Amity Institute of Psychology & Allied Sciences

Humanistic, Existential & Gestalt

Psychotherapy
Module I-Humanistic Psychology

-Dr. Anu Teotia

Assistant Professor (AIPS)
Certified Psychotherapist
 Third Force in Psychology
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There are three different forces in Psychology: Psychoanalysis,

Behaviourism & Humanistic.
First force includes Psychoanalysis and the work of Alfred Adler, Eric
Erickson, Carl Jung, Erich Fromm.
Abraham Maslow called Behaviourism as the “second force” in
Psychology. Ivan Pavlov, BE Skinner and John B Watson contributed to
its development immensely.
In the late 1950s, psychologists like Abraham Maslow, Clark Moustakas
and Carl Rogers concerned with advancing a more holistic vision of
psychology by founding a professional association dedicated to a
psychology that focused on uniquely human issues, such as the self, self-
actualization, health, hope, love, creativity, nature, being, becoming,
individuality, and meaning—that is, a concrete understanding of
human existence done two meetings in Detroit, Michigan.
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These meetings eventually led significant developments included the

formation of the Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP) in
1961 and the launch of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology
(originally "The Phoenix") in 1961.

In 1971, humanistic psychology as a field was recognized by the

American Psychological Association (APA) and granted its
own division (Division 32) within the APA.
Division 32 publishes its own academic journal called The
Humanistic Psychologist.
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The major theorists considered to have prepared the ground for

Humanistic Psychology are Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and
Rollo May.
Maslow was heavily influenced by Kurt Goldstein. Psychoanalytic
writers also influenced humanistic psychology.

Maslow himself famously acknowledged his "indebtedness to

Freud" in Towards a Psychology of Being.
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Humanistic Psychology-

1) favors letting the methods be derived from the subject matter

and not uncritically adopting the methods of natural science,

2) advocates for methodological pluralism.

Consequently, much of the subject matter of psychology lends itself

to qualitative approaches (e.g., the lived experience of grief) , and
quantitative methods are mainly appropriate when something can be
counted without leveling the phenomena (e.g., the length of time
spent crying).
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Humanistic Psychology tries to understand the lived experiences

of individuals as active participants in the lifeworld – i.e.,
situated in sociocultural and ecopsycho-spiritual contexts.

Humanistic psychologists share a vision of psychology as a

holistic, phenomenological exploration of the processes that
organically promote psychological health and growth in
accordance with people’s innate potentials.

Such an intentionally non-exclusive approach has been preferred in

order “to keep things open and flexible” (Bühler 1971, p. 378), with
the deliberate goal of continuous revision and elaboration in order
to “establish itself anew for each generation
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. Contemporary humanistic psychology is a “concerted brew” of

three ontologies:

• Existential psychology – which emphasizes situated

freedom, experiential reflection (including phenomenology), and
responsibility.

• Transpersonal psychology – which stresses spirituality,

transcendence, and compassionate social action.

Constructivist psychology – which accents culture, political

consciousness, and personal meaning.
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these provide the foundation for a human science that values the whole
person in context and that, by its methods, serves to reconcile the
dualities of objective/subjective, individual/species,
dispositional/situational, nature/nurture, art/science, science/spiritual,
mind/body, Eastern/Western, aesthetic/pragmatic, etc.
Rather than view the healthy personality as the absence of pathology
and/or the achievement of “happiness” as understood on an egoic basis,
humanistic psychologists highlight maturity and the roles of
meaning-making and of values – e.g., autonomy and commitment,
freedom and responsibility, personal decision and worldly
adaptability, and self-awareness and the awareness of others.
Humanistic personality theory emphasizes individuals’ motivation
to continually progress toward higher levels of interactive
functioning and their present capacities for growth and change
irrespective of past limitations and future uncertainties.
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the humanistic perspective is summarized by five basic postulates –

1. As human, supersede the sum of their parts. They cannot be reduced

to components.

2. Have their existence in a uniquely human context.

3. Are aware and are aware of being aware – i.e., they are conscious.
Human consciousness always includes an awareness of oneself in the
context of other people.

