Humanistic Existential Theory

1407 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Theories on humanistic existentialism

The clinicians that use the approach of the humanistic-existential model believe that to function properly, humans, throughout their lives, have a need to develop perceptions and beliefs about oneself and to accept and value their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regardless of the consequences (Comer, 2016, pg. 58). Humanists argue that people are born good and over the course of their lives, they seek to fulfill their potential known as self-actualization (Comer, 2016, pg. 58). Existentialists believe that human comes to this world with the ability and freedom to choose their destiny and give purpose to their lives (Comer, 2016, pg. 58). From both perspectives, practitioners consider abnormality to be rooted in childhood as a result of …show more content…

In consequence, humanists and existentialists argue that people who mostly receive judgment and criticism for their behaviors are more vulnerable to developing a psychological disorder because they fail to recognize their worth (Comer, 2016, pg. 110). Overall, the humanistic-existential treatment model objective is to change clients’ harsh self-standards as they gain self-awareness and self-acceptance by valuing and giving meaning to their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Comer, 2016, pg. 110). The main types of therapy for this model are client-centered therapy, gestalt therapy, and existential therapy. In these type of treatments, practitioners avoid giving personal remarks and their opinions, because they allow the client to control the session by creating a supportive and warm atmosphere in which clients are able to accept their weaknesses as well as their strengths while critiquing themselves honestly in an attempt to find their own solutions (Comer, 2016, …show more content…

174). Shea and Jackson (2015) research goal was to elicit the Family Mosaic Project (FMP) youths’ thoughts and feelings of their experience with this type of intervention (pg. 175). The FMP is a program that refers troubled youth to the Occupational Therapy Training Program (OTTP) from clinicians that work in schools, in communities or in detention facilities who are practitioners of the client-centered occupation-based therapy (Shea, Jackson, 2015, pg.174). FMP focus on changing behaviors of youth between the ages of 11 and 18 who are socially disadvantaged, by providing services such as intensive case management (Shea, Jackson, 2015, pg. 174). OTTP is a community-based program within FMP, that offers social activities that are pleasurable and meaningful to occupy severely troubled kids who are at risk for foster care (Shea, Jackson, 2015, pg. 174). Furthermore, the sample consisted of five participants of the FMP program and the demographics were gender, age, ethnicity, level of education and length in OTTP (Shea, Jackson, 2015, pg. 175). Qualitative research method was used to gather and analyze the verbal data of the research design (Shea, Jackson, 2015, pg. 174). Five semi-structured interviews were

Show More
Related

  • Essay On Theoretical Orientation

    1386 Words  | 3 Pages

    This approach emphasizes the importance of the potential of humans and sought to make up for the missing component of conscious in the psychodynamic approach. The humanistic approach oriented psychologist has the belief that human behavior is guided by intent and the individual’s set of values (Association, 2014). Those who subscribe to this orientation believe there are both an unconscious and a conscious element to determining behavior. The unconscious element is considered to be the individual’s application of learned norms and experience, while the conscious element is applied by making deliberate choices and decisions. A humanistic oriented practitioner will use differing types of therapy such as client-centered therapy, Gestalt therapy, or existential therapy (American Psychological, 2015). Client-centered therapy or person-centered therapy was developed by Carl Rogers and places the client as the leader of the therapy. This approach allows for the growth and better understanding of self within the individual, as they solve their own problems, while the therapist is there to provide empathetic support (Australian, 2010). Gestalt therapy focuses on the responsibility of the individual for their current situation and considers relationships, environment, and social experiences occurring, and influencing behavior (Polster & Polster, 2010). This process consists of the practitioner acting as a guide and offer advise in helping the client to deal with their current issue. Existential therapy consists of allowing an individual the ability to live with their issues within their own existence (Price, 2011). This means a therapist uses this type of therapy to assist clients with understanding what the present problem is and learning to deal with the consequences of that issue in their every day life. With

    Read More

  • Existential Therapy Case Study

    1885 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sarah DeJesus is a 26 year old Caucasian female. She has two children, one boy age eight and one daughter age two. Her father is Puerto Rican and her mother was born and raised in West Virginia. Client is self-referred.

