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Goldstein’s Self-Actualization: A Biosemiotic View

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Abstract

The author revisits neuropsychiatrist Kurt Goldstein’s (1934/1995, 1963) concept of self-actualization. It is argued that the interdisciplinary field of biosemiotics (Emmeche & Kull, 2011; Hoffmeyer, 2003/2009) provides contemporary language and examples to understand Goldstein’s concept, and expands the breadth of its application to include all living things (not only humans). The introduction to biosemiotics also provides an opportunity for humanistic psychology to form a meaningful collaboration with the naturalistic sciences. Self-actualization is defined through 3 important aspects. The first is that of individuation or the process of becoming a self. The second is that of holism, or the recognition that the organism and environment comprise a meaningful whole. Finally, the third is that self-actualization is the only motivating drive. With the expansion of application that a biosemiotic view provides, it is maintained that all life is governed by biosemiosis.
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Goldstein’s Self-actualization
*Un-copy-edited pre-print
First Revision of “Goldstein’s self-actualization: A biosemiotic view”
Abstract
The author revisits neuropsychiatrist Kurt Goldstein’s (1934/1995, 1963) concept of self-
actualization. It is argued that the interdisciplinary field of biosemiotics (Emmeche and Kull,
2011; Hoffmeyer, 2009) provides contemporary language and examples to understand
Goldstein’s concept, and expands the breadth of its application to include all living things (not
only humans). The introduction to biosemiotics also provides an opportunity for humanistic
psychology to form a meaningful collaboration with the naturalistic sciences.
Self-actualization is defined through three important aspects. The first is that of
individuation or the process of becoming a self. The second is that of holism, or the recognition
that the organism and environment comprise a meaningful whole. Finally, the third is that self
actualization is the only motivating drive. With the expansion of application that a biosemiotic
view provides, it is maintained that all life is governed by biosemiosis.
[Keywords: Kurt Goldstein, Self-actualization, biosemiotics, theoretical biology, semiotics,
holism]
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Introduction
While humanistic psychologists and therapists have popularized the term “self-actualization” in
the 1960s (most notably Maslow, 1968/1999), it was originally used by neuropsychiatrist Kurt
Goldstein (1934/1995, 1963) to describe a biological tendency that typifies all organisms. Self-
actualization is an element that is integral to both humanistic psychology and biology, and
through it the possible relationships between these two areas of inquiry may be examined more
closely.
The field of biosemiotics (Emmeche & Kull, 2011; Hoffmeyer, 2008) is helpful for
describing and providing contemporary examples and analyses of self-actualization. Indeed,
biosemiotics and humanistic psychology share much in common. Like humanistic psychology,
biosemiotic study begins with the assumptions that behavioral phenomena cannot, in principle,
be reduced to simpler and still more fundamental elements (i.e., mechanisms); context, situation,
and organism must each be considered as integral to an organism’s behavior. Furthermore, life
must be understood as a network of relationships whereupon organisms always participate in
meaningful, and meaning-making, behavior. However, these behaviors must be understood
intersubjectively.
An examination of Goldstein’s concept has already begun with Morley’s (1995)
contribution. Morley explains that Goldstein has been misinterpreted by Maslow (1968/1999),
who has introduced a foreign notion of teleology into Goldstein’s self-actualization. This has led
to a problematic emphasis on discovering one’s “real self” or “authentic self,” ultimately
ignoring the role played by environment in the organism-environment relationship. Moreover,
Morley (1995) is confident that Goldstein’s holism “effectively integrates biological constructs
with a non-mechanistic, non-reductionistic understanding of life” and that it “points the way of
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the future development of humanistic thought in psychology” (p. 363). This article reflects
Morley’s vision.
The present analysis begins where Morley’s has ended by more carefully articulating the
conception Goldstein (1934/1995, 1963) introduces—namely, that (1) self-actualization is the
process of individuation—i.e., the emergence of a self; (2) that it must be holistically observed—
i.e., that the total organism and environment must be taken into consideration; and (3) that it is
the single and only impetus or drive of an organism—i.e., all behavior can be understood in
terms of self-actualization. Goldstein makes these observations abundantly clear through
examples of brain-damaged patients and, in some cases, in non brain-damaged persons as well.
