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primary concern. Rogers believes that «a relationship between a man and a woman is significant,
320 and worth trying to preserve, only when it is an enhancing, growing experience for each person». A couple
«cannot hold to (the vows of commitment) unless the marriage is satisfying», Rogers writes. «The value of
such outward commitment appears to be just about nil». But isn't unconditional commitment — a
325 determination to go the last mile — a part of making the marriage satisfying in the first place? And suppose
a partner becomes ill and needs our help so that the union demands more of us than it appears to give back?
Time to pack the bags and check out? Are people who act that way the ones we most admire?
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5. Or take the broader realm of social commitment and concern: An individual finds it self-actualizing to
be a lobbyist for commodity speculators or polluters. It's challenging and broadening, and involves lots of
free travel and opportunities for professional «contracts». End of question? Don't we need to think
335 about such things as the wise use and fair distribution of the earth's resources, and the availability of
socially constructive roles rather than ones that are useless or frivolous? And what about institutions —
340 like governments and marriage — about which Maslow and Rogers have little to say except to lament the
way they interfere with our self-actualization. Might not they serve a social function even if sometimes
inconvenient?
6. Certainly there are times when we cannot be genuinely useful to others until we attend to our own
345 needs— for instance, the mother who grinds her emptional axes on self-sacrifice and suffocates her
children with, attention in the process. But it is hardly always the case that we serve others best by serving
ourselves first....
350 7. Maslow and Rogers were primarily concerned, of course, with the welfare of the individual, not
society at large, and for this they felt that freedom and autonomy in development were essential. But they
seem to have confused freedom and autonomy with a preoccupation with oneself. In fact, we can
autonomously aim at goals outside ourselves....
VI. ALTRUISM AS THE BASIS OF AN ALTERNATIVE THEORY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-
BEING
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1. It is part of folk wisdom, and of the healing traditions of many cultures, that one path out of our own
problems lies in dwelling upon them less... . Respectable opinion today tends to denigrate such views.
360 Yet it's just possible that they are rooted in a psychological truth that today's healers — the clinical
psychologists and psychiatrists — tend to overlook. A number of practitioners are convinced that
encouraging ever more attention to the self, as psychiatrists and psychologists are doing, has become a part
of the problem.
365 2. Viktor E. Franki, a psychotherapist, is an example. Interred by the Nazis at Auschwitz and Dachau,
Franki found that what kept himself and other inmates going was a sense of purpose outside themselves.
Franki helped deter fellow prisoners from suicide by stressing such commitments. In one case, it was
370 scientific work to be completed; in another, it was the prisoner's child waiting safely elsewhere. What
proved helpful was not getting «in touch» with their true feelings, but regaining a sense of connection with
something larger than themselves.
375 3. While most in the profession invite patients to dwell upon their problems, Franki believes that patients
probably do too much introspecting about their symptoms and feeling states already. His aim is to move
patients out of their self-involvement... . This therapeutic insight is a central part of Alcoholics
380 Anonymous. Members of A.A. undertake a personal commitment to help fellow alcoholics through
participation in weekly meetings, «Twelve Step Calls», and working with new members for whom they
take responsibility.
Helping others stay off the bottle assists them in doing so themselves... .
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4. Moreover, it is not naive to suggest that we can do more to encourage altruism rather than accept
selfishness as the inescapable core of our nature. It is well demonstrated, for example, how young people
can be influenced by the prevailing values in their families. Studies of the most committed civil rights
390 activists during the sixties found that they were more likely than their cohorts to have parents who had
shown just such social commitment during their children's formative years.
We-thinking can be nurtured just like me-thinking can — and if in families, why not in the culture at
large?
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5. Wherever altruism is an essential element of early education, helping simply becomes part of the way
people act. On occasion, a culture such as this can rise to the heights of heroism, as when the people of the