Psychology has a long past,

but only a short history.

- Hermann Ebbinghaus

“Before the advent of modern psychology, there was no „lasting progression‟, no „progressive
development‟ in the subject. A basic structure, laid out long ago by Aristotle, had lasted right into
the 19th century without real change. That was Psychology‟s long past - a time without progress.
But now that Psychology had become scientific it had finally acquired a history”, by which
Ebbinghaus meant a story of change and cumulative development.

© 2015, M S Ahluwalia | www.PsychoTechServices.com | facebook.com/PsychologyLearners 1

All trees need sunlight and all human beings need love, and yet, once satiated with
these elementary necessities, each tree and each human being proceeds to
develop in his own style, uniquely, using these universal necessities to his own
private purposes.

In a word, development then proceeds from within rather than from without, and,

paradoxically, the
highest motive is to be
unmotivated and
non-striving , i.e., to behave purely expressively.

Or, to say it in another way, self-actualization is growth-motivated rather than

deficiency-motivated. It is a "second naiveté," a wise innocence, an "Easy State,"

- Abraham H. Maslow

© 2015, M S Ahluwalia | www.PsychoTechServices.com | facebook.com/PsychologyLearners 2