Abraham H. Maslow, Albert Ellis, and Carl Gustav Jung provide theories of human nature which present the client as capable of self discovery and actualization. The three theorists regard the human being as capable of personal happiness without intensive therapeutic counseling. The counselor is beneficial as a source of insight, but cannot "cure" the client from without. Maslow, Ellis, and Jung each had individual methodologies by which the client could achieve personal fulfillment, yet they are alike in their belief that a person need not be subject to unconscious, irrational forces against one's will.
Jung believed that alchemy, astrology, Buddhism, certain primitive rituals and religions, mythology, and even psychotic hallucinations can shed light on personality. Such experiences, although not necessarily rational, are beneficial to an individual's growth because they "constitute the wisdom and experience of uncounted centuries" (Good 138).
Maslow and Ellis, on the other hand, regard well adjustment to be the result of clear, reasonable thinking. One has to recognize and understand unrealistic and unreasonable thoughts in order to grow in the direction toward personal happiness. It is apparent that Jung's orientation toward mysticism might be considered antithetical to rationality, yet from a pragmatic point of view, his focus on a person's ability to achieve personal fulfillment is closer to that of Maslow and Ellis than might otherwise appear.
All three theorists, then, take a primarily pragmatic approach to personal adjustment. As Colin Wilson points out in New Pathways in Psychology, "to approach a question pragmatically is to ask what practical difference it would make if one answer or the other were true. If it makes no difference, then both are equally true or false" (70). In other words, the pragmatist would argue, belief in mysticism is valid if such belief is valuable to the personal happiness of the belie...