There is another aspect of the difference between Motivational Work and psychotherapy. It concerns the view on what kind of help an unmotivated client needs. Correspondingly, the issue is connected to my blogs 79 – 84. They are dealing with the aspects of motivational work in contrast to other motivational methods built on the psychotherapeutic model. As an example, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs illustrates in a pedagogical way how the psychotherapeutic model looks at motivation. Motivational Work opposes Maslow.
You can say that this blog 85, in a way, summarizes the previous six. I hope it will function as a closure and summary on the subject.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
The specific concern in this blog is about what motivates a human being. The paradigm of Motivational Work and the models of other motivational methods founded on psychotherapy have different views.
The Hierarchy of Needs
According to Maslow, there is a development of human needs. Its evolution in an individual is dependent on first fulfilling the need at one stage before one can move on to the next. The order of need is physiological (health, food, water, etc.), safety, belonging and love, social needs, and finally self-actualization.
Implications
Thus, the implications of the theory are that you must have a functioning social situation in your life before you can reach for self-actualization. In this way, it excludes all individuals who have a difficult social situation. You must first be well-functioning before you can attempt to actualize yourself. For example, a homeless person cannot reach the highest level of fulfillment. Instead, his main concern is to have someplace to live and acquire order in his social situation.
The humanistic approach to Motivational Work
As said in my previous five blogs, this is not the view of Motivational Work. According to the humanistic approach, which is shared by all methods in humanistic psychology, including Motivational Work, there is a positive core in every human being. Hence, it means that the profound motivation of all human beings contains all facets of motivation at the same time including self-actualization. There is no hierarchy of needs. They are all present at the same time but the most important is self-actualization. Consequently, Motivational Work opposes Maslow.
The Psychotherapeutic Model Revisited
In this manner, the difference in ideology has practical consequences on how you try to help an unmotivated client. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs reflects the view of motivational methods, which are built on the psychotherapeutic model. The client must be reasonably well-functioning to be helped.
This being so, it implicates that the not so properly functioning unmotivated clients have a lower capacity for change and less mental ability. They can be aggressive and threatening, they do not come to sessions they comply, and many of them are influenced by different drugs. Frequently, this group of clients often has a lower social rank in society.
The Paradigm of Motivational Work Opposes Maslow
As said in earlier blogs, Motivational Work has the belief that every client can be motivated independently of acting-out behavior and social situation. The aim is to strengthen the client’s positive core. Therefore, the more life energy he has, the more he can be able to have all his needs satisfied. There is no hierarchy of needs as Maslow presumes. We are alike as human beings. The sky is the limit for all of us. Motivational Work opposes Maslow.
A Case
The client was around 40 and generally known as a violent troublemaker. His childhood was a sorry one, for he was abandoned by his parents at an early age. Then, he was raised in several foster homes. Later, he was sent to a correctional school on account of his criminal tendencies, which became more entrenched as he entered adulthood. Moreover, he was an alcoholic and a drug addict.
The Perpetrator
Furthermore, he was “the bane of the social welfare office”. When he turned up to collect his money, everyone locked themselves in their rooms. Except for the poor terrified official whose duty it was to serve him. Often, the client threatened the office staff, even at knifepoint. It was widely known that he had a string of convictions behind him for several violent assaults on social workers. To sum up, he was a massive brute of a man Everyone was scared of him. He was considered a hopeless case.
Special Treatment
What is more, his hostile behavior had earned him special treatment. For example, he never had to wait in the waiting room and could talk in person with the senior management whenever he wished. Decisions taken by social welfare secretaries were often changed to his advantage. Everyone bent over backward to please him while saying how much they pitied him.
Strengthening of the Positive Core
By way of incredible coincidence, this man was admitted to an institution. Unknowingly, the staff treated him as they would any other inmate. He had to clean and help out in the kitchen like all the others. Eventually, he became part of a community in which he found himself confronted by people who sought to challenge and contain his behavior.
Contact with the Pain
After a period of treatment, he connected with his emotional self and ended up crying incessantly for almost a fortnight. After that, he was a new man. The troublemaker in him had gone, allowing him to put his aggression to good use. One time, for instance, he managed to turn away an armed drug dealer from the center with just some well-chosen words and an immanent aggressiveness. He was generally a huge resource for the institution when it came to setting boundaries for other clients.
Afterward
After his treatment, he returned to his life of drugs but took them less frequently and was less aggressive. Eventually, he received, at his request, a new place to live far out in the countryside, where he met a socially balanced woman. They moved in together, and he lived a drug and crime-free life until he died of ill health.
Concluding Words
Here you have an example of a client with by all standards should be considered as not motivatable according to the psychotherapeutic paradigm. Accordingly, he is aggressive and threatening, is addicted to alcohol and drugs, is violent, and cannot work with others.
Motivational Work Opposes Maslow
Whereas, Motivational Work has the opposite standpoint. Everybody can be motivated. Therefore, Motivational Work opposes Maslow. The client has the same needs as every human being striving for a fulfilling life. And, he has the same possibilities to ripen as all of us.
This was all the time the client’s main objective. Already at the institution, he was striving for self-actualization and not only to ameliorate his social situation. All the time, the pain in his heart was his primary concern and to have meaning in his life.
The Focus of the Staff
From the start, the focus of the staff was to strengthen their client’s positive core and, in this way, help him to deal with his inner pain. In this way, his life energy was more and more augmented.
Consequently, he took better care of himself. It meant that he simultaneously tried to fulfill all his needs in a more constructive way than before (physiological, safety, belonging and love, social needs, and self-actualization). By helping the client with his inner life, the staff gave him the energy to also make constructive changes in his social situation.
