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World War II and the atomic bomb destruction of Japan’s two cities, highlighted man’s aggressive sadistic tendencies as well as his scientific potential for good. At this time, there were two main schools of psychological thought. Freud‘s psychoanalytic model of the mind which included the biological drives of sex and aggression. The second model was the school of Skinner and others who described learning as a result of reinforcement schedules with hungry pigeons-thus establishing behaviorism. Were their more to man than aggression, war, and hate and/or stimulus tendencies? Philosophers, Rousseau and Marx had a more favorable view of man within society. They suggested that the socioeconomic conditions of man was the problem. Change those conditions in order for man to be more fulfilled. Also , the existentialists  added that in order for man to overcome his limitations, he had to overcome his irrationality; directly experience life; not to rely on scientific and technical achievements; and to counter economic and social propaganda and certainly not  becoming part of the crowd . With these ideas in place, an exciting psychological force rose from these depths. This new philosophy suggested that man has the capacity for growth and optimum development. Thus, a third force in psychology was created and resulted in a more humanistic philosophy of man. Neo-Freudians like Adler, Horney, Fromm and other clinicians like Maslow, May, Rogers, Goldstein, Allport and others believed, in part, that man can discover his real self and become self-actualized. This essay employed Abraham H. Maslow’s model to the current situation of man today.

Hearing the malignant sociopath with his meaningless threats, one gets the impression that everything is fine in our country and he should be reelected. His supporters claim that he’s done a good job with the Covid-19 pandemic. They talk about the great job he’s done with testing. Just yesterday, Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon, told an HHS Admiral that he recently performed an operation on a patient. However, that patient was not given a Covid- 19 test prior to surgery because of lack of testing supplies. Numerous doctors and researchers have also complained about the lack of testing supplies and the long turnaround time for results, thus making the test results meaningless. Do not forget about the number of false positives errors. In fact, I can’t get tested because I don’t have any symptoms. Thus, information from the medical community is consistent in that we have a major problem with testing, PPE equipment, social distancing, and the lack of quarantine space in the hospitals. The Trump Republicans say he’s done a good job. Yes, he’s done a good job with ineptitude. One way to suppress the voting turnout is to contaminate potential voters.

Not only do we not have enough health supplies nor a sound plan to confront this virus, we have over 160,000 deaths and about 5 million cases. The only good job is the rampant explosion of this disease in our country. We statistically lead the world.  Schools are going to open despite the health concerns. We know that the schools in certain ZIP Codes will probably do well. We know that these schools are the minority in the country. We know why, South Korea can educate all its children safely, in the schools, from the disease.

Major league Baseball opened last week and already the Florida Marlins are in quarantine because of the Covid-19 disease. For those teams still playing, there are cut out cardboard fans sitting around the stadium with artificial crowd noise for the television watching audience. Professional baseball in South Korea has actual fans in the stadium. They don’t have cutouts of artificial crowd noise. This is another example of the incompetent Trump Republican administration. He wants you to reelect him again?

Just recently, the United States suffered its worst quarter GDP decline in history of 32.9%. We have too much unemployment; too many have received insufficient monetary assistance from the government; and a Republican-controlled Senate that wants to reward primarily corporations and other wealthy individuals. A number of these helpful stimulus funds expired at the end of last month. The Republican Senators are going home? There was a report that one individual was buying a Lamborghini with his stimulus check.  The economic outlook for a country does not look promising. The black, the brown, and the poor are being exploited again. More income inequality as the billionaire’s wealth increases.   Let’s take a look at the mental and physical health consequences, the degrading qualities of life by Trump’s sadistic ineptitude.

Dr. Maslow, in” Motivation and Personality,” postulated a number of instinctoid basic needs. Briefly, if man was able to navigate his hierarchy of needs, he can potentially reach a state of self-actualization. Maslow presented, based on his research, 15 characteristics associated actualized individuals. A glimpse: ability  to perceive reality;  ability to accept others; ability  to mainly focus on problems ;ability for being  autonomous; ability to identify  and empathize with others;  ability for deep interpersonal relationships; ability to develop a democratic character structure;  ability to be creative; and ability to resist conformity by the pressures of the culture.

