[The goals of therapy] encompass a number of aims. The patient must acquire the capacity to assume responsibility for himself, in the sense of feeling himself the active, responsible force in his life, capable of making decisions and of taking the consequences. With this goes an acceptance of responsibility toward others, a readiness to recognize obligations in whose value he believes, whether they relate to his children, parents, friends, employees, colleagues, community, or country.

Closely allied is the aim of achieving an inner independence … This would mean primarily enabling the patient to establish his own hierarchy of values and to apply it to his actual living. In reference to others it would entail respect for their individuality and their rights, and would thus be the basis for a real mutuality. It would coincide with truly democratic ideals.

We could define the goals in terms of spontaneity of feeling, an awareness and aliveness of feeling, whether in respect to love or hate, happiness or sadness, fear or desire. This would include a capacity for expression as well as for voluntary control. Because it is so vital, the capacity for love and friendship should be especially mentioned in this context; love that is neither parasitic dependence nor sadistic domination but, to quote Macmurray, “a relationship … which has no purpose beyond itself; in which we associate because it is natural for human beings to share their experience; to understand one another, to find joy and satisfaction in living together; in expressing and revealing themselves to one another.”

The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be without pretense, to be emotionally sincere, to be able to put the whole of oneself into one’s feelings, one’s work, one’s beliefs. It can be approximated only to the extent that conflicts are resolved. …

Neither the analyst nor the patient is likely wholly to attain these goals. They are ideals to strive for; their practical value lies in their giving us direction in our therapy and in our lives. [Karen Horney, Our Inner Conflicts, 1945, W. W. Norton & Co., 1966, pp. 240-243]

Here then is my theoretical model of the person who emerges from therapy or from the best of education, the individual who has experienced optimal psychological growth—a person functioning freely in all the fullness of his organismic potentialities; a person who is dependable in being realistic, self-enhancing, socialized, and appropriate in his behavior; a creative person, whose specific formings of behavior are not easily predictable; a person who is ever-changing, ever developing, always discovering himself and the newness in himself in each succeeding moment of time.

Let me stress, however, that what I have described is a person who does not exist. He is the theoretical goal, the end-point of personal growth. We see persons moving in this direction from the best of experiences in education, from the best of experiences in therapy, from the best of family and group relationships. [Carl Rogers, Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become, Charles E. Merrill, 1969, pp. 295-296]

[T]he person’s main task is to put his self-esteem as firmly as possible under his own control; he has to try to get individual and durable ways to earn self-esteem. It means, too, that he has to free himself from a slavery to things that are close at hand. … The person has to learn to derive his self-esteem more from within himself and less from the opinions of others; he has to try to base it on real qualities and capacities, things he can make or do, … and not on the mere appearances that others like to judge by. He has to try to get as many ways of earning self-esteem as possible, to constantly broaden his skills, the things he genuinely takes pleasure in, in place of what others think he should take pleasure in. [Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man, Free Press, 1971, pp. 191-192]

We can think of these ideas as “the philosophy of self-esteem”—a set of interrelated premises that inspire behaviors leading to a strong sense of efficacy and worth. …

Living Consciously: …I am better served by holding my values consciously than unconsciously—and by examining them rather than by holding them uncritically as not-to-be-questioned “axioms.” I need to be on the lookout for temptations to evade unpleasant facts … To remain effective, I need to keep expanding my knowledge; learning needs to be a way of life. The better I know and understand myself, the better the life I can create. Self-examination is an imperative of a fulfilled existence.

Self-Acceptance: At the most fundamental level, I am for myself … I accept myself. I accept the reality of my thoughts, even when I cannot endorse them and would not choose to act on them; I do not deny or disown them. I can accept my feelings and emotions without necessarily liking, approving of, or being controlled by them; I do not deny or disown them. I can accept that I have done what I have done, even when I regret or condemn it. I do not deny or disown my behavior. …

Self-Responsibility: I am responsible for my choices and actions … for the level of consciousness I bring to my work and other activities … for how I prioritize my time … for the quality of my communications … for my personal happiness … for choosing or accepting the values by which I live. I am responsible for raising my self-esteem; no one else can give me self-esteem. …

Self-Assertiveness: In general, it is appropriate for me to express my thoughts, convictions, and feelings, unless I am in a context where I judge it objectively desirable not to. …

Living Purposefully: Only I properly can choose the goals and purposes for which I live. No one else can appropriately design my existence. If I am to succeed, I need to learn how to achieve my goals and purposes. I need to develop and then implement a plan of action. …

Personal Integrity: I should practice what I preach … keep my promises … honor my commitments … deal with other human beings fairly, justly, benevolently, and compassionately … strive to make my life a reflection of my inner vision of the good. My self-esteem is more valuable than any short-term rewards for its betrayal. [Nathaniel Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Bantam, 1994, pp. 161-166]

The Mental Demands of Modern Life [are such that]: …

As citizens of a diverse society [we should be able to]: Resist our tendencies to make “right” or “true” that which is merely familiar; and “wrong” and “false” that which is only strange. … Be able to look at and evaluate the values and beliefs of our psychological and cultural inheritance rather than be captive of those values and beliefs. …

In psychotherapy: … Learn to stand on our own feet emotionally, intellectually, economically. Learn to stop reindoctrinating ourselves with the unwholesome philosophies of life, or values, we imbibed and taught ourselves in youth. … Learn the psychological myths or scripts that govern our behavior and reauthor them (rather than just use insight for better understanding of why the script is as it is).

In school: Exercise critical thinking. Examine ourselves, our culture, and our milieu in order to understand how to separate what we feel from what we should feel, what we value from what we should value, and what we want from what we should want. Be a self-directed learner (take initiative; set our own goals and standards; use experts, institutions, and other resources to pursue these goals; take responsibility for our direction and productivity in learning). See ourselves as the co-creators of the culture (rather than only shaped by culture). Read actively (rather than only receptively) with our own purpose in mind. Write to ourselves and bring our teachers into our self-reflection (rather than write mainly to our teachers and for our teachers). [Robert Kegan, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Harvard UP, 1994, pp. 302-303]

“Our ultimate educational objective is a self-starting, self-criticizing, and self-nourishing mind—a mind that can function powerfully, creatively, and wisely under its own steam” [Theodore M. Greene, Liberal Education Reconsidered, 1953]. A man, in other words, who could freely dispose of his own energies, beholden to no one in any uncritical or slavish way—a man who would inject the continually fresh and new into the world. Democratic man, in the original and now-lost meaning of the term. [Ernest Becker, Beyond Alienation: A Philosophy of Education for the Crisis of Democracy, George Braziller, 1967, pp. 35-36]

Based on the data from empirical research on the correlations between personality traits … and lifelong achievement, five personality facets have emerged as the most relevant to one’s success in today’s world: grit, self-control, self-confidence, empathy, and a service mindset. …

Commonly associated personality traits in a gritty person are perseverance, hard work, tenacity, passion, and strong will. …

[Self-control] is defined as the ability to suppress proponent responses in the service of a higher goal” [Duckworth & Seligman, 2006], or “the ability to control one’s behavior and desires and delay gratification for later rewards” [Myers, 2012]. …

Self-confidence refers to the assuredness in one’s own worth, abilities, and power … This assuredness is linked with possessing certain knowledge, skill sets or abilities, whether it is acquired or innate. … Even though childhood experiences are important, self-confidence can be learned, built on, and developed. [This process] involves two basic steps: (1) learning and improving skills required for a task, and (2) facing fear of failure. …

The academic definition of the empathic trait typically includes (1) the affective capacity to share in another’s feelings, (2) the cognitive ability to understand another’s feelings and perspective … and sometimes (3) the ability to communicate one’s empathetic feelings and understanding to another by verbal or nonverbal means. …

