Seeking to Fulfill Your Career Passion?

Do you have a career passion, or are you still looking? Possibly more than ever before, it's a goal emphasized by vocational counselors and, increasingly, their college and even high-school counterparts. In this light, positive psychology uses the term "callings," often signaled by our heady excitement and dedication in discovering a career that feels just right for our soul. Recalling his first, joyful exposure to psychology as a struggling college student, Abraham Maslow likened this exuberant experience to "falling in love" (his words).

As Maslow's biographer, I learned that he regarded career passion as a vital trait of self-actualizers, those thriving at the highest psychological level in his famous hierarchy of inborn needs. In Motivation and Personality, Maslow reported: "They are people who have developed or are developing to the full stature of which they are capable" and are dedicated to a cause or field outside themselves, such as education or the arts, labor organizing, law, medicine, or stay-at-home family caregiving.

Regardless of their specific vocational focus, Maslow insisted in an unpublished essay, self-actualizers have what he called strong "positive human traits" that include the "qualities of self-respect, of security and safety, of being lovable, of being able to love someone else, and of being aware of the need to be loved and to love." These are all emotional-social strengths, of course. But how do these traits actually develop?

Maslow said little on this issue, but shortly before his sudden death at age 62, he planned a guidebook aimed at teens on how to self-actualize. Having raised two daughters to adulthood with his wife, Bertha, and taught college students for over 30 years, he was excited about this ground-breaking project.

Because of Maslow's admiration for such thinkers as Alfred Adler, Anna Freud, and Erich Fromm, it seems likely that this guidebook would have incorporated their ideas. However, a highly relevant body of developmental psychology was still nascent: namely, attachment theory. In my view, it offers vital insights into what helps teens and young adults to self-actualize—and what makes its achievement more challenging and elusive.

Why Attachment Style Matters

Attachment theory is generally traced to the work of John Bowlby, a British developmental psychologist and psychiatrist. In an influential, three-volume work titled Attachment and Loss (1969/1982), he argued that children are born with an innate, biological drive to form a close bond with a primary caregiver, and that the first few years of life comprise a crucial "window" for its formation. The Canadian psychologist Mary Ainsworth amplified attachment theory to emphasize that, based on the subtleties of this crucial bond, we develop an emotional structure that shapes our lifelong ability to become emotionally close with others. Subsequent researchers have broadened attachment theory in recognition of cultural differences in child-rearing practices, but the basic paradigm is that everyone fits one of these four attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant-dismissive, avoidant-fearful, or disorganized ( "chaotic").

How does this relate to self-actualization? Simply that without a secure attachment style, it's difficult to enjoy, let alone navigate effectively, the myriad kinds of interpersonal relationships that catalyze our calling. Whether your passion is psychology, health care, or meteorology, you're not likely to gain mentors or develop important collaborative skills—during your college years and afterward—if your attachment style is anxious, avoidant, or disorganized. Studies increasingly show a decisive link between attachment style and workplace relationships, as those with secure attachment evince greater empathy, teamwork, and leadership ability. Such aspects can play a big role in whether you fulfill your career passion.

Boosting Secure Attachment: The Good News

Initially, personality theorists asserted that our attachment style is essentially immutable after childhood. But that viewpoint is now shifting. For example, there's evidence that satisfying life experiences in friendship or love can boost our sense of secure attachment, perhaps permanently. Mounting experimental research also shows that "priming" people with security-oriented images (i.e., a mother hugging her happy child) or guided visualizations (asking participants to picture their favorite place of peace and safety) reduces their attachment anxiety and avoidance. Such activities are called Secure Attachment Priming (SAP).

Another SAP technique is designed to strengthen authenticity. It's based on research that emotionally secure people are less likely to play "head games" with others and are more honest with their feelings. To give it a try, write down all your positive qualities (e.g., kindly, organized) and all your negative ones (e.g., impatient, bossy) each day for a couple of weeks. Give a brief example of each quality. You can vary those from day to day, and be as honest as you can.