    Read More

  • Existentialism

    2190 Words  | 5 Pages

    Existentialism Existentialism is a philosophical movement that stresses individual existence. Human beings are totally free and responsible for their own actions. Another main idea of existentialism is the limitation of reason and the irreducibility of experience to any system. Man is not a detached observer of the world; rather, he "exists" in a special sense - he is "in the world." Stones, trees, and other objects do not share this existence, and man is open to the world and the objects in it.

    Read More

  • Personal Model of Counseling

    1404 Words  | 3 Pages

    The theory that serves as the foundation to my counseling values at this time is Carl Roger’s Person-Centered therapy. Person-Centered counseling has always fascinated me, and I am glad that I expanded my knowledge on it this semester. The video of Rogers and Gloria really captivated me and brought to life the characteristics of a Person-Centered counselor. Roger’s unconditional positive regard and true genuine disposition showed throughout the therapy session. Person-Centered counseling envelops the characteristics that every good counselor should possess. Carl Rogers’s conditions of therapy serve as my foundation for my counseling values. Having an unconditional positive regard where I practice acceptance and a positive, warm attitude towards clients will help foster the therapeutic environment (Smith, 2012). Unconditional positive regard will leave no room for judging my clients and instead cultivate an atmosphere of openness. Additionally, another condition of therapy that serves as a foundational value is therapist empathy. Rogers’s takes empathy a step further compared to other theorists, he defines it as the ability immerse into and “sense the clients private world as if it were his or her own” (Smith, 2012, p.239). This condition goes beyond just reflecting a client’s feelings; it goes further by the therapist gaining a sense of what the client’s world is like and how they process their feelings.

    Read More

  • Existential Therapy

    828 Words  | 2 Pages

    Existential therapy is not recommended for clients who are unwilling to delve into their deeper conscious or unwilling to accept responsibility for their thoughts and decisions. One could also suggest that this type of therapy is not well suited for therapists who cannot be blunt with a client. Existential therapists are not confined to the neutral, passive, interpretive psychoanalytic role. The role of an Existential therapist is to help one’s client come to terms with their inner self and the way they interpret their world without denying the “givens of existence” (reality). As Rollo May stated, “I do not believe in toning down the daimonic. This gives a sense of false comfort. The real comfort can come only in the relationship of the therapist and client” (Diamond, 1996, p.

    Read More

  • Humanistic Therapy Case Study

    1115 Words  | 3 Pages

    Humanistic therapy focuses on the individual’s goals and freedoms, one of the most influential psychotherapies being client-centered therapy, or person-centered therapy. This therapy was developed by Carl Rogers who intentionally used the word “client” rather than “patient” do to the negative implication of people who go to therapy being labeled as sick and in need of help and curing. This therapy can be rather healthy because the client needs to realize on their own terms and work out their own problems and find solutions that will suit them rather than their therapist telling them what to do or not do. The three necessary qualities needed for this process to work are genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding.

    Read More

  • Humanistic Psychology

    1623 Words  | 4 Pages

    The humanistic psychology approach allows the conditions to apply to the client situation for positive developments and goals however, not intended for the therapist. It is important that the therapist conduct sessions in a way where they are showing themselves in the session without pretense. This allows a growth-promoting climate with the psychoanalysis of the client’s behavior. An important reason for a successful person-centered therapy allows clients the freedom to develop and control their own lives, rather than being tied to their past (Goodwin, 2008). This method also denotes and consists of psychotherapy and humanistic therapy where the concentration is on the present and not the past, and the humanistic analyst tends to underlines awareness instead of being unaware. Both theories share a common method while patients and clients converse their feelings vocally and th...

