Peak Experiences

American psychologist and philosopher Abraham H. Maslow coined the term "peak experiences" to describe nonreligious quasi-mystical and mystical experiences. Peak experiences are sudden feelings of intense happiness and well-being, and possibly the awareness of "ultimate truth" and the unity of all things. Accompanying these experiences is a heightened sense of control over the body and emotions, and a wider sense of awareness, as though one was standing upon a mountaintop. The experience fills the individual …

…of humanistic psychology. Even though everyone may be capable of having peak experiences, it does not mean everyone has them. That is, they can have them if they want to experience them. People have peak experiences without the aid of psychotherapy. If a criminal has a peak experience it is really no reflection on humanistic psychology and does it enhance the person's life, or not? Each experience has to be judged on its own merit.