Eupsychian Theory I: Reclaiming Maslow and Rejecting The Pyramid - The Circle of Seven Essential Needs

In 1943, Abraham Maslow presented a now widely accepted theory of human motivation. Later, he began to develop a theory of human development, a Eupsychian theory of human flourishing with his theory of needs at the center. This theory was shortly represented by the iconic Pyramid of Needs. Building upon the work of Abraham Maslow, this article rejects the pyramid of needs as an ideologically rooted, sanitized, and stripped-down version of Maslow’s nascent Eupsychian Theory. Instead, the article proposes an Indigenous-rooted Circle of Seven Essential needs as the core of a sophisticated and integrative theory of human development, human potential, and human flourishing, a theory that Maslow was in the process of developing before his untimely death and that, given his known interest in Indigenous communities, more in line with the direction of Maslow’s early thinking.