Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- Maslow: Holistic
Dynamic Theory
(^282) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
Interpretation of Dreams(Freud, 1900/1953) and became keenly interested in psy-
choanalysis. In addition, his graduate-level research with primates was greatly influ-
enced by the work of John B. Watson (Watson, 1925). In his mature theory, however,
Maslow criticized both psychoanalysis and behaviorism for their limited views of
humanity and their inadequate understanding of the psychologically healthy person.
Maslow believed that humans have a higher nature than either psychoanalysis or be-
haviorism would suggest; and he spent the latter years of his life trying to discover
the nature of psychologically healthy individuals.
Biography of Abraham H. Maslow
Abraham Harold (Abe) Maslow had, perhaps, the most lonely and miserable child-
hood of any person discussed in this book. Born in Manhattan, New York, on April
1, 1908, Maslow spent his unhappy childhood in Brooklyn. Maslow was the oldest
of seven children born to Samuel Maslow and Rose Schilosky Maslow. As a child,
Maslow’s life was filled with intense feelings of shyness, inferiority, and depression.
Maslow was not especially close to either parent, but he tolerated his often-
absent father, a Russian-Jewish immigrant who made a living preparing barrels. To-
ward his mother, however, Maslow felt hatred and deep-seated animosity, not only
during his childhood, but until the day she died just a couple of years before
Maslow’s own death. Despite several years of psychoanalysis, he never overcame the
intense hatred of his mother and refused to attend her funeral, despite pleas from his
siblings who did not share his hateful feelings for their mother. A year before his own
death, Maslow (1969) entered this reflection in his diary:
What I had reacted against and totally hated and rejected was not only her
physical appearance, but also her values and world view, her stinginess, her total
selfishness, her lack of love for anyone else in the world, even her own husband
and children... her assumption that anyone was wrong who disagreed with her,
her lack of concern for her grandchildren, her lack of friends, her sloppiness and
dirtiness, her lack of family feeling for her own parents and siblings.... I’ve
always wondered where my Utopianism, ethical stress, humanism, stress on
kindness, love, friendship, and all the rest came from. I knew certainly of the
direct consequences of having no mother-love. But the whole thrust of my life-
philosophy and all my research and theorizing also has its roots in a hatred for
and revulsion against everything she stood for. (p. 958)
Edward Hoffman (1988) reported a story that vividly describes Rose Maslow’s
cruelty. One day young Maslow found two abandoned kittens in the neighborhood.
Moved with pity, he brought the kittens home, put them in the basement, and fed
them milk from a dish. When his mother saw the kittens, she became furious and, as
the young boy watched, she smashed the kittens’ heads against the basement walls
until they were dead.
Maslow’s mother was also a very religious woman who often threatened young
Maslow with punishment from God. As a young boy, Maslow decided to test his
mother’s threats by intentionally misbehaving. When no divine retribution befell
him, he reasoned that his mother’s warnings were not scientifically sound. From such
experiences, Maslow learned to hate and mistrust religion and to become a commit-
ted atheist.
276 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories