Human Potential Movement - Human Potential in Europe

Human Potential Movement

The Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose out of the counterculture milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believe to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement took as its premise the belief that through the development of "human potential", humans can experience an exceptional quality of life filled with happiness, creativity, and fulfillment. As a corollary, those who begin to unleash this assumed potential often find themselves directing their actions within society towards assisting others to release their potential. Adherents believe that the net effect of individuals cultivating their potential will bring about positive social change at large.

The emergence of HPM is linked to humanistic psychology. The movement is strongly influenced by Abraham Maslow's theory of self-actualization as the supreme expression of a human's life.

In the middle of the 1960s, George Leonard did research across the United States on the subject of human potential for the magazine Look. In his research, he interviewed 37 psychiatrists, brain researchers, and philosophers on the subject of human potential. He found that "Not one of them said we were using more than 10% of our capacity" — which should not be misconstrued as an endorsement of the ten percent of the brain myth, as it refers to general human potential rather than neurological activity.

During the course of this research, Leonard met Michael Murphy, the founder of the nascent Esalen Institute that at the time was running educational programs for adults on the topic of "human potentialities". Leonard and Murphy became close friends and together put forth the idea that there should be a human potential movement.

Human Potential in Europe

Human Potential concepts found in Europe a growing interest thanks to training courses aimed at managers, graduate students, and unemployed, mainly funded by the European Union in public development courses in the 80's and 90's. In these courses, modules such as communication skills, marketing, leadership and others in the "soft skills" area were embedded in the programs, and enabled the familiarization of most of the Human Potential concepts. A key role was played by "EU Strategic objective 3, 4, and 5" that explicitly included transversal key competences such learning to learn, a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, and cultural awareness".

These training programs, lasting as much as 900 to 1200 hours aimed at enhancing creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, and contained at all levels of education and training Human Potential concepts. One of the core concepts, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs, became popular in Europe in the 80s mainly as a support to understanding consumer's needs, and only after its use as key marketing concept. Philip Kotler's book "Marketing Management" was particularly influential in the 80's in popularizing several human potential concepts that where "embedded" in the book and entered in the working and management community.

Specifically targeted books on Human Potential have emerged in Europe and can be found in the works of specific authors. For the "Anglo" cultural area, the work of John Whitmore  contains a harsh critique to mainstream approaches to human potential as a fast cures for self-improvement: "Contrary to the appealing claims of The One Minute Manager, there are no quick fixes in business".

For the "Latin" cultural area, an early approach to Human Potential can be found in the work of Maria Montessori. Montessori's theory and philosophy of education were influenced by the work of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, Édouard Séguin, Friedrich Fröbel, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and her model emphasized autonomous learning, sensory exploration and training children in physical activities, empowering their senses and thoughts by exposure to sights, smells, and tactile experiences, and later, problem solving.

Thanks to Wikipedia: Human Potential Movement

-------------------

Heal With Qigong	Qigong For Happiness, Health And Vitality	Qigong Power Training System
Miracle Mastery	Spoon Bending 101	Developing Psychic Powers

-------------------

Tag: Apparitional experience Astral projection Auras Bilocation Clairvoyance Deathbed phenomena Dermo-optical perception Dream telepathy Ectoplasm Electronic voice phenomenon Extrasensory perception Ganzfeld experiment Ghosts Kirlian photography Levitation Materialization Mediumship Near-death experience Orb Out-of-body experience Pam Reynolds case Parapsychology research at SRI Past life regression Plant perception (paranormal) Poltergeist Precognition Psychic Psychic detective Psychic reading Psychic surgery Psychokinesis Psychometry Pyrokinesis Reincarnation Remote viewing Retrocognition Second sight Sensory leakage Spoon bending Telepathy Thoughtography Xenoglossy Zener cards