Conceptions of the Mature Personality from Dr. Graves' Research

"I can say what is my conception of the mature personality in one sentence but it would take reams of paper to clarify what I mean. So I shall, in this endeavor, express my thoughts in one sentence and then elaborate only upon the basis of what I mean.

The mature personality is a participating, creative personality which in its operation does justice to every type of personality, every mode of culture, every human potential without forming anyone into typological molds.

The mature personality provides a means for bringing relations of reciprocity and willing amity to the entire family of human beings. The mature provides for the interchange and utilization of the entire experiences of humankind. He or she lives in a moral world which tears down manmade barriers of law and custom widening the means of communication and cooperation between humans.

The mature is a committed person, committing self to continuous self-development, and to intimate relations and cooperation with all people. He or she is one who believes in face to face interaction and assessment, one who believes friendly eyes are the indispensable mirror for reflecting what is. he or she believes in an absolutely open society where every nook, every corner is exposed to anyone who is curious. He or she behaves so as to demonstrate that every person may be freely heard.

The mature personality deliberately exercises choice which directs life toward allegiances which are beyond the boundaries of natural communities and the organized state and toward the ultimate hopes of mankind. He or she seeks to widen the ties of fellowship without respect to birth, caste or property, and disavows claims to special privilege or the exclusivity of leadership. He or she replaces Godly authority with the temporal authority of the time and the place. He or she softens the features which identify a person with a particular society or culture. To the mature, humanity is a unity of souls seeking salvation not a union of Catholics, High Episcopalians, Orthodox Jews or Baptists.

The mature is beyond sordid concern with his or her own survival and is focused on intensive cultivation of a belief in freedom, not a belief of freedom.

To the mature technology is for human needs, not power, productivity, profit or prestige and scientific endeavor is not for ruthless exploitation or desecration. Scientific endeavor is for depth exploration of all regions not just physical regions, so as to provide for the inner human knowledge that will assure human supremacy.

The mature indulges in the dematerialization of self, in self-transcending endeavors which reach beyond sordid concern with one's own survival, beyond the over-rational and irrational, beyond mechanical uniformity toward a concept of organic unity. He or she operates by the belief that we are all one and should seek to enhance human expression to provide for a world society based on human values. He or she believes one should know both the objective and the subjective and show the ability to face one's whole self and direct every part of it to a more unified development.

In summary, and in Freudian terms, the mature personality accepts its id, but dopes not give it primacy, and fosters the sure ego but does not allow it to depress the fullest expression of the ego."