If developing empathy is an intellectual endeavor, developing a service mindset is putting this intellectual ability into action. … Serving and being appreciated by others not only fulfills one’s fundamental needs, but also improves one’s learning ability through improved cognitive engagement. [Daisy Zhang-Negrerie, “Personality Matters: Personality Traits,” Counting What Counts: Reframing Education Outcomes, edited by Yong Zhao, Solution Tree, 2016, pp. 52-58]

Another change which occurs as the result of successful psychotherapy is that the patient comes to feel increasing confidence in his own judgment. Thomas Szasz, the controversial American psychoanalyst, defines the aim of psychoanalytic treatment as being “to increase the patient’s knowledge of himself and others and hence his freedom of choice in the conduct of his life”. Szasz is particularly insistent that the therapist should not give advice or do anything else which might interfere with the patient’s autonomy; indeed, he calls his own brand of psychoanalysis “autonomous psychotherapy”. [Carl] Rogers also notes that the client who improves “increasingly trusts and values the process which is himself”. It is very characteristic of depressed and dependent people that they attribute more value to the judgment of others than to their own; which is why, during the course of therapy, the therapist must always take the attitude of helping the patient to find his own answers rather than guiding him or giving him direct advice. Part of growing up is to realize that one’s own thoughts and feelings may be trustworthy guides for oneself, even if others do not necessarily find them so, for them. [Anthony Storr, The Art of Psychotherapy, Methuen, 1980, p. 153]

Becoming autonomous involves developing integrated regulatory processes for managing behavior when emotions have been stimulated. By doing that, people will be able to experience true choice with respect to their behavior when they are angry, disgusted, or joyful. … Behaviors will be chosen based on an awareness of the emotion and on a consideration of the goals they would like to accomplish. When people are autonomous, they will allow a full experience of their emotions, and they will feel free in deciding how to express them. [Edward L. Deci with Richard Flaste, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, Penguin, 1996, p. 191]

Suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side effects, all of them good: increased self-esteem, empathy, and trust; it even improves memory. Suppose, finally, that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it?

The pill exists. It is meditation. …

Mediation done every day for several months can help you reduce substantially the frequency of fearful, negative, and grasping thoughts, thereby improving your affective style. As Buddha said: “When a man knows the solitude of silence, and feels the joy of quietness, he is then free from fear and sin.” [Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Basic Books, 2006, pp. 35-37]

One reason that people interpret many events as threats is that they have developed ego-involvements. Being ego involved … means that people’s feelings of self-worth are contingent upon some type of outcome. …

Ego-involvements make people a pawn to their emotions. If they need to be seen as strong in order to feel worthy, being called a wimp will threaten their self-worth and could send them into a rage. … [B]y being ego-involved people give others a weapon. And others quickly learn how to use it. …

Part of how people can rise above the situation is to take interest in their own ego-involvements, to begin to explore what hooks them. Then they can ask themselves whether it is really necessary to pressure and control themselves in that way. By exploring their ego-involvements, people can find ways of becoming less reactive, less controlled, less like a pawn. By exploring their ego-involvements and how ego-involvements affect the interpretations they give to stimuli, people can gain the capacity to regulate their own emotions without suppressing them—people can become more autonomous. [Edward L. Deci with Richard Flaste, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, Penguin, 1996, pp. 189-190]

[R]esearchers found that if any of the three extrinsic aspirations—for money, fame, or beauty—was very high for an individual relative to the three intrinsic aspirations, the individual was also more likely to display poorer mental health. For example, having an unusually strong aspiration for material success was associated with narcissism, anxiety, depression, and poorer social functioning as rated by a trained clinical psychologist. … In contrast, strong aspirations for any of the intrinsic goals—meaningful relationships, personal growth, and community contributions—were positively associated with well-being. People who strongly desired to contribute to their community, for example, had more vitality and higher self-esteem. When people organize their behavior in terms of intrinsic strivings (relative to extrinsic) they seem more content—they feel better about who they are and display more evidence of psychological health. [Edward L. Deci with Richard Flaste, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, Penguin, 1996, p. 128]

