Voici qu'un nouveau courant de pensée apparut au cours de la première moitié du XXe siècle, pour lequel la voie vers l'accomplissement de soi s'avérait beaucoup plus complexe que ne l'exprimaient jusqu'alors la psychanalyse - l'assouvissement de nos pulsions biologiques innées -,  et le béhaviorisme - la recherches essentielles de nos besoins physiologiques, sommeil, nourriture, et plaisir charnel. L'un des principaux partisans de cette approche inédite fut Abraham Maslow, psychothérapeute considéré comme l'un des fondateurs de la psychologie humaniste. C'est que Maslow envisageait l'expérience humaine à l'aune des choses qu'il pensait compter le plus pour l'être humain, l'amour, l'espoir, la foi, la spiritualité, l'individualité, l'existence ...

L'interrogation sur la situation de sa propre existence en ce monde est alors portée à partir des années 1940s par une nouvelle structure de connaissance, la "psychologie sociale". Il n'est plus question de solitude, ni de remise en question sociale ou existentielle, mais d'optimiser autant qu'il est possible l'intégration de chacun dans l'ordre social et économique issu de la Guerre, de l'industrialisation, de l'organisation de la production, de la consommation : les réflexions se portent désormais sur les interactions de l'individu avec le groupe social auquel il appartient et avec la société. La nature humaine est désormais conceptualisée sous l'angle de la formation des jugements sociaux, de la communication individuelle ou de groupe, des milieux du travail, des organisations, du cadre vie. Ces nouveaux axes de réflexion se constituent en discipline universitaire ou de recherches, et accompagneront désormais dans les décennies à venir, sous différents avatars, les analyses et efforts d'intégration de l'être à son groupe, à son travail, à sa société. Il ne s'agit plus de penser son existence, mais d'adapter comportement et processus de connaissance aux interactions sociales et économiques environnantes, voire de vivre à côté dans les décennies à venir ...

XXIII. WHO SHALL SURVIVE?

Le point faible de notre univers actuel est l'incapacité de l'homme à faire face à la machine, au conservatisme culturel ou au robot autrement que par la soumission, la destruction effective et la révolution sociale. Le problème de la refonte de l'être humain lui-même, et non seulement de son environnement, est devenu le problème dominant ...

The weakest point in our present day universe is the incapacity of man to meet the machine, the cultural conserve, or the robot, otherwise than through submission, actual destruction, and social revolution. The problem of remaking man himself and not alone his environment has become the out- standing problem the more successfully technical forces prosper in the realization of the machine, the cultural conserve and the robot; and although the development of these is far from having reached its peak, the final situation of man and his survival can be clearly visualized, at least theoretically.

Tout d'abord, on peut se demander comment il est possible qu'une machine devienne dangereuse pour l'être humain en tant que créateur. En suivant le parcours de cet être humain à travers les différentes étapes de notre civilisation, nous constatons qu'il utilise les mêmes méthodes pour fabriquer des produits culturels qui sont utilisés plus tard et avec moins de friction par les produits de son esprit, ses dispositifs techniques. Ces méthodes ont toujours consisté à négliger et à abandonner le processus créatif authentique et exceptionnel qui est en lui, à éteindre tous les moments actifs et vivants et à tendre vers un but immuable : l'illusion du produit fini, perfectionné, dont la perfectibilité supposée était l'excuse par excellence pour abandonner son passé, pour préférer un phénomène partiel à la réalité entière. ...

First, one may ask how it is possible that a machine-like device can become dangerous to man as a creator. Following the course of man throughout the various stages of our civilization, we find him using the same methods in the making of cultural products which are used later and with less friction by the products of his mind, his technical devices. These methods have always amounted simply to this — to neglect and abandon the genuine and outstanding creative process in him, to extinguish all the active, living moments, and to strive towards one unchangeable goal: the illusion of the finished, perfected product whose assumed perfectibility was an excuse par excellence for forsaking its past, for preferring one partial phenomenon to the whole reality. There is a shrewd motive in this procedure of man because if only one stage of a creative process is a really good one, and all the others are bad, then this chosen stage substituting for the entire process can be memorized, conserved, eternalized, and can give comfort to the soul of the creator and order to the civilization of which he is a part.