In humanistic psychology, self-actualization is useful for demonstrating the personal and
meaningful process of becoming a person, the significance of context in determining meaning,
and the motivating forces behind behavior. It is akin to an organizing principle of human being:
Thus after having reviewed all the facts in this field, one reaches the following
conclusion: We are dealing with a system in which the single phenomena
mutually influence one another through a circular process, which has no
beginning and no end. (Goldstein, 1963, p. 127)
When viewed from the vantage point of biosemiotics, this organizing principle extends to all life.
In section 1, it is argued that individuation does not only belong to the humans, but occurs within
and without humans as well. Danish biosemiotician Jesper Hoffmeyer (2015) describes organic
individuation in a manner that is nonanthropocentric, yet still consequential for understanding
humans. In section 2, the organism-environment whole is turned inside out. Instead of dissolving
the organism-environment dividing line only through the process of organismic self-
actualization, American theoretical biologist Howard H. Pattee argues that this dissolution may
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occur at any level of examination: the precise location of division is arbitrary. Indeed, the
phenomenologists and physicists are beginning to share the same language when making their
observations. Finally, in section 3, it is argued that semiosis describes the fundamental drive of
all life in the same way that self-actualization describes the fundamental drive of human being.
As an example of this, both Goldstein and biosemiotics reject the assumption that there is a
superordinate law governing behavior (survival for Goldstein and natural selection for the
biosemioticians). Instead of being determined by biological law, life may be understood through
the process of biosemiosis.
Before beginning, it is necessary to examine a few historical and biographical comments
about Kurt Goldstein and a more in-depth introduction to Biosemiotics.
Kurt Goldstein
Kurt Goldstein is a familiar figure in the history of Humanistic Psychology. Not only has
he supplied some of the familiar vernacular, he has also inspired many notable figures in the
history of humanistic psychology (Maslow, 1968/1999; Perls, 1972, 1974; May, 1968, 1977; and
Fromm, 1968; among others). Goldstein was also on the founding editorial board of the Journal
of Humanistic Psychology. Biographical sketches of Goldstein are available featuring his
scientific and academic life (Ulich, 1968), his social and personal life (Simmel, 1968), as well as
those chronicling the impact he has had on the field of rehabilitation (Goldberg, 2009). He is a
figurehead of the holistic bent of the early to mid twentieth century in Germany (Harrington,
1999) and has been a powerful influence over the qualitative, humanistic phenomenology of
Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963, 1945/1962). Many articles and book chapters have been written
about his contributions to pedagogy, philosophy, medical theory, psychology, neurology,
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Goldstein’s Self-actualization
psychopathology, and others. Finally, he remains an exemplar of an integrative science that
blends humanistic psychology and neuroscience (Morley, 1995; Whitehead, 2015).
Biosemiotics
While Goldstein’s holism emerges out of the scientific and medical influence of Smuts
(1926) and Driesch (1929; in Morley, 1995), biosemiotics has emerged primarily out of two
alternative ontologies of the early and mid 20th century. The first is the semiotic theory of Charles
Sanders Peirce, and the second is the life-world (Umwelt) investigation of animals by Jakob von
Uexküll.
Peircean Triad. Peircean semiotics may be understood through the triadic relationship
between sign, signified, and interpretant (i.e., that for which the sign-signified relationships is
registered and interpreted as meaningful). For Peirce, everything can, and must, be viewed
through such relations. However, this is not to say that everything in nature is a sign as Saussure
(1916) has done. While Saussurian semiology enjoyed popularity in the middle part of the
twentieth century, drawing the attention of Merleau-Ponty (1964), it does not typify the entire
field of semiotics. Deely (2008) provides a careful description of the difference between Peirce
and Saussure for those still troubled by the continued practice of semiotics. “To say that all
knowledge is by way of semiosis,” Deely writes, “is not the same as to say that there are nothing
but signs in the universe. […] [T]here is more to being than the being of signs” (pp. 440-441).