If you want to predict how happy someone is, or how long she will live (and if you are not allowed to ask about her genes or personality), you should find out about her social relationships. Having strong social relationships strengthens the immune system, extends life (more than does quitting smoking), speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces the risks of depression and anxiety disorders. … [R]ecent work on giving support shows that caring for others is often more beneficial than is receiving help. We need to interact and intertwine with others; we need the give and the take; we need to belong. [Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Basic Books, 2006, pp. 133-134]

[I] assess the position of all my new clinical clients along a few dimensions largely dependent on the social world when I first start working with them: Have they been educated to the level of their intellectual ability or ambition? Is their use of free time engaging, meaningful, and productive? Have they formulated solid and well-articulated plans for the future? Are they (and those they are close to) free of any serious physical health or economic problems? Do they have friends and a social life? A stable and satisfying intimate partnership? Close and functional familial relationships? A career—or, at least, a job—that is financially sufficient, stable and, if possible, a source of satisfaction and opportunity? If the answer to any three or more of these questions is no, I consider that my new client is insufficiently embedded in the interpersonal world and is in danger of spiraling downward psychologically because of that. [Jordan Peterson, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, Penguin / Portfolio, 2021, p. 5]

Love and work are, for people, obvious analogues to water and sunshine for plants. When Freud was asked what a normal person should be able to do well, he is reputed to have said, “Love and work.” If therapy can help a person do those two things well, it has succeeded. In Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, once people have satisfied their physical needs (such as food and shelter), they move on to needs for love and then esteem, which is earned mostly through one’s work. Even before Freud, Leo Tolstoy wrote: “One can live magnificently in this world, if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one’s work.” [Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Basic Books, 2006, pp. 219-220]

From a psychologist’s point of view, outstanding children are those who have developed a “self” that is authentic, capable, loving, creative, in control of itself, and moral. [Madeline Levine, The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, HarperCollins, 2006, p. 65]

Dr. [Diana] Baumrind [a research psychologist at the University of California] believes that it is the authoritative parent, the parent who is warm but also capable of appropriate discipline, and who is committed to supporting a high degree of autonomy with equally high demands for maturity and achievement, who stands to have the best-adjusted child. … [T]hese are the children who are most likely to have a healthy sense of self, to have developed the skills that comprise the trinity of healthy child development: the ability to lead independent lives, to maintain loving interpersonal relationships, and to enjoy a sense of competence. [Madeline Levine, The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, HarperCollins, 2006, p. 132]

These are the qualities of a model progressive education as we understand it here. To be aware means to bring reason continually to bear on problems in real life situations; to be identified means to know that one has aegis over his own powers and is someone to reckon with; to be skeptical means just that—to be critical of any automatic authority; to be responsible means to be able to aim for autonomy—to put forth one’s own unique meanings and stand up for the consequences; to be employed means simply to be engaged in something meaningful rather than trivial; to be tense finally, means that one believes there is something serious and dramatic about life, that it is a cause for real concern and for the best efforts that one can produce. … Tenseness implies that there is something to which the individual should dedicate himself over and beyond his petty and selfish concerns. Tenseness, in a word, is the quality of personal responsibility in the cosmic community of man and nature. [Ernest Becker, The Structure of Evil: An Essay on the Unification of the Science of Man, Free Press, 1968, pp. 294-295]

[Scientists with the Gallup Organization] concluded that well-being embraces five broad areas of life. …

Career Well-being: how you occupy your time or simply liking what you do every day.

Social Well-being: having strong relationships and love in your life.

Financial Well-being: effectively managing your economic life.

Physical Well-being: having good health and energy to get things done on a daily basis.

Community Well-being: your sense of engagement with the area where you live. [Ken Robinson, Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life, Viking / Penguin, 2013, pp. 124-125]