We can observe this strategy in all the cultural attempts of man and this strategy could deceive man and be regarded as worthy and beneficial as long as the process of industrial revolution did not produce an unprecedented world situation. As long as the mechanical device did not enter en masse into the economic situation in the form of the book, the gramo- phone, and the talking film, man had no competition in the execution of his conserves. Once an ensemble of actors had rehearsed and acquired a play to perfection, this ensemble was the only owner of their particular bit of merchandise which they offered for sale. Their only competition could come from another group of persons. Once a group of musicians had rehearsed and perfected a certain number of musical com- positions, they were the only owners and executors of this product. Through the process of repetition they earned money. The introduction of cultural devices changed the situation completely. Man was not needed any more for the repetition of his finished products. Machines did the work just as well and perhaps even better, and at a much smaller expense.

Une possibilité de penser autrement peut être évoquée, en appeler tout simplement à cette créativité spontanée dont tout être humain est détenteur ...

In the beginning of this industrial process man tried to meet it with aggressive action. But the nearer the avalanche of ghosts rolled towards him the more he tried other means of defense. He invented socialism and hoped that through changing the present state of production and distribution the mechanical device would become of even greater help and comfort to him than it had been.

One angle of the problem, however, has been overlooked. There is a way in which man, not through destructiveness nor through economic planning, but as a biological being and a creator, or as an association of creators, can fight back. It is through a strategy of creation which escapes the treachery of conservation and the competition of the robot. This strategy is the practice of the creative act, man, as a medium of creation, changing his products continuously. Spontaneity as a method of transition is as old as mankind, but as a focus in itself it is a problem of today and of tomorrow. If a fraction of one-thousandth of the energy which mankind has exerted in the conception and development of mechanical devices were to be used for the improvement of our cultural capacity during the moment of creation itself, mankind would enter into a new age of culture, a type of culture which would not have to dread any possible increase of machinery nor robot races of the future. The escape would be made without giving up anything that machine civilization has produced.

Eugenic dreamer and technological dreamer - Deux approches intellectuelles sont alors évoquées, la stratégie eugénique, qui réduit tous les problèmes sociaux à des problèmes biologiques, et la pensée technocrate, si l'on peut parler de pensée ...

The eugenic doctrine, similarly to the technological process, is another promiser of extreme happiness to man. The eugenic dreamer sees in the distant future the human race so changed through breeding that all men will be born well, the world populated with heroes, saints, and Greek gods, and all that accomplished by certain techniques through the elimina- tion and combination of genes. If this should really come to pass the world would be at once glorious, beautiful, and God- like. But it may be reached at the cost of man as a creator from within himself; it would have, like Siegfried in the myth, a vulnerable spot into which the thorn of death could enter, — a tragic world, a world in which beauty, heroism, and wisdom are gained without effort, in which the hero is in want of the highest reward, the opportunity to rise from the hum- blest origin to a supreme level. It sums up to the question whether creation in its essence is finished w T ith conception or whether creation does not continue or cannot be continued by the individual after he is born.

The eugenic dreamer and the technological dreamer have one idea in common : to substitute and hasten the slow process of nature. Once the creative process is encapsuled in a book it is given; it can be recapitulated eternally by everybody without the effort of creating anew. Once a machine for a certain pattern of performance is invented a certain product can be turned out in infinite numbers practically without the effort of man. Once that miraculous eugenic formula will be found a human society will be given at birth perfect and smooth, like a book off the press.

In the face of the two vehicles of thought and power, eugenic rule and machine rule, man ought to call to mind their mean- ing: that they both aim to remove the center and the rule from within him, the one into a process before he is conceived, the other into a process which is conserved, both aiming to make him uncreative. Technology may be able to improve the comfort of mankind and eugenics may be able to improve the health of mankind, but neither is able to decide what type of man can and should survive.

L'être humain doit apprendre à affronter ce nouveau monde industriel qui se déploie inéluctablement, apprendre à lui survivre tant par sa nature adaptative et ses potentialités créatives ...

It is from the actual embodiment and performance of man within the psychological cross-currents which turn upon him from birth to death — that is, how he stands up in the psycho- geographical test, — that a decision, if any, can be made; and the conclusion we can draw from a survey of the position of man as a biological being in the world of today is that thrown into an industrial environment he does not stand up well in the conflict with the machine and that the solution of this conflict lies in an heroic measure, not to surrender to the machine, not to halt its development, but to meet it on even terms and to resort in this battle to resources which are inherent within his organism. Beyond the controversy, destruction of the unfit or survival of the fit, is a new goal, the survival of a flexible, spontaneous personality make-up, the survival of the creator.

