The Synanon Philosophy, Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs, and Recovery

Blog #1: The Synanon Philosophy, Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs, and Recovery

The American psychologist, Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), developed the theory of the human hierarchy of needs and was interested in human motivation. His essay “A Theory of Human Motivation” described human action as a means to achieve particular goals and these goals were to satisfy certain needs. He expanded on this essay and did research on ‘successful’ individuals to understand how they reached their goals. Maslow found that many of the individuals who were seen or categorized as ‘successful’ had certain qualities and life experiences which from this he concluded that human potential must be ‘Self-Actualized’. In his research, he came to the Theory of the Human Hierarchy of Needs which is depicted as a tiered pyramid with certain categories that represent a certain ‘need’.

In his original diagram, there were five categories; Physiological, Safety, Belongingness, Esteem, and at the top, Self-Actualization and each tier needed to be met or satisfied before ascending to the next tier. Physiological needs were the lowest level of needs and included basic, survival needs like food, shelter, water, clean air, sex (non-intimate), and other biological needs. Next came Safety needs, I think would be better stated as Security needs, including employment, property, rights, resources, and environment. After Safety came Belonging needs which includes the feeling of being accepted and build relationships with community and family. Esteem needs were above Belonging and was explained that people need to feel special and recognized. This could mean having a title of prestige like lawyer or doctor or could just be the feeling of internal confidence and self respect. Finally, the top of the period was Self-Actualization which is the point when an individual can be creative and develop decision making skills based on their experiences. Self-Actualization was the key to developing moral and ethical ideologies because individuals need to come to moral conclusions on their own terms and through their own devices.

In terms of influence on the Synanon Philosophy, Maslow visited the Synanon community several times, giving speeches about his theories to members, and provided his theoretical manuscripts to Synanon’s leader Charles E. Dederich. A copy of these were provided for reading material and “Everyone either read Maslow or found out what his main ideas were… Everyone was very conscious of self actualization. It was thought that a person who could stop using dope and keep an orderly Expeditor’s office or drive a forklift through the door to the warehouse without knocking the wall down, or cook a decent breakfast for the house, was well on his way to becoming a self-actualized man or woman” (Patton, 8). The point was for the addict to work the program Dederich was offering in order to facilitate the process of realizing their highest potential and capabilities. Maslow also believed that “when men learned to organize their social and economic lives unitively along lines similar to Synanon’s they would be enabled to realize their true nature” (Patton, 8). The Synanon program was supposed to aid in the process of enlightenment and transcendence to a higher consciousness.

It was said by Tom Patton, resident of Synanon since 1965, that Dederich himself was “a philosopher at the very least the equal of Abe Maslow” (Patton, 9). He did his own expanding on thoughts not only based on Maslow’s theories but other very well known thinkers including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau.

References
Patton, Tom. “The Synanon Philosophy.” Synanon University Press. San Francisco, CA 1974.