A Tale of Three Theorists

A Tale of Three Theorists

There are three theorists from different times, different schools of thought, and different lifestyles that share a common goal to further human development through constant research and progress. Maslow, Jung, and Rousseau are all theorists who believed in a pattern of development in stages, and although their stages differ greatly from each other, they have a common thread spun through them; the desire to discover why humans become the way they are. Each theorist has his own ideas and differences and some theories may seem similar, yet each is unique to its theorist. All of these personality theorists have made great strives to figure out how people acquire certain personality traits.

A small slice into the lives of each theorist will provide a look at there lifestyle, generation, and societal beliefs during their research periods. This will give understanding to their thoughts and theories.

Abraham Harold Maslow was born April 1, 1908 in Brooklyn, New York. He was the first of seven children born to his parents, who themselves were uneducated Jewish immigrants from Russia. His parents, hoping for the best for their children in the new world, pushed him hard for academic success. Not surprisingly, he became very lonely as a boy, and found his refuge in books (Dr. C. George Boeree, 2006). He received his BA in 1930, his MA in 1931, and his PhD in 1934, all in psychology, all from the University of Wisconsin. A year after graduation, he returned to New York to work with E. L. Thorndike at Columbia, where Maslow became interested in research on human sexuality.

He began teaching full time at Brooklyn College. During this period of his life, he came into contact with the many European intellectuals that were immigrating to the US, and Brooklyn in particular, at that time -- people like Adler, Fromm, Horney, as well as several Gestalt and Freudian psychologists.

Maslow served as the chair of the psychology department at Brandeis from 1951 to 1969. While there he met Kurt Goldstein, who had originated the idea of self-actualization in his famous book, The Organism (1934). It was also here that he began his crusade for a humanistic psychology -- something ultimately much more important to him than his own theorizing.

He spend his final years in semi-retirement in California, until, on June 8 1970, he died of a heart attack after years of ill health (Dr. C. George Boeree, 2006).

Carl Gustav Jung was born July 26, 1875, in the small Swiss village of Kessewil. His father was Paul Jung, a country parson, and his mother was Emilie Preiswerk Jung. He was surrounded by a fairly well educated extended family, including quite a few clergymen and some eccentrics as well (Dr. C. George Boeree, 2006).

Although his first career choice was archeology, he went on to study medicine at the University of Basel. While working under the famous neurologist Krafft-Ebing, he settled on psychiatry as his career.

After graduating, he took a position at the Burghoeltzli Mental Hospital in Zurich under Eugene Bleuler, an expert on (and the namer of) schizophrenia. In 1903, he married Emma Rauschenbach. He also taught classes at the University of Zurich, had a private practice, and invented word association at this time (Dr. C. George Boeree, 2006)!

World War I was a painful period of self-examination for Jung. It was, however, also the beginning of one of the most interesting theories of personality the world has ever seen (Dr. C. George Boeree, 2006).

After the war, Jung traveled widely, visiting, for example, tribal people in Africa, America, and India. He retired in 1946, and began to retreat from public attention after his wife died in 1955. He died on June 6, 1961, in Zurich (Dr. C. George Boeree, 2006).

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born on June 28, 1712 in Geneva, Switzerland. His mother died shortly after his birth. When Rousseau was 10 his father fled from Geneva to avoid imprisonment for a minor offense, leaving young Jean-Jacques to be raised by an aunt and uncle. Rousseau left Geneva at 16, wandering from place to place, finally moving to Paris in 1742. He earned his living during this period, working as everything from footman to assistant to an ambassador (Robin Chew, 1996/2006). On July 2, 1778, while walking at the estate of the Marquis de Giradin, Rousseau died of a sudden hemorrhage.

Each of the above mentioned theorist lived during a different time and each had a unique lifestyle and childhood; from pastor's son to uneducated immigrants. Yet each became a well-known theorist in his time as well as the present time.

Maslow, Jung, and Rousseau used stages to highlight their theories. Maslow created a hierarchy of needs; beyond the details of air, water, food, and sex, he laid out five broader layers: the physiological needs, the needs for safety and security, the needs for love and belonging, the needs for esteem, and the need to actualize the self, in that order (Dr. C. George Boeree, 2006). The first four needs are classified as deficit needs or D-needs; needs that you feel you don't have enough of, or a deficit of. The last level is a bit different. Maslow has used a variety of terms to refer to this level: He has called it growth motivation (in contrast to deficit motivation), being needs (or B-needs, in contrast to D-needs), and self-actualization (Dr. C. George Boeree, 2006).

These are needs that do not involve balance or homeostasis. Once engaged, they continue to be felt. In fact, they are likely to become stronger as we "feed" them! They involve the continuous desire to fulfill potentials, to "be all that you can be."