Et le premier problème qu'il rencontre sur ce long chemin est celui de son incapacité à construire une société parfaitement intégrée. En étudiant les forces intégratrices et perturbatrices du développement de la société, les moyens par lesquels elles opèrent et les techniques par lesquelles elles peuvent être contrôlées, Moreno met en évidence que cette structure sociale est en permanence en tension avec une autre structure, la structure psychologique. Analyser la faiblesse de la société humaine revient à se pencher sur la faiblesse de l'organisme individuel. La question n'est donc plus seulement celle de la survie ou de la disparition de la forme actuelle de la société humaine, mais celle du destin de l'homme. Elles vont vivre ou périr ensemble. Une alternative et une solution peuvent venir de la conclusion que l'homme possède une ressource inhérente à son propre organisme et à l'organisation de la société humaine qu'il n'a jamais utilisée au-delà du stade rudimentaire - sa spontanéité. Son plein développement exige la concentration de toutes les agences - technologiques, psychologiques et eugéniques...

Another tragic insufficiency of man is his failure to produce a well integrated society. The difference between the social structure in which he functions and the psychological structure which is an expression of his organic choice and the tension arising between the two constantly threaten to disrupt the social machinery so painfully built up by him. It was from a study of the integrating and disrupting forces in the development of society, by which means they operate and by what techniques they can be controlled, that these inner disturbances were disclosed as a permanent feature of social organization. We found it characteristic for the most undifferentiated as well as for the least differentiated groups. It must have been an attribute of human society since its early days. The weakness of human society appears to have the same cause as the weakness of the individual organism. The question is therefore not only the survival or passing of the present form of human society but the destiny of man. As all races suffer in this respect from a common insufficiency they are going to live or perish together. An alternative and a solution may come from the conclusion that man has a resource which is inherent in his own organism and in the organization of human society which he has never used beyond the rudimentary stage — his spontaneability. To bring this to full development requires the concentration of all agencies — technological, psychological, and eugenic.

Il nous a été utile, au début de l'enquête, de considérer l'humanité comme une unité sociale et organique. Une fois que nous avons choisi ce principe comme guide, une autre idée s'est développée par nécessité. Si l'ensemble de l'humanité est une unité, des tendances doivent se manifester entre les différentes parties de cette unité, les séparant à un moment donné et les rapprochant à un autre moment ; ces tendances peuvent être parfois avantageuses pour les parties et désavantageuses pour l'ensemble ou avantageuses pour certaines parties et désavantageuses pour d'autres parties ; ces tendances peuvent se manifester à la surface dans les relations des individus ou des groupes d'individus sous forme d'affinités ou de "désaffinités", d'attractions et de répulsions ; ces attractions et répulsions doivent être liées à un indice de faits biologiques, sociaux et psychologiques, et cet indice doit être détectable ; ces attractions et répulsions ou leurs dérivés peuvent avoir un effet proche ou lointain non seulement sur les participants immédiats à la relation mais aussi sur toutes les autres parties de cette unité que nous appelons l'humanité, les relations qui existent entre les différentes parties peuvent révéler un ordre de relations aussi hautement différencié que n'importe quel ordre que l'on trouve dans le reste de l'univers....

It has helped us in the beginning of the investigation to think of mankind as a social and organic unity. Once we had chosen this principle as our guide, another idea developed of necessity. If this whole of mankind is a unity, then tenden- cies must emerge between the different parts of this unity, drawing them at one time apart and drawing them at another time together; these tendencies may be sometimes advan- tageous for the parts and disadvantageous for the whole or advantageous for some parts and disadvantageous for other parts; these tendencies may become apparent on the surface in the relation of individuals or of groups of individuals as affinities or disaffinities, as attractions and repulsions; these attractions and repulsions must be related to an index of biological, social, and psychological facts, and this index must be detectable; these attractions and repulsions or their derivatives may have a near or distant effect not only upon the immediate participants in the relation but also upon all other parts of that unity which we call mankind, the relations which exist between the different parts may disclose an order of relationships as highly differentiated as any order found in the rest of the universe....