    Read More

  • Existentialism

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    Like "rationalism" and "empiricism," "existentialism" is a term that belongs to intellectual history. Its definition is thus to some extent one of historical convenience. The term was explicitly adopted as a self-description by Jean-Paul Sartre, and through the wide dissemination of the postwar literary and philosophical output of Sartre and his associates — notably Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus — existentialism became identified with a cultural movement that flourished in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s. Among the major philosophers identified as existentialists (many of whom — for instance Camus and Heidegger — repudiated the label) were Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, and Martin Buber in Germany, Jean Wahl and Gabriel Marcel in France, the Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset and Miguel de Unamuno, and the Russians Nicholai Berdyaev and Lev Shestov. The nineteenth century philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, came to be seen as precursors of the movement. Existentialism was as much a literary phenomenon as a philosophical one. Sartre's own ideas were and are better known through his fictional works (such as Nausea and No Exit) than through his more purely philosophical ones (such as Being and Nothingness and Critique of Dialectical Reason), and the postwar years found a very diverse coterie of writers and artists linked under the term: retrospectively, Dostoevsky, Ibsen, and Kafka were conscripted; in Paris there were Jean Genet, André Gide, André Malraux, and the expatriate Samuel Beckett; the Norwegian Knut Hamsen and the Romanian Eugene Ionesco belong to the club; artists such as Alberto Giacommeti and even Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning, and filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and Ingmar Bergman were understood in existential terms. By the mid 1970s the cultural image of existentialism had become a cliché, parodized in countless books and films by Woody Allen.

    Read More

  • Key Concepts Of Existential Therapy

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    The key concept of Existential Therapy is that of the “givens”. It follows the idea that we all have inner conflicts with ourselves, which happens when interact with one of the “givens” of existence. “Givens” are inevitable conditions of life that we all have to experience at some point, it is an inseparable part of human existence. The theory says there are four primary “givens” in our life.

    Read More

  • Existentialism

    2350 Words  | 5 Pages

    This quote, by Anton Chekhov, seems obvious and easy to relate to. However, it perfectly describes the concept of existentialism, which is neither obvious nor relatable. Existentialism is “a modern philosophical movement stressing the importance of personal experience and responsibility and the demands that they make on the individual, who is seen as a free agent in a deterministic and seemingly meaningless universe” (“Existentialism”). Existentialism is a difficult philosophy to grasp, but by exploring examples in literature and art, one can come to a better understanding of its basic tenets.

    Read More

  • A Critical Review Of Humanistic And Existential Psychology

    1040 Words  | 3 Pages

    Humanistic and Existential Psychology are influential on each other, both including the “meaning of our existence, the role of free will, and the uniqueness of each human” (Burger, 2015). This paper reviews three articles written by influential psychologists of their time, Maslow, Rogers, and Frankl. The review of each will include a summary, how well the contents connect to the humanistic or existential psychology, and if their ideas still have a relevant application in today’s environment. The first article for review by Viktor Frankl, an existential psychologist, Logotherapy and Existentialism, was written in 1967.

    Read More

  • Existential Psychology: Existential Needs Individual And Social Character

    1354 Words  | 3 Pages

    Existentialism is about to find the answer of human existence that why they exist in the world. It is responsible for the freedom and responsibility of the individual. It takes about the needs of human beings and their social character. Phenomology is the study about the experiences that we faced in our lives. It emphasizes that how the individual perceives his or her world. Existential psychology used this term to study about the about the belongings of personality like the choices that human beings

    Read More

  • The Non-Directive Therapy Process

    245 Words  | 1 Pages

    The above discussion is by no means an all-inclusive representation of how counseling is effective, but one author’s conception of an effective therapy process that remains advantageous. There is some empirical evidence that supports particular directive techniques used in CBT, but much more research must be done for non-directive processes that exist in PCT, Gestalt, and Existential therapies. Appropriately, the zeitgeist of the times is one of integration of theories that aid the client. This author’s aim was to demonstrate how Existential therapy, PCT, and Gestalt therapy are