Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Humanistic Psychology and Addiction

Abraham Maslow was one of the most innovative and influential psychologists of the mid-20th century. A truly original thinker, in the 1950s and 1960s Maslow became the primary spokesman for the humanistic school of psychology, which in contrast to Freudian psychoanalysis and behaviorism, focused largely on man’s potential for great achievement rather than simply studying mental illness, psychopathology, and dysfunction. The ongoing human potential movement, which first arose to prominence in the late 60s, was an outgrowth of humanistic psychology and owes much of its focus and ideological structure to the work of Maslow and those who have continued to popularize his ideas in the decades since his death in 1970.

In many ways, Maslow was the quintessential American thinker, optimistic to a fault but thoroughly pragmatic in his orientation. As an intellectual anthropologist he was fascinated by human success and accomplishment, and he was convinced that mental disorders and neuroses were actually symptoms of minds in rebellion against arbitrary limits placed upon them by a society trapped in a cycle of existential pessimism and despair. According to Maslow and the humanist psychologists he helped to inspire, when a human being’s natural course of development is frustrated or interrupted, dysfunctional states of consciousness and self-destructive behavior are the predictable result, as individuals who are stifled in their attempts to reach their full potential become stranded at a level of emotional maturity that leaves them unable to plan and manage their own lives efficiently and effectively.

Abraham Maslow’s psychological ideas were encapsulated in a 1943 article called A Theory of Human Motivation, which postulated the existence of a five-level hierarchy of needs that subconsciously shape and determine the actions of every individual. Each of these levels transcends but includes the levels that come before, and only when all of these fundamental needs have been met in succession can a human being rise above such limiting factors as habit, routine, peer pressure, chronic depression, and so on.

The five types of needs that must be met, in order from the most fundamental to the most sublime, are as follows:

• Physiological/biological (breathing, food, water, warmth, sleep, procreation)
• Safety (shelter, protection from danger, emotional security, financial independence)
• Belonging (love, friendship, affection, peer group acceptance, sexual intimacy)
• Esteem (self-esteem, self-confidence, attaining the respect of others)
• Self-actualization (creativity, high moral standards, transpersonal empathy and compassion, open-mindedness, lack of prejudice, focused problem solving)

While the first four types of needs require outside inputs in order to be satisfied, when a person reaches the level of self-actualization they become masters of their own fate, able to create what Maslow referred to as "peak experiences" almost at will. These episodes of extraordinary accomplishment or insight are actually achievable at all levels of human development, but only when a person ascends to the peak of the hierarchy can success become a deliberate choice and a habitual way of life.

Maslow on Addiction

Maslow perceived a strong spiritual element in the self-actualized state, and he believed that when people’s attempts to evolve to this highest level of existence were frustrated it would cause them to experience an inner void of spiritual emptiness that they would do anything to fill. Maslow listed drug addiction and alcoholism as one of the many outer manifestations of this inner void, as those who became dependent on intoxicating substances were really attempting to escape from the angst caused by their failed searches for deeper meaning, and by their inability to cast the penetrating light of truth and self-perception into the shadows of their haunted psyches.

While his attempt to link addiction to spiritual frustration is intriguing and thought-provoking, in applying his ideas to chemical dependency and the psychology of the substance abuser we need not be limited to this singular perspective. Maslow’s concept of a graded hierarchy of needs can function as a useful analytical tool in a more comprehensive, deeply-layered approach to the study of addiction that will allow us to see it as a natural outgrowth of arrested development, regardless of the stage at which that development has been stopped.

So at the physiological level, when the most basic human survival requirements are not being consistently met, people may turn to drugs or alcohol because it is literally the only avenue of escape to which they have access. The connection between homelessness, for example, and substance abuse is well-known, and while the cause-and-effect relationship in these cases is not always clear (what came first, the ‘chicken’ of substance abuse or the ‘egg’ of extreme poverty?), drugs and alcohol may help those who have nothing left hide from the true deprivation of their existence. Second-level safety deficiencies may also lead those who feel insecure to seek a chemically-induced liberation from their persistent sense of dread and anxiety, which could explain why those suffering from PTSD so often turn to drugs and alcohol to help them cope with the constant emotional strain. Going further up the chart, at the third and fourth levels it is not hard to imagine that those who are lonely or who have poor self-esteem may be tempted to use and abuse drugs and alcohol to anaesthetize their emotional pain and help them forget for awhile just how uncomfortable they feel in their own skin. Finally, when a person seems to have had all of his needs satisfied, but is still left with the feeling that there is something missing and that there must be more to life, as Maslow speculates such a tortured soul may indeed be especially vulnerable to the seductive lure of mind-altering substances. The depression and uncertainty that plagues those who have failed to self-actualize and develop their full potential as human beings may send them racing into the welcoming arms of drugs and alcohol, as they desperately seek an effective means to quiet their inner voices of profound doubt and confusion.

From the Valley to the Mountain

Abraham Maslow and the humanistic school of psychology posit that men and women come into the world endowed with substantial gifts and abilities, and if their natural desire to realize their amazing potential is thwarted, emotional and behavioral problems will inevitably develop as a result. There is little doubt that recovering substance abusers need something new to replace the chasm left behind when drugs and alcohol are no longer part of the equation, and focusing on the extraordinary things they will be capable of accomplishing once they find sobriety may be enormously useful as addicts search for reasons why the fight against chemical dependency is one worth winning.

It is true that recovering addicts and alcoholics must take it one day at a time and celebrate the little successes as they come, but ultimately, they will need much bigger goals to shoot for if they expect to make it to the top of the mountain. The uplifting, optimistic, and humanistic philosophy of Abraham Maslow may be able to provide invaluable guidance for those who are attempting to reach the sparkling, sun-drenched summit of lasting sobriety.