Peircean sign-relation is familiar territory for humanistic psychologists. Consider the
example of the famous gestalt image in Sandro del Prete’s (1987) “Message d’Amour les
Dauphines” (in Kull, 2011, pp. 117-119). In one sense, the image is nothing but black scratchings
on a white background. This is a sign. To college students, “Message d’Amour les Dauphines”
reliably signifies sensuality. That is, in the adult observer, this image evokes sensuality. The sign
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itself is not in possession of its meaning; the meaning takes place in-between the sign and the
subject. To an adult, the “Message d’Amour les Dauphines” sign becomes a signifier of
sensuality. The sensual possibility of “Message d’Amour les Dauphines” does not actualize in
children. Children see ten dolphins.
Whether “Message d’Amour les Dauphines” means sensuality or sea-animals depends on
the sign-subject relationship, between whom the meaning emerges. According to Peirce, a sign is
anything that stands for something other than itself. Also, a sign is an irreducible triad, i.e., this
“something other” cannot be isolated without destroying the sign (Kull, 2015, p. 3). Emmeche
and Kull (2011) explain that in biosemiotics, “Meaning is not a molecule, but a relation.
Accordingly, empirical biosemiotics is a study of relations, functions, distinctions that organisms
make, communication, plurality of meaning, and so forth” (p. ix). And they continue,
Our path in this search to understand the life processes has led us, as biologists, to
a semiotic view. Life processes are not only significant for the organisms they
involve. Signification, meaning, interpretation and information are not just
concepts used and constructed by humans for describing such processes. We
conclude that life processes themselves, by their very nature, are meaning-
making, informational processes, that is, sign processes (semioses), and thus can
be fruitfully understood within a semiotic perspective. (p. ix)
Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt. Like Charles Sanders Peirce, Jakob von Uexküll is
recognized as one of the most important figures in biosemiotics in the first half of the 20th
century (Kull, 2010). Uexküll was “a biologist who was not content with the commonly used
level of scientific argumentation, and who thus decided to place biology on a solid philosophical
basis” (p. 423).
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Goldstein’s Self-actualization
In his formulation of organic functioning, von Uexküll (1913) presents what amounts to
the Peircean triad (Kull, 2010; Kull, 1999):
The organic factors that we have studied in development so far—genes, plan, and
protoplasm—are thus notes, melody, and piano. Genes and plan always seem to
be quite perfect, only at their influence on the protoplasm disturbances can occur,
which we experimentally exploit—like a Beethoven’s sonata, which is perfect on
paper, but in their execution on piano often leaves much to be desired. (p. 175;
translated in Kull, 2010, 424f).
Like Goldstein (1934/1995), Uexküll argues that organisms can only be understood
within their milieu—i.e., within their environment of meaning. Uexküll calls this an animal’s
umwelt. “The umwelt,” Kull, Deacon, Emmeche, Hoffmeyer, and Stjernfelt (2011) explain, “is
the set of features of the environment as distinguished by the organism, or the self-centered
world that relates an organism with everything else” (p. 38).
In addition to its useful application to biosemiotics, Uexküll’s theoretical biology has also
been applied by Heidegger (1929-30/1985) and Merleau-Ponty (1956-60/2003) in their analysis
of animal lifeworlds.
Self-actualization
In his work, Goldstein is clear about three aspects of self-actualization: invariance,
organism-environment whole, and the singular role played in motivating an organism. Goldstein
will be consulted for a description and, where applicable, examples. This will be followed by a
biosemiotic description. The aim in their comparison is not to conflate biosemiotics with
humanistic psychology, but to demonstrate how biosemiotics might be an insightful route for
humanistic psychologists who wish to examine still deeper recesses of complexity of life,
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meaning, and intersubjectivity, or who find themselves in a metaphysical jam—e.g. reconciling
neuroscience with human experience (Roy, Varela, Pachoud, & Petitot, 1999; Thompson, 2004;
Varela, 1996, 1998)
1. Individuation
The first axiom of self-actualization concerns the definition of self. An implication that
accompanies self-definition is one of individuation—that is, a self that is distinct from other
biochemical systems. Moreover, individuation is not a changeless state, but a process of
becoming.