Kurt Lewin n'a jamais écrit d'ouvrages proprement dits, les monographies et les articles constituaient ses moyens d'expression préférés C'est grâce à eux et à son influence personnelle sur les étudiants et ses collègues qu'il a provoqué une révolution non négligeable dans l'étude scientifique de l'homme dans la société Mais les étudiants ont besoin de manuels Les articles et les monographies sont inaccessibles, Jusqu'à présent, l'étudiant désireux de comprendre le système de pensée de Lewin s'est tourné vers "A Dynamic Theory of Personality" , un recueil d'articles publié en 1935, ou vers "Principles of Topological Psychology" , une présentation des concepts clés imprimée en 1936. Ces deux volumes ont ete publiés avant que Lewin n'ait réellement commencé ses études les plus importantes dans le domaine des sciences sociales, entre 1935 et 1946 : "The Conceptual Representation and the Measurement of Psychological Forces" (Durham, Caroline du Nord, 1938), "Resolving Social Conflits", édité par Gertrud Weiss Lewin (New York, 1948)....

Kurt Lewin, professeur à l'université de Berlin puis de Stanford, réinterprète les problèmes abordés par la "Psychopathologie de la vie quotidienne" de Freud dans une perspective centrée sur le monde du travail et l'ouverture du vécu individuel sur son milieu. La méthode utilisée est celle d'une "recherche-action", conjuguant expérimentation et vérification de l'efficacité la pratique sociale théorisée.  Il entreprend ainsi l’étude expérimentale des "atmosphères" autoritaires et démocratiques, la conceptualisation du rôle de leader, la construction de la décision collective. C'est à la lumière des travaux réalisés en physique sur la notion d'espace-temps et de champs de force (Hermann Minkowski, Max Born), que se développent ses travaux les plus connus centrés sur la "dynamique de groupes" : tout ce qui se produit chez un individu ou dans un groupe repose sur le jeu des forces qui s'y exercent. 

Auteur de nombreuses expériences sur les préjugés raciaux ou les conflits entre les groupes sociaux, K. Lewin reste, avec son élève Leon Festinger, l'un des plus illustres représentants de cette psychologie américaine centrée sur l'adaptabilité individuelle et l'optimisation de l'intégration sociale et cognitive.

On peut ainsi, à titre d'exemple, comparer ces deux théoriciens du leadership et de la communication que sont Raymond B. Cattell (1905-1998) et Kurt Lewin (1890-1947). Cattell est un psychologue d'une grande ambiguïté qui tout à la fois théorisa en 1941 l'existence de deux formes d'intelligence à l'origine des capacités cognitives humaines, - l'intelligence dite fluide et l'intelligence cristallisée -, et fut critiqué pour son darwinisme social. Dans l'étude du leadership, Catell adopte le point de vue autoritaire selon lequel les dirigeants sont nés ainsi, et propose l'application de mesures eugéniques pour développer ces profils tant nécessaire à la société, soulignant également l'importance de la recherche pour aider à identifier les dirigeants. Lewin, tout au contraire, adopte un point de vue que l'on peut définir comme plus "démocratique" :  les qualités de leader peuvent être apprises et chacun est potentiellement un leader dans le cadre d'une décision de groupe...

(Kurt Lewin, Resolving Social Conflicts, 1945, The Special Case of Germany)

"CULTURAL CHANGES OF INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS

Even formulated in this way, a change toward democratic Ger- man culture obviously includes very difficult problems.

There is no question but that the culture of individuals or small groups can be changed deeply in a relatively short time A child transplanted from Germany or Japan to America will, as a rule, become thoroughly Americanized Even grown-ups who are transplanted to a different culture may acquire the new culture to a high degree, and much can be done toward this end through proper education Experiments with both children and adults prove that the social atmosphere of groups can be changed profoundly by introducing different forms of leadership Experiments in leadership training have shown that it is even possible under certain cir- cumstances to transform highly autocratic leaders of long standing within a short time into efficient democratic leaders.

All of these changes, however, are changes of individuals or small groups in a direction which is in line with some aspects of the general cultural setting m which these individuals or groups live To change the culture of a whole nation is quite a different undertaking The greater numbers involved present merely one of the difficulties Even more important are certain dynamic relations between the various aspects of the culture of a nation — such as its education, mores, political behavior, religious outlook — which interact in a way that tends to bend any deviation from the estab- lished culture back to the same old stream.

