Revolution begins with a belief. It begins with a new perspective. It begins with a question. Our revolution began with a question posed by Abraham Maslow – “What about the healthy side ?”
It was in his book, Abnormal Psychology, and this question was posed from time to time as he and his co-author, psychiatrist Bela Mittelmann, wrote an encyclopedia of human pathologies. Maslow essentially asked: “Okay, that’s the story with this particular pathology of how human nature can go wrong, but about how it can go right, how it can succeed, be healthy, and reach the heights of possibilities?”
The revolution began by modelling two incredibly healthy individuals (Ruth Benedict and Max Wertheimer) who were making a difference in their worlds. Afterwards that modelling of their self-actualising characteristics was extended out to hundreds, and then thousands of other people, showing some of the same qualities. Eventually Maslow had a list of the characteristics of this “syndrome,” this experience of a self-actualising person. He effectively developed a model of the inner needs that drive a person and how, developmentally, a self-actualising person learns to meet those needs, even learn how to master their needs, and eventually move to the level of the highest needs- the needs to actualise one’s highest and best.
The revolution then launched a movement, the human potential movement, and attracted Fritz Perls, Gregory Bateson, and Virginia Satir to become a part of it. In fact, they became part of the second generation of leaders in that movement. Scores of other people that we now recognise as key voices in self-development were also drawn to California in those earlier years (1963 to 1980). And whilst that first human potential movement failed to maintain its momentum and dispersed into dozens of other groups and movements, the spark at the heart of the revolution continued.
Given that NLP has direct roots in that revolution through Perls, Bateson, and Satir as well as the ‘presuppositions’ that came mostly from Maslow and Rogers, NLP continued the revolution unconsciously. Then, in around 2005, Neuro-Semantics launched a new human potential movement using and applying the tools of Self-Actualisation Psychology.
This means that there are some incredibly powerful tools for making the vision of self-actualising individuals and organisations real in today’s world. They highlight that actualising excellence in any area involves making it richly and robustly meaningful and then developing the competence to perform it. This is true in any sphere – athletic competition, business development, or in personal relationships.
Where is this revolution heading? What will be the direction of this revolution in the days and weeks and years to come? The truth is that we don’t know. All we do know is that there is so much more to discover.
So if you believe that our highest drive as human beings is to tap within and liberate human potentials in yourself and others in order to create an incredibly better world, then come join the revolution!
If you believe that within every person there are fascinating possibilities for becoming so much more, if you believe that, together, we can facilitate the liberating of human potentials in organisations, businesses, families, politics, and a thousand other domains, then come join the revolution!
Are you ready to sign up?
Co-authored with Dr. L. Michael Hall