When Goldstein uses the term organism, he recognizes that there is an invariant structure
of becoming that remains despite changes to environment, behavior, and organism proper.
There is no question that, in spite of its changing in time and under varying
conditions, an organism remains to a certain degree the same. Notwithstanding all
the fluctuations of the behavior of a human being in varying situations, and the
unfolding and decline that occur in the course of his life, the individual organism
maintains a relative constancy. If this were not the case, the individual would not
experience himself as himself, nor would the observer be able to identify a given
organism as such. It would not even be possible to talk about a definite organism.
(Goldstein, 1963, p. 173)
Self-actualization recognizes the coordination of constituents of an organism—within and
without—in negotiating and understanding its environment. This is always a process. Varela
(1997) prefers the term “emergence” to describe this. He explains that an organism “is not
related to its environment ‘objectively,’[…]. Instead, it relates to the perspective established by
the constantly emerging properties of the agent itself and in terms of the role such running
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Goldstein’s Self-actualization
redefinition plays in the system’s entire coherence” (pp. 83-84). Emergence is also the term that
Hoffmeyer (2009) has used to describe the biological process of becoming:
[T]he idea of semiotic emergence implies that while there is no centralized
director “behind” the person or organism, the organism or person as an entity is
continuously regenerated as an active, creative authority. The person is thus not a
stable being but rather a constant becoming. (p. 28, italics original)
Like Goldstein has discussed with self-actualization, Hoffmeyer recognizes that the self is an
emergent property that has some degree of authority or autonomy. Humanistic psychologists and
biosemioticians alike reject the assumption that life is determined by biological law. However,
this is not to say that life ignores biological law. In his paper that defines “individuation” as a
biosemiotic activity, Hoffmeyer (2015) uses the example of the genotype-phenotype distinction
to demonstrate how life occurs within, but is never in principle caused by, biological law.
A genotype is the hereditary information that is present in the zygote. This hereditary
information contributes the greatest influence on the development of the organism, but it does
not predict it exactly.
[A]lthough the genetic setup for an organism is of course more or less
permanently settled already at, or shortly after, conception, a wealth of exogenous
factors … are waiting to interfere with the mechanisms whereby this genetic set-
up exerts its effects. (p. 608)
For example, American psychologist Gilbert Gottlieb (1981, in Hoffmeyer, 2015) has
found that newborn ducklings develop a preference for their mother’s species-specific call from
birth. However, this only works when the duckling embryos were exposed to their own prenatal
call sounds. If this prenatal interaction had been prohibited, the ducklings will not develop the
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preference. The duckling genotype provides the ability to develop the species-specific call
preference, but the preference itself—the phenotype or the organism’s expression of that trait—
can only emerge as a product of the environment. More accurately, in this example it can only
emerge as a product of the organism-environment interaction.
For Hoffmeyer, we learn that individuation is a biosemiotic activity. As such, it pertains
to all life. “If, then, by the term individuation we understand the series of stages (morphological
and/or cognitive) that an organism passes through during its lifespan, we can conclude that
individuation is a general trait pertaining to life” (p. 608). This process, no longer unique to
humans, also carries with it a definition of self. For biosemiotics, “self” or “soul” is “an
everyday language attempt to name that innermost agency that springs from the life-history of an
organism, human or non-human” (p. 611). For Gottlieb’s duckling, the species-specific call
preference is the potential of the individual genotype. This potential actualizes when the prenatal
duckling embryos are exposed to their call sounds.
Individuation is not unique to humans, but may be used to describe morphological or
developmental changes that any living system undergoes.
2. Holism: The Organism—Environment Relationship and Meaning
This section examines the organism-environment relationship which is itself an important
aspect of self-actualization. Indeed, it is only through the organism-environment relationship that
Goldstein (1963) is able to describe the meaning behind behavior (pp. 120-149), pathology (pp.