There is no space here to discuss these dynamics in detail I might merely remind the reader that the difference, for instance, between the American and the German culture is discernible more or less in every part of their respective cultural lives m the way the mother treats a two- or three-year-old child, what the father talks about at the dinner table, how the worker talks to his fore- man or the student to the professor, how the visitor behaves toward grown-ups and children, how the cookbooks are written, how opposing lawyers deal with each other after the court session, what type of photograph the candidate for political office uses for propaganda, and what religion means to a person in any denomina- tion A cultural change in regard to a specific item will have to be able to stand up against the weight of the thousand and one items of the rest of the culture which tend to turn the conduct back to its old pattern As someone has put it, "Cultures are pretty watertight ”

We may conclude To be stable, a cultural change has to pene- trate more or less into all aspects of a nation’s life The change must, in short, be a change in the "cultural atmosphere," not merely a change of single items.

GENERAL ASPECTS OF CULTURAL CHANGE

1) Culture as an equilibrium A culture is not a painted picture, it is a living process, composed of countless social interactions Like a river whose form and velocity are determined by the balance of those forces that tend to make the water flow faster, and the friction that tends to make the water flow more slowly — the cul- tural pattern of a people at a given time is maintained by a balance of counteracting forces The study of cultures on a smaller scale indicates that, for instance, the speed of production or othei aspects of the atmosphere of a factory has to be understood as an equilibrium, or more precisely, as an "equilibrium m movement ".

Once a given level is established, certain self -regulatory proc- esses come into function which tend to keep group life on that level One speaks of "work habits," "established customs," the "accepted way of doing things” Special occasions may bring about a momentary rise of production, a festival may create for a day or two a different social atmosphere between management and workers, but quickly the effect of the "shot in the arm" will fade out and the basic constellation of forces will reestablish the old forms of everyday living.

The general problem, therefore, of changing the social atmosphere of a factory or of German culture can be formulated some- what more precisely in this way How can a situation be brought about which would permanently change the level on which the counteracting forces find their quasi-stationary equilibrium?

2) Changing the constellation of forces. To bring about any change, the balance between the forces which maintain the social self -regulation at a given level has to be upset.

This implies for Germany that certain deep-seated powers have to be uprooted Large proportions of those sections of the German population on which a democratic reconstruction will depend live now in a state of suppression and terror It is hardly conceivable that these people will be able to act freely as long as they see the Gestapo or other masters of ten years of terror alive and free on the other side of the street After the last war the reactionary forces in Germany, although driven under cover, were permitted to "get away with it ” Being a socially well-knit group, they soon started to come back step by step and to take their revenge in the extreme form of Hitlerism I cannot see any hope of more than superficial change after the present war if the German people are prevented from getting rid in a very thorough fashion of a large group which has developed to perfection the most ruthless methods of suppression This group, at present, is known to be already preparing to go underground, it will remain a powerful threat if its utter destruction is hindered by forces outside Germany fearing any type of "chaos ”.

The German move toward democracy after the last war did not fail because the so-called German Revolution of 1918 was too chaotic, but because the overthrow of the Kaiser was entirely bloodless and did not reach deep enough It did not reach deep enough socially to remove certain sections of the population from power, and it did not reach deep enough culturally to remove the idea of democracy from its identification with individualistic freedom of the laissez faire type. A revolution in Germany should, therefore, be viewed as a positive factor, not a negative one, m bringing about the desired end — a move toward democracy and permanent peace.

3) Establishing a new cultural pattern Hand m hand with the destruction of the forces maintaining the old equilibrium must go the establishment (or liberation) of forces toward a new equilibrium Not only is it essential to create the fluidity necessary for change and to effect the change itself, it is also imperative that steps be taken to bring about the permanence of the new situation through self -regulation on the new level.

TECHNIQUES OF CHANGING CULTURE

Let us assume that the situation in Germany will be sufficiently fluid. Is there anything that can be done to help the forces which may establish a new level of equilibrium closer to democracy? From the many considerations, I shall mention but a few.

I. ", Satisfaction ” is not enough If the many needs of the German people are satisfied, will that not suffice to make them democratic? This idea, rather common before America’s entrance into the war, may well be brought to life again as soon as the war with Germany is over (although it will hardly be propagated in this country in regard to the Japanese) Such suggestions are based on the naive idea that "human nature” is identical with "democratic culture”, that one needs but to destroy the causes of maladjustment to create a democratic world

I had a chance to observe rather closely a young fellow who had been active m the German Youth movement before Hitler. Subsequently he had been taken over by the Nazis and made an assistant to a District Youth leader for a number of years. For one reason or another he had fled the country and become politically anti-Nazi. This individual showed rather marked symptoms of maladjustment such as aggressiveness and egocentricism. Being a clever fellow, he made his way, learned the amenities of the American style, and showed a friendly and smooth surface. After a number of years he gave the appearance of being quite well adjusted and was usually considered a likeable fellow.

