need for status, recognition and prestige. We want to be valued and accepted by others. This could come in the form of attention, reputation, dignity, and even dominance over others. A person can be famous or have national/international glory, but both require the opinions of others (the public) to make them so.

This is considered a "lower" need because it's based on the opinions of others and it's not intrinsic to yourself. This kind of esteem can come and go, and can certainly be lost. Just ask Tiger Woods.

A higher order Esteem Need is to have internal self-respect and self-esteem. This is when we want to feel that we've contributed something worthwhile, something of value. To have inner strength, competence, mastery, independence, freedom, and self-confidence. Something that we do--activities, club, our jobs, or hobbies--or something we live through and experience gives us this feeling of contribution and competency.

This is a "higher" level because the idea is once you respect yourself, it's harder to lose that respect.

These two levels of Esteem Needs aren't a package deal. You can have one and not have the other. A character who has low self-esteem will not be able to improve their view of themselves by receiving accolades and fame. A narcissist would think highly of themselves, but wouldn't have the external esteem to go with it because let's face it. Who really likes narcissists?

When this need isn't met, a person or character could have low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. Helplessness, depression, or emotional weakness can also happen if these needs are deprived of realization.

Q4U: Have you ever thought about the two types of respect needs? Internal v. external? Lots of plots revolve around this particular Need on Maslow's pyramid. Is yours one of them?

Treatment Tuesday - Claustrophobia

This week's assessment is from Lindy*. She wrote in a few scenario questions which happen to go really well with Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs that we've been looking at for Thursday Therapeutic Thoughts.

* Name has been changed to protect the not-so-fictional.

Lindy wants to know: If a character has a phobia of small places like closets and elevators, and is being held by a killer in a shed, how would she react? Would she be more concerned about the killer murdering her or will the phobia overpower her?

I'm going to answer this question strictly from Maslow's theory and we'll see how the character could be written out.

Linday has given her character claustrophobia--a fear of small places. This isn't a clinical term for an actual diagnosis, which may or may not be important for you to know. This character would likely fall under the diagnosis of agoraphobia, with or without panic disorder, or perhaps generalized anxiety disorder if they don't meet all the qualifications for agoraphobia.

People who suffer from claustrophobia are usually afraid of two things: 1) being restricted and 2) being suffocated. I'll break these down according to which of Maslow's Needs. What's at stake when a person is restricted, either by movement of arms or limbs or being unable to stand or move at will? It's the fear of not being safe, not being able to get your person--your body--out of danger. Being restricted plays out on Maslow's pyramid as a Safety Need. A person with this disorder would move mountains not to be put in such a dangerous situation to them as being shoved in a shed.

Being suffocated is a different story. What's at stake? Not being able to breath, i.e., not being able to stay alive. This is a Basic Need, arguably the most basic need of all. Everything else pales to not being able to breathe. This is why most people with agoraphobia are diagnosed hand-in-hand with panic disorder.

A character in this situation will likely have a panic disorder at the idea that they won't be able to breathe. It's a catch 22, of course, because as they have the panic attack, their airway does close off, making it more difficult to drag in a breath, consequently making them feel as if they are starving of oxygen. I can only imagine how truly awful it is to think you can't get a breath. Think of people with asthma. *sigh* Huge Basic Need problem. (FYI, Brandilyn Collins does a terrific job of describing full blown panic attacks in her book Exposure. Excellent read.)

Bottom line will be that you've got to think through how bad a phobia you want to give her. I don't care to be stuck in an elevator going up 50 flights. I can do it without sweating and I don't consider myself claustrophobic. But if I had a preference, I would have Scotty beam me up instead.

But you've also added the little tidbit of a killer about to murder her. While she's in that shed, the threat of the killer is really a Safety Need threat. He's not actively trying to kill her. If, say, he were trying to gag her, that's the need of oxygen, which is a Basic Need. If he's trying to chase at her with a knife, then it's the need to avoid pain/survive, a Basic Need.

So the character is in the shed with two Safety Needs not being met and likely one Basic Need not being met, that of lack of oxygen because she's probably hyperventilating in the confined space, thinking she's going to suffocate. In this scenario, with a true claustrophobic, I guarantee that her will to draw in a breath will outweigh some future threat of danger from the killer-slash-kidnapper.

Of course, Maslow's theory is a theory. But I happen to think it makes an awful lot of sense.

Hope this helps Lindy!

Q4U: Any claustrophobics in your novels? Do they have panic disorder to accompany their fear?

T3 - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Social Needs

Thanks for joining me again in this series. We're to the third level in Maslow's pyramid, Social Needs. (If you missed it, I already covered the first level, Basic Needs, and the second need, Safety Needs.) Once a person has taken care of themselves physically, they are ready to share themselves with others in a meaningful way, and that leads to social needs.

Social Needs encompasses the need for love and belonging, by both small social connections and larger social groups. In fact, many versions of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs calls the Social Needs level the Psychological or Love Needs.

At this point, people want to be surrounded by friends, a sweetheart, a spouse, children, neighbors, office coworkers, church, community. This is a need to have relationships, either through marriage, having a family, being a part of a fraternity, a gang, or a bowling or gardening club. This truly is a psychological need, one you feel with both your head and your heart. It's intimacy, and it's much more than just sex at this level. It's the need to love and be loved, and that's in a sexual and non-sexual way.

With this need also comes the fear of being alone or looking foolish. At the extreme, this could lead to clinical depression. There are some times when this need is so strong, it overcomes the Basic and Safety Needs, as in the case of an anorexic who may ignore the need to eat and the security of health to have a feeling of belonging and acceptance and control.

I could throw out so many scenarios for writers to consider regarding this theory of a needs heirarchy. For you historical writers out there, think of the carpetbagger who moves around with no clear knowledge of where they might stay. Wouldn't their first priorities be having a place to sleep? a place to eat? Would it really be to find love?

What about the severe mental disorder of Borderline Personality Disorder? These individuals are so driven by their emotional needs that they act in hysterical and disturbing ways at times, definitely capable of jeopardizing their own safety.

What other scenarios can you think of that either do or don't fall in line with Maslow's theory? (Keeping in mind that it's just that...a theory....not a fact.) :)