34-68), personality (pp. 171-200), motivation (pp. 150-170), and emotion (pp. 85-119), among
others. An organism can never be viewed in isolation from its environment if its behavior is to be
meaningfully understood. Viewing behavior in isolation risks missing out on its significance.
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Moreover, since the entire organism (and its milieu) is a coordinated affair, as the
previous section has described it, then the entire coordinated affair must be examined. For
instance, Goldstein (1934/1995) explains how “Even such an apparently simple reaction as the
response of the eye to light is by no means limited to the contraction of the iris.” And he
continues,
For here we observe a variety of phenomena occurring throughout the body.
Although they are perhaps of as much importance for the organism as the
contraction of the iris, we usually overlook them because the examination of the
pupillary reflex is the purpose of the stimulation. The effect of light on the
organism is manifold, shows itself emphatically, and can be traced in changes in
motoric and sensory fields. (p. 173)
In order to understand the range of influence or the unexpected lack thereof, Goldstein maintains
that the entire patient (and not just the region of interest) must be considered. This is because
“[t]he more carefully we investigate […], the more we find that, whenever a change is induced in
one region, we can actually observe simultaneous changes in whatever part of the organism we
may test” (p. 174). Finally, the changes induced in the organism are not easily circumscribed to
the organism proper either. “Each organism lives in a world,” Goldstein explains, and that world
is “by no means something definite and static but is continuously forming commensurably with
the development of the organism and its activity” (p. 85).
The organism can never be viewed independently from its environment, for it is
dependent on the latter to supply its needs. Indeed, the very process of semiosis—sign
interpretation—depends on it. “The interpretive capacity is an emergent property of a reciprocal
end-means relationship of a self-propagating dynamical system” (Kull et al, 2011, p. 35). The
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“Message d’Amour les Dauphines” gestalt image discussed earlier has the potential of signifying
dolphins or lovers, but never both simultaneously. The actualization of the event and its meaning
depends on the sign-interpreter relationship. With the dolphins, lovers are a null possibility. With
Lovers, dolphins are a null possibility. The meaning of this event of perception depends on the
possibility of more than one outcome (Kull, 2015). Otherwise, the image is a causal mechanism
that brings about a definite behavioral change (e.g. the perception of dolphins). Meaning
depends on semiosis.
Prioritizing mechanism over meaning and substance over process is precisely what
humanistic psychology has historically found so irksome about the biological analyses of
behavior (Morley, 1995). It is this aspect of biomedical science that humanistic psychologists
find themselves “up against” (Schneider, 2005, p. 168). Biosemiotics has similarly reacted
against the mechanized approach to biology (Kull, 2014, 2015; Hoffmeyer, 2009, 2014).
Hoffmeyer (2014) proposes an amendment to this stripping of meaning from biology:
The world around us reaches us through sign processes, semiosis, i.e. our lives do
not play out in a mechanical body but in a semiotic body. Biosemiotics, the sign-
theoretic or semiotic approach to the study of life and evolution is based on the
understanding that biochemical processes are organized in obedience to a semiotic
logic. Molecular structures are not just chemical entities; they are also potential
sign vehicles mediating communicative activity between cells, tissues, and organs
of our body or between bodies. (p. 95)
Meaning isn’t ignored in the semiotic body; it is the central concern. Hoffmeyer continues,
describing the process of writing with a pencil in hand:
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I do not just sense the pencil mechanically, for my knowing the pencil does not
start in the retina, and it does not end up in the brain, rather it flows back and forth
through an indefinite number of loops where the pencil is integrated into the
movements of my fingers and thus into a world of immediate as well as
memorized bodily experiences and back again to neuronal circuits in the brain
forming a continuous and branched set of loops. My interaction with the pencil is
historical and semiotic, not mechanical. (p. 100)
The meaning explored by biosemioticians is not divergent from the meaning explored by
humanistic psychologists: they are convergent. There is really no need to draw a line in-between
self and other or organism and environment provided the two are reciprocally intertwined.