Only those who knew him intimately and followed his actions closely for a long time could see that actually his conduct has become more insidious than ever before. Having an exceptionally fine sense for relations of status and power, the fellow would find out immediately who were friends, who enemies, where lay the strength or weakness of everyone, or what ideas were fashionable at the moment.  On the basis of this quickly gained intimate knowledge of power relations he would pursue an active, egoistic policy with an extreme degree of aggressiveness, using lies without in- hibition and figuring out destructive frontal attacks with a cleverness that made people gasp I could not help but feel that here we had a practically "pure” case of Nazi culture. This aggressiveness did not diminish but rather increased and became more dangerous as the individual became personally secure without changing his basic culture.

I think this is a clear example of the fact that, m an aggressive autocratic culture, aggression and autocratic behavior cannot be viewed as symptoms of maladjustment They cannot be basically changed merely by satisfying the individual’s need.

2. Some general positive principles. The studies of group life m various fields suggest a few general principles for changing group culture.

(a) The change has to be a change of group atmosphere rather than of single items. We have discussed this problem already Technically it means that the change cannot be accomplished by learning tricks It must be deeper than the verbal level or the level of social or legal formalities.

(b) It can be shown that the system of values which governs the ideology of a group is dynamically linked with other power aspects within the life of the group. This is correct psychologically as well as historically. Any real change of the culture of a group is, therefore, interwoven with the changes of power constellation within the group.

(c) From this point it will be easily understood why a change in methods of leadership is probably the quickest way to bring about a change in the cultural atmosphere of a group. For the status and power of the leader or of the leading section of a group make them the key to the ideology and the organization of the life of that group.

3. The change from autocracy to democracy Experiments on groups and leadership training suggest the following conclusions

(a) The change of a group atmosphere from autocracy or laissez faire to democracy through a democratic leader amounts to a re-education of the followers toward "democratic followership". Any group atmosphere can be conceived of as a pattern of role playing Neither the autocratic nor the democratic leader can play his role without the followers being ready to play their role accordingly Without the members of the group being able and ready to take over those responsibilities which are essential for follower- ships in a democracy, the democratic leader will be helpless Changing a group atmosphere from autocracy toward democracy through a democratic leadership, therefore, means that the autocratic followers must shift toward a genuine acceptance of the role of democratic followers.

(b) The experiments show that this shift in roles cannot be accomplished by a "hands off” policy To apply the principle of "individualistic freedom” merely leads to chaos. Sometimes people must rather forcefully be made to see what democratic responsibility toward the group as a whole means. It is true that people cannot be trained for democracy by autocratic methods But it is equally true that to be able to change a group atmosphere toward democracy the democratic leader has to be in power and has to use his power for active re-education. There is no space here to discuss in detail what to some might appear as one of the paradoxes of democracy ..."

S'interroger sur l'homme révolté invite à poser la question de l'existence, de son sens, de son contenu. Les socio-thérapeutes qui s'installent dans le contexte de l'après-guerre privilégient de l'homme, un homme en interaction sociale, dont le vécu n'est pas la question essentielle. Ce vécu est traduit en rôle social, et ce qui est en jeu est son adaptabilité et  sa sociabilité, posant ainsi la question de l'éventuel conflit de l'individu dans l'organisation et le problème de sa motivation.

Dans les années 40, Maslow, très éloigné des préoccupations de sa discipline, s'interroge sur cette capacité de réalisation de soi qu'il rencontre dans des personnalités aussi charismatiques que l'ethnologue Ruth Benedict ou l'un des fondateurs de la Gestalt psychology, Max Wertheimer. Ces personnalités semblent avoir pleinement développer leur potentiel et réaliser une vie "pleinement humaine". Maslow va ainsi exalter cette aspiration vers "le haut" qui anime la nature humaine : "les freudiens sont réductionnistes, car ils ne voient dans les valeurs élevées qu'un simple camouflage d'instincts primitifs". Il en vient ainsi à penser que les conduites humaines sont déterminées par la recherche de la satisfaction de besoins fondamentaux, et que cette recherche des besoins est hiérarchisée : la réalisation de soi n’est pas possible si, en premier lieu, les besoins physiologiques (le gîte, le couvert, la survie) ne sont pas satisfaits: au sommet de la pyramide, le besoin de réalisation de soi, spécifique et indépendant, est le plus large de ces besoins et est supposé être insatiable. 

