Fritz Perls was one of the founders of Gestalt Psychotherapy. One of his more famous – because outrageous – statements was his assessment of Abraham Maslow. Abraham Maslow was a fore-runner of the Positive Psychology movement.
If you have heard of Maslow it is probably because he formulated a hierarchy of human needs – the lower needs had to be met before the higher could be addressed. The lower needs were food, shelter, security and so forth. The highest need – at the top of the hierarchy – was self-actualisation.
My problem with hierarchy is one often expressed: can only wealthy Americans be fulfilled? The hierarchy seems to mean that the starving can’t be altruistic or become more truly themselves (self-actualised); but actually, in times of great need, people do make choices to self-actualise. So I prefer to collapse the hierarchy and just see it as a list of human needs. It can then act as a check-list so that we can see what aspects of a situation need to be addressed by showing us which needs aren’t being met.
Maslow asked what psychology and psychotherapy would be like if, instead of studying the traumatised, we studied those who were truly admirable. This is similar to the project of today’s Positive Psychology.
Back to Fritz. Fritz assessment of Maslow was:
a sugar-coated fascist.
By which he meant that Maslow was standing in judgement on who were and weren’t admirable human beings. This is a fair point. Positive Psychology doesn’t really say why some things are positive and others negative: except that they are related to happiness. But then what makes some people happy is cruelty – I have seen nothing where Positive Psychology deals with this need to justify which things they see as positive. (I agree with what they see as positive but this is a long way short of justifying my choice.)
And yet . . . can we really do away with value judgements?
I simply don’t believe those who lie in public for their own benefit (yes, I do mean politicians) are as admirable as those who have compassion for others and their situation (parents, teachers and so on). Even if it were possible to do away with value judgements in psychotherapy would it be desirable? Imagine: “Yes I understand you are going to kill me and then kill as many people as possible. Well, those are your values and that’s OK by me.” This just doesn’t wash with me. (At a deeper level it is an impossible position to hold consistently: to be committed to no value judgements is in itself a value laden position – it is a value judgement of its own.)
My inclination is toward Maslow and away from Fritz. I don’t think we can do away with value judgements, or that it is desirable to do so. What I do think is that we should have a good understanding of our values and some reasons for holding them. I also think we need to respectfully listen to others with different values (even politicians) be willing to change our own. I think if we can do this (and it is by no means easy) we can overcome Fritz objection and avoid standing in judgement over others and the choices they have made in the difficult situations of their own lives.
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