In the course of the process, comprising not only the now-and-here (impulses
from other senses) but also memorized material (the girl’s former experiences
with this category of visual impressions), and all of it must continuously be
calibrated according to new visual, olfactory, auditory, or touch inputs that she
might receive, and also according to her own motoric interaction with the objects
of her field of vision (even if she does not move, small involuntary movements of
the eye’s focus, saccades, nevertheless continuously need to be integrated). …
Our sensing must be considered one open-ended loop of interactions between
memory, sensory impulses, and motoric activity. (Hoffmeyer, 2014, p. 103)
To truly understand the significance of individuation, it must be viewed within the
organism-environment whole. Their significance deepens further when considered within the
context of the final aspect through which Goldstein describes self-actualization: that it is the only
drive motivating an organism.
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Humanistic psychologists and phenomenologists are keen on the indivisibility between
subject and object (organism and environment), and use subjective experience to demonstrate
this collapse. Biosemiotics accomplishes the same collapse between subject and object but does
so from the description of the biological processes. Instead of describing two distinct phenomena
—one phenomenological and the other biological, this may be seen as one phenomenon—
semiosis—carried out through two levels of investigation. Just as the single spectral image
“Message d’Amour les Dauphines” is seen as either dolphins or lovers, but never both
simultaneously, and neither incorrect, so too do phenomenology and biology converge on the
same phenomenon of life.
Pattee (2015) describes what he has termed the epistemic cut (e.g. between object and
subject; observed and observer). Pattee is clear that this is not a Cartesian separation, but an
arbitrary point of separation between the action of the observer and action of the object observed.
He argues that semiosis may be used to distribute responsibility for the observation between the
object (sign vehicle) and observer (interpretant), rather than collapsing this into the
consciousness of the observer.
Whether or not a material structure described by physical laws functions as a
symbol or has intentionality is entirely up to the subjective interpretation of the
observer-subject. Descriptions of systems in terms of physical laws cannot
determine what to measure or when to measure it. (p. 465)
Another way of stating this is that the dissolution of the dividing line is not only meaningful to
the organism, but is also meaningful to the environment.
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Goldstein’s Self-actualization
Pattee argues that the precise location of the dividing line between observer and observed
is arbitrary, and he uses von Neumann’s (1955) example of vision to demonstrate this. Von
Neumann writes of the boundary between observer and object in the act of perception:
But in any case, no matter how far we calculate—to the mercury vessel, to the
scale of the thermometer, to the retina, or into the brain, at some time we must
say: and this is perceived by the observer. That is, we must always divide the
world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer.
[…] The boundary between the two is arbitrary to a very large extent. […] In one
instance in the above example, we included even the thermometer in it, while in
another instance, even the eyes and optic nerve tract were not included. (p. 465)
In von Neumann’s description, the division between observer and observed is not definite but
arbitrary. Pattee finds it fitting to refer to this as an epistemic cut because it more closely
describes an epistemological position being taken with regards to the phenomenon of perception,
and not an ontological observation. The epistemic cut that one chooses to make is consequential,
and it is what currently separates biosemioticians from humanistic psychologists.
Goldstein and biosemiotics agree that behavior may be understood only when organism
and environment are taken into consideration. Humanistic psychologists customarily collapse
this division into the lifeworld of the human subject, but following Pattee (2015), it has been
argued that the location of this collapse is arbitrary—i.e., the collapse of subject-object duality
may also be examined at the level of biology or chemistry without ignoring the individual and
context-dependent exchange of meaningful information.
3. Self-actualization is the Only Motivating Drive
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In understanding an organism or person, Goldstein is very clear that there is only one
drive. He writes,
We assume only one drive, the drive of self-actualization, but are compelled to
concede that under certain conditions the tendency to actualize one potentiality is
so strong that the organism is governed by it. […] [T]he theory of separate drives
can never comprehend normal behavior without positing another agency which
makes the decision in the struggle between the single drives. This means that any
theory of drives has to introduce another, a “higher” agency. (p. 145)
Here Goldstein differentiates the drive toward self-actualization from the drive-theory of
psychoanalysis. In psychoanalysis one finds multiple competing drives; with self-actualization,
there is but one drive. Any sense of competition between drives thus ignores their inter-
connectedness—namely, that they are in service to the same coordinated effect. In another effort
to distinguish the drive for self-actualization from psychoanalytic drives, Goldstein also
maintains that the “tendency to actualize itself is the motive which sets the organism going; it is
the drive by which the organism is moved” (p. 140).