Développement de la théorie des motivations et des besoins ...

Elaborée dans les années 1950-1960, cette théorie a eu un impact très important sur les formes d'organisation, portant restructuration des tâches et enrichissement du travail. Mais il s'agit toujours et encore de la même orientation de pensée, répondre aux besoins fondamentaux de l'individu permet d'augmenter ses motivations tant à travailler qu'à vouloir s'intégrer au monde de l'entreprise ...

Part I. A Larger Jurisdiction for Psychology

1. Introduction: Toward a Psychology of Health

There is now emerging over the horizon a new conception of human sickness and of human health, a psychology that I find so thrilling and so full of wonderful possibilities that I yield to the temptation to present it publicly even before it is checked and confirmed, and before it can be called reliable scientific knowledge.

The basic assumptions of this point of view are:

1. We have, each of us, an essential biologically based inner nature, which is to some degree “natural,”intrinsic, given, and, in a certain limited sense, unchangeable, or, at least, unchanging.

2. Each person’s inner nature is in part unique to himself and in part species-wide.

3. It is possible to study this inner nature scientifically and to discover what it is like—(not invent—discover).

4. This inner nature, as much as we know of it so far, seems not to be intrinsically evil, but rather either neutral or positively “good.”What we call evil behavior appears most often to be a secondary reaction to frustration of this intrinsic nature.

 5. Since this inner nature is good or neutral rather than bad, it is best to bring it out and to encourage it rather than to suppress it. If it is permitted to guide our life, we grow healthy, fruitful, and happy.

6. If this essential core of the person is denied or suppressed, he gets sick sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes immediately, sometimes later.

7. This inner nature is not strong and overpowering and unmistakable like the instincts of animals. It is weak and delicate and subtle and easily overcome by habit, cultural pressure, and wrong attitudes toward it.

8. Even though weak, it rarely disappears in the normal person—perhaps not even in the sick person. Even though denied, it persists underground forever pressing for actualization.

9. Somehow, these conclusions must all be articulated with the necessity of discipline, deprivation, frustration, pain, and tragedy. To the extent that these experiences reveal and foster and fulfill our inner nature, to that extent they are desirable experiences.

Observe that if these assumptions are proven true, they promise a scientific ethics, a natural value system, a court of ultimate appeal for the determination of good and bad, of right and wrong. The more we learn about man’s natural tendencies, the easier it will be to tell him how to be good, how to be happy, how to be fruitful, how to respect himself, how to love, how to fulfill his highest potentialities. This amounts to automatic solution of many of the personality problems of the future. The thing to do seems to be to find out what you are really like inside, deep down, as a member of the human species and as a particular individual.

Plus nous en apprendrons sur les tendances naturelles de l’homme, plus il sera facile de lui dire comment être bon, comment être heureux, comment être fécond, comment se respecter, comment aimer, comment réaliser ses plus hautes potentialités. Cela équivaut à la solution automatique de nombreux problèmes de personnalité de l’avenir. La chose à faire semble être de découvrir ce que vous êtes vraiment à l’intérieur, au fond, en tant que membre de l’espèce humaine et en tant qu’individu particulier....

La théories de Maslow, si elle peut aujourd'hui paraître bien sommaire voire simpliste, et entachée d'une certaine ambiguïté  - la notion de besoin fondamental reste bien confusante - a poussé au devant de la scène médiatique la célèbre caste des théoriciens-organisateurs, dont le plus connu est sans doute le psychosociologue américain Frederick Herzberg (1923-2000) : "Work and the Nature of Man" (1966) postule la valorisation de l'être humain par le travail, et il est désormais du ressort de toute direction d'entreprise de faciliter tant son épanouissement que ses potentialités. La théorie de la double nature humaine, celle d'Adam, qui tente d'échapper à son destin après avoir été chassé du Paradis, et celle d'Abraham, qui sait utiliser toutes les ressources qui sont en pouvoir. De meilleures conditions de travail, un enrichissement de celui-ci, des responsabilités, de meilleures relations entre collègues, autant de facteurs valorisant qui permettent de surmonter notre nature adamique...