4. Have the ability to make choices and, with that, responsibility.

5. Are intentional, aim at goals, are aware that they cause future events,
and seek meaning, value, and creativity.
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The “common denominator of these concepts,” said Bühler (1971),

“is that all humanistic psychologists see the goal of

life as using [one’s] life to accomplish something
[one] believes in” and to create something that
outlives oneself.
 The Roots of the Humanistic Perspective
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The Humanities- – several of the founders of humanistic

psychology intentionally revived concepts from the humanities to
introduce relevant human problems and questions. Greek dramatists had
created images of human life as a quest and of the person as a hero
struggling powerfully against fates during a journey of psycho-
spiritual integration.
Greek philosophers valued dialogue as a means of seeking deeper truths
from everyday situations: knowledge about wrongdoing and self-
examination, self-discipline, self-determination, and self-challenging as
tools for living. (Thus the Greeks influenced the third, fourth, and fifth
postulates of humanistic psychology) Humanistic psychologists also
drew from literature (e.g., Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Shakespeare, Steinbeck,
Tolstoy, etc.) as a means of providing familiar narratives to support their
principles.
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Eastern Wisdom Traditions- The founding humanistic

psychologists referred to Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism in their
writings.

Mindfulness-based practices have been part of the humanistic

therapeutic repertoire since its beginning.

Post-Freudian Psychodynamic Psychology- Founding

humanistic psychologists openly acknowledged the influence of
dynamic psychologists and considered them part of the humanistic
movement. Jung explored the narrative role of myths and symbols in
the process of psycho-spiritual development. Erikson proposed a
dialectical process of forging an autonomous identity in order to love
and to make a contribution to one’s greater community.
 Humanistic psychology and
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of Psychology issuesSciences

Although social transformation may not have been the primary

focus in the past, a large percentage of contemporary humanistic
psychologists currently investigate pressing social, cultural, and
gender issues.
Even the earliest writers who were associated with and inspired
psychological humanism explored topics as diverse as the political
nature of "normal" and everyday experience (RD Laing), the
disintegration of the capacity to love in modern consumerist
society (Erich Fromm), the growing technological dominance over
human life (Medard Boss), and the question of evil (Rollo May-
Carl Rogers debate.
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In addition, Maureen O’Hara, who worked with both Carl Rogers

and Paolo Freire, has pointed to a convergence between the two
thinkers given their distinct but mutually related focus on
developing critical consciousness of situations which oppress and
dehumanize.
 Basic Principles of Amity
Humanisitc Psychology
Institute of Psychology & Allied Sciences

1. Humans have free will; this is called personal agency.

2. All individuals are unique and have an innate (inborn) drive to
achieve their maximum potential.
3. A proper understanding of human behavior can only be achieved by
studying humans – not animals.
4. Subjective reality is the primary guide for human behavior.
5. The whole person should be studied in their environmental context.
6. the goal of psychology is to formulate a complete description of
what it means to be a human being (e.g. the importance of language,
emotions, and how humans seek to find meaning in their lives).
 Basic Assumptions
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1. Humans have free will; this is called personal

agency
• -Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of
free will. Free will is the idea that people can make choices in
how they act and are self-determining.
• Behavior is not constrained by either past experience of the
individual or current circumstances (determinism).
• Personal agency refers to the choices we make in life, the paths
we go down, and their consequences. Individuals are free to
choose when they are congruent (Rogers) or self-actualized
(Maslow).
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2. People are basically good, and have an innate need

to make themselves and the world better:

humanistic psychology grew out of the need for a more positive

view of human beings than was offered by psychoanalysis or
behaviorism.
The humanistic approach emphasizes the individual’s personal
worth, the centrality of human values, and the creative, active
nature of human beings.

The approach is optimistic and focuses on the noble human capacity

to overcome hardship, pain and despair.
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3. People are motivated to self-actualize:

Major humanistic psychologists such as Carl Rogers and

Abraham Maslow believed that human beings were born with the
desire to grow, create and to love, and had the power to direct their
own lives.

This means that each person, in different ways, seeks to grow

psychologically and continuously enhance themselves.

According to Maslow, people also have needs which must be met for
self-actualization to be possible.
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According to Rogers, people could only self-actualize if they had a

positive view of themselves (positive self-regard).

This can only happen if they have unconditional positive regard

from others – if they feel that they are valued and respected
without reservation by those around them (especially their
parents when they were children).

Self-actualization is only possible if there is congruence

between the way an individual sees themselves and
their ideal self (the way they want to be or think they
should be).
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4. Behavior must be understood in terms of the

subjective conscious experience of the individual
(phenomenology):

Humanistic psychologists also believe that the most fundamental

aspect of being human is a subjective experience.