Goldstein concedes that self-actualization can seem to be uncharacteristically
preoccupied with a pre-potent single drive (e.g. physical needs, safety needs, and so on), but he
is also clear that each of these are instances of self-actualization. Even satisfying one’s physical
needs can be understood as an instance of self-actualization, no less so than the satisfaction of
one’s self-esteem needs. This problematizes Maslow’s (1968/1999) motivational hierarchy that
peaks in self-actualization.
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Goldstein’s Self-actualization
Finally, self-actualization as the single motivating drive of an organism is not
synonymous with self-preservation or simple existential persistence. For example, Goldstein
(1963) explains:
We have learned that man is a being who does not merely strive for self-
preservation but is impelled to manifest spontaneity and creativeness, that man
has the capacity of separating himself from the world and of experiencing the
world as separate entity in time and space. (p. 171)
Goldstein (1934/1995) goes to great lengths to differentiate self-preservation from self-
actualization. He explains that “self-preservation is a phenomenon of disease […]” (p. 337). It is
only when an organism is at death’s door that behavior is organized in service to self-
preservation. But even in this circumstance (which is by no means typical of all organisms) we
may understand that self-preservation is in service to self-actualization—that is, the most
opportune and best expression of an organism given the particular context in that moment of
expression. The system is not guided, for example, by pain reduction or self-preservation, but by
self-actualization. To be sure, both pain reduction and self-preservation can be in service to self-
actualization, but these do not define it.
Indeed, self-preservation may even be found limiting self-actualization, like when a
person “must choose between a greater lack of freedom and greater suffering” (p. 341). This is
precisely what complicates treatment of disease and psychopathology. Goldstein reminds doctors
and therapists that “medical decision always requires an encroachment on the freedom of the
other person” (p. 341). Such an encroachment may prohibit or, at least, constrict the available
avenues for self-actualization.
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Self-preservation as the primary motivation, particularly in the Darwinian sense of a
biological imperative of ‘survival’, is also a notion that biosemioticians reject (Kull, Emmeche,
& Hoffmeyer, 2011). It is an affront to define living organisms as machines programmed to be
mechanically bent on survival. “Living creatures are not just senseless units in the survival
game” Hoffmeyer (2009) explains, “they also experience life (and perhaps even ‘enjoy’ it as we
say when human animals are concerned)” (p. xviii). And he continues, capturing the difference
between self-preservation and self-actualization:
There [in the natural world], organisms never “try to survive”—for the simple
reason that they cannot know they are going to die. […] In brief: Organisms
strive, and this striving […] cannot be set aside in any genuine attempt to
understand the workings of animate natural systems. (p. xviii)
Striving captures the organic process of individuation present in life in all of its forms.
Humanistic psychology finds it fitting to describe human individuation by using Goldstein’s
concept of self-actualization, but the same may be found in prenatal ducklings, sea-sponges, and
unicellular organisms. To be sure, the processes are not identical across each of these categories
—each presents a different level of complexity of information that is exchanged in-between
organism and environment. Hoffmeyer (2015, section 5) calls this breadth of awareness
“semiotic freedom,” and describes the evolution from the first instance of organic individuation
(flatworms 550 million years ago) through the centralized system of nerve-cells in the human
brain today. In his summary, Hoffmeyer is careful to maintain that the mind is not unique to
humans, but its breadth of semiotic freedom is. “The semiotization of biology implies a shift in
focus from life as narrowly bound to certain privileged and distinct structures (such as genomes
or brains), in favor of a process conception” (p. 612).
19
Goldstein’s Self-actualization
In sum, a biosemiotic view of self-actualization sees in the human being a process that
unfolds within and between all living things. This is important for contemporary humanistic
psychologists who are interested in exploring the meaningful insights that the cognitive sciences
and neurosciences bring because it opens these worlds up to a familiar method of examination.
