ACCEPTANCE AND AFFILIATION AS ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS

Acceptance of an individual by another person is incontestably a condition for establishing an interpersonal relationship, set up for one's own personal self-realization and the social process. The capacity for affiliation, for establishing emotional and social contacts in the social process decides on the quality of relations, their axial arrangement and their meaningfulness. A man's acceptance and affiliation define, right at the beginning of his existence, the space required for his life and self-realization, or rejection and destruction. As acceptance and affiliation are basic expressions of freedom, they carry not only a social, but also an ethical significance.