This may not be an accurate reflection of the real world, but a

person can only act in terms of their own private experience
subjective perception of reality.
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Humanistic psychologists argue that physical objective reality is

less important than a person’s subjective (phenomenological)
perception and understanding of the world.

Thus, how people interpret things internally is (for

them), the only reality.

Sometimes the humanistic approach is called phenomenological.

This means that personality is studied from the point of view of the
individual’s subjective experience.
Meaning is the purpose or value that a person attaches to their
actions or experiences
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As Rogers once said, “The only reality I can possibly know is the
world as I perceive and experience it at this particular moment. The
only reality you can possibly know is the world as you perceive and
experience at this moment. And the only certainty is that those
perceived realities are different. There are as many ‘real worlds’ as
there are people!

Humanistic theorists say these individual subjective realities must be

looked at under three simultaneous conditions.--
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1. First, they must be looked at as a whole and meaningful and not

broken down into small components of information that are
disjointed or fragmented like with psychodynamic theorists.
Rogers said that if these individual perceptions of reality are not
kept intact and are divided into elements of thought, they will lose
their meaning.

2. Second, they must be conscious experiences of the here and now. No

efforts should be made to retrieve unconscious experiences from the
past.

3. Phenomenenological means ‘that which appears’ and in this case, it

means that which naturally appears in consciousness. Without
attempting to reduce it to its component parts – without further
analysis.
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5. Humanism rejects scientific methodology:-

Rogers and Maslow placed little value on Scientific psychology,

especially the use of the psychology laboratory to investigate both
human and animal behavior.

Rogers said that objective scientific inquiry based on deterministic

assumptions about humans has a place in the study of humans (science)
but is limited in the sense that it leaves out inner human experiences
(phenomenology).

Humanism rejects scientific methodology like experiments and

typically uses qualitative research methods. For example, diary
accounts, open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews, and
observations.
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Humanism rejected Comparative psychology (the study of

animals) because it does not tell us anything about the unique
properties of human beings:

Humanism views humans as fundamentally different from other

animals, mainly because humans are conscious beings capable of
thought, reason, and language.

Psychology should study the individual case

(idiographic) rather than the average performance of
groups (nomothetic).
 Humanistic Theory Of
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Personality
• Central to Rogers” personality theory is the notion of self or Self
concept. This is defined as “the organized, consistent set of
perceptions and beliefs about oneself.”

• The self is the humanistic term for who we really are as a person.
The self is our inner personality, and can be likened to the soul, or
Freud’s Psyche.

• The self is influenced by the experiences a person has in their life,

and out interpretations of those experiences. Two primary sources
that influence our self-concept are childhood experiences and
evaluation by others.
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According to Rogers (1959), we want to feel, experience and

behave in ways which are consistent with our self-image and
which reflect what we would like to be like, our ideal-self. The
closer our self-image and ideal-self are to each other, the more
consistent or congruent we are and the higher our sense of self-
worth.

A person is said to be in a state of incongruence if some of the

totality of their experience is unacceptable to them and is denied
or distorted in the self-image.
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The humanistic approach states that the self is composed of concepts

unique to ourselves. The self-concept includes three components:
Self-worth
Self-worth (or self-esteem) comprises what we think about ourselves.
Rogers believed feelings of self-worth developed in early childhood and
were formed from the interaction of the child with the mother and father.

Self-image
How we see ourselves, which is important to good psychological
health. Self-image includes the influence of our body image on inner
personality.
At a simple level, we might perceive ourselves as a good or bad person,
beautiful or ugly. Self-image affects how a person thinks, feels and
behaves in the world.
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Ideal-self
This is the person who we would like to be. It consists of our
goals and ambitions in life, and is dynamic – i.e., forever
changing.
The ideal self in childhood is not the ideal self in our teens or late
twenties etc.
 History
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• Maslow (1943) developed a hierarchical theory of human

motivation.

• Carl Rogers (1946) publishes

Significant aspects of client-centered therapy (also called person-
centered therapy).

• In 1957 and 1958, at the invitation of Abraham Maslow and Clark

Moustakas, two meetings were held in Detroit among psychologists
who were interested in founding a professional association
dedicated to a more meaningful, more humanistic vision.
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•In 1962, with the sponsorship of Brandeis University, this movement

was formally launched as the
Association for Humanistic Psychology.

•The first issue of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology appeared in

the Spring of 1961.