“Molecular structures are not just chemical entities; they are also potential sign vehicles
mediating communicative activity between cells, tissues, and organs of our body or between
bodies” (Hoffmeyer, 2014, p. 95)
Conclusion: Biology and Awe
In reviewing Goldstein’s (1934/1995, 1963) introduction and use of the concept self-
actualization, three distinct but interrelated aspects have been presented: invariance, holism, and
that it is the fundamental motivating force. Each has emphasized the similarity between
humanistic psychology and biosemiotics. Both disciplines are interested in life and all of the
complicated meanings this generates. This realization might justify a reconsideration of the
continued insistence that humanistic psychology must resist biology (lest they risk sacrificing its
rich history and tradition that has been devoted to emphasizing the awe-inspiring aspects of
being human; Schneider, 2005). One option could be a holistic biological investigation in the
context of a biosemiotic framework, something that Goldstein would surely have encouraged
(Gurwitsch, 1966).
As the single drive or motivating force of an organism, self-actualization is fundamental
to all life. “Life” is the quality that accompanies meaningful being in the world—that quality that
humanistic psychologists have made it their business to examine and understand in humans for
over half a century, as well as the “magnificence and mystery of living” that has been studied by
the humanities for over 5,000 years” (Schneider, 2005, p. 167). It would not be unfair or even
20
unhumanistic to equate “being human” (or, less anthropocentrically, “being”) with self-
actualization. It may not even be blasphemous to define “being human” as “the ability to create
and take part in meaning-generating processes […]” as Kull, Deacon, et al, (2011, p. 69) have
done with their definition of semiosis.
21
Goldstein’s Self-actualization
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Chapter
On a plateau in the mountains at Delphi stands a shrine which for many centuries had a signal importance for the Greeks. Here they found help in meeting their anxiety. In this temple Apollo gave counsel through his priestesses during the chaotic archaic age and down through classical times. Even Socrates was to receive there his famous dictum, “Know Thyself,” which has become the central touchstone for psychotherapy ever since. The sensitive Greek, anxious about himself, his family and his future in the upset, archaic times, could find guidance here, for Apollo knew the meaning of “the complicated games the gods play with humanity.... The Greeks believed in their Oracle, not because they were superstitious fools, but because they could not do without believing in it.” (1, p. 75). Professor Dodds, in his excellent study of the irrational in ancient Greek culture, emphasizes the crucial assurance an “omniscient counselor could give... to a people burdened with the crushing sense of human ignorance and human insecurity, the dread of divine phthonos, the dread of miasma.” (Ibid.).
Chapter
There is little doubt that psychoanalysis finds itself in a mounting state of crisis which has become increasingly visible in the last ten years. This crisis pertains both to the theoretical and the clinical aspects of psychoanalysis.
Chapter
It is often difficult to determine which sources of influence have molded one’s own thinking, but I believe that my conception of education has been deeply affected by Kurt Goldstein’s writings on the psychophysical nature of man.
Book
How do we understand and explain phenomena in psychology? What does the concept of “causality” mean when we discuss higher psychological functions and behavior? Is it possible to generate “laws” in a psychological and behavioral science―laws that go beyond statistical regularities, frequencies, and probabilities? An international group of authors compare and contrast the use of a causal model in psychology with a newer model―the catalytic model. The Catalyzing Mind: Beyond Models of Causality proposes an approach to the qualitative nature of psychological phenomena that focuses on the psychological significance and meaning of conditions, contexts, and situations as well as their sign-mediating processes. Contributors develop, apply, and criticize the notion of a catalyzing mind in hopes of achieving conceptual clarity and rigor. Disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, semiotics and biosemiotics are used for an interdisciplinary approach to the book. Research topics such as history and national identity, immigration, and transitions to adulthood are all brought into a dialogue with the concept of the catalyzing mind. With a variety of disciplines, theoretical concepts, and research topics this book is a collective effort at an approach to move beyond models of causality for explaining and understanding psychological phenomena.