In order to reach self-actualization, man has to resolve each prior stage within the hierarchy of needs. The stages: 1. Physiological needs like hunger, thirst, sleep etc. In times of disasters, fearing starvation becomes prominent and behaviors attempt to satisfy or gratify that need. 2. Safety needs are next in line and can also dominate behavior. Children and infants experience anxiety and are vulnerable to strangers, sudden noises, the threat of being dropped, parent leaving etc.  For adults their safety needs are generally gratified in a well ordered or regulated society. However in emergencies like war, Covid-19, unemployment, hurricanes, fire and other natural and man-made conditions, it becomes difficult to gratify or combat one’s anxiety when one’s safety needs are not being met. 3. Belongingness and love needs can be disrupted especially with Covid-19, hurricanes, unemployment, and fire. Our affiliation needs are strong and quarantine, social distancing and wearing a mask interfere with the gratification of this need. The tension experienced when alone may be separation anxiety .This results in the need for direct human contact. What about the 700 young that partied in New Jersey?   4. The esteem needs are next in the hierarchy which is a need or desire for a stable, usually high evaluation of self, for self-respect or self-esteem, and for the self-esteem of others.  In addition, there’s a desire for strength, achievement, for adequacy or mastery, competence in the world. Also there is a desire for reputation, prestige, status, dominance, recognition, attention, importance or appreciation.

Maslow’s need structure is predicated on gratification or non-gratification. If a lower need is not met, the likelihood of advancing to a higher need is suspect. For example, if the physiological needs are unsatisfied, that behavior of seeking food gratification tends to dominate the organism. However if the physiological need is gratified, instead of being hungry obsessed, the person becomes more safety obsessed. Going from a lower to a higher need results in a more healthy direction for the development of the person. When the safety needs are gratified, subjective feelings relate to a restful sleep, loss of a feeling of danger, greater boldness, courage etc. are experienced. On the other hand, if the safety needs cannot be met, the individual is apprehensive, fearful, feeling dread, anxiety, tension, nervousness and jitteriness. When met, the person benefits, and is now in a better and improved position cognitively to better able to attend, to perceive, to learn, to remember, to think and to reason more effectively. The gratification of needs leads to a more fulfilled or healthier state of being.

For our purposes, I’m stopping with the esteem needs. According to Maslow his hierarchy is not absolutely fixed. However, more importantly, the failure to satisfy basic needs leads to deficiencies or conditions associated with neuroses. The maladjusted person that has unmet needs related to physiological, safety, belongingness, love and esteem experiences anger, frustration, exhaustion, disease and sometimes death.  The body produces degrees of adrenal, cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline to thwart the threats but Inflammation follows and can lead to headaches, allergies, ulcers, heart disease and depression.

How can a poor unemployed or underemployed individual be expected to feed his family appropriately without governmental assistance? How can an economically poor individual provide adequate housing and pay the rent for his family? How can a low income or economically poor individual provide healthcare insurance for his family?  How many of the economically poor individuals have pre- existing health issues?  How can economically poor individual provide adequate quarantine for his family? How can an economically poor individual provide an appropriate, safe and quality education for his family? How can an economically poor individual cope with a present and future doom and gloom outlook? How can the poor individuals be concerned and vote for the national interest with so many unmet needs? The government, this time the Trump government, once again is racially discriminating against citizens of our country and attempting to suppress the vote. The amount of anxiety and stress continues to rise. The wellbeing for too many in our country is seriously at risk. Will November 3 bring relief?

According to Maslow’s theory, the individuals that have difficulty gratifying their physiological, safety, belonging and love needs are more than likely not in a good place to meet  any of their  needs, especially esteem needs.. We know that loss of meaningful control, having a sense of inadequacy, with societal and disease threats affect a sense of worth and positive self-esteem. However, they are in a good place for suffering. These frustrated individuals will more than likely react with anxiety, anger, and hostility directed both inward and outward. Children and spouses are targets. Other physical and mental health consequences include depression, suicide, gastrointestinal disease, cancer, hypertension, heart disease, arteriosclerosis and/or even die from Covid-19. This disease is now the fifth leading cause of death in our country. By 2021-2022, research and statistics will tell the gruesome illness story of the Trump consequences for mishandling of this disease.

In essence, too many of our brothers, sisters and their children will be unable to live healthy and productive lives as result of the 2020 disaster. Racism and ignorance are two consequences. Lack of loving productivity, creativity, ability to cope, impaired competence, degrading lifestyle and better interpersonal interactions are also at risk. There is too much frustration and conflict present. Trumps administration lying threats to democratic principles places everyone at risk. In order for man to live more productively, he has to be able to reach his higher esteem, social and personal approval and self-actualization needs. Learning, employing rationality and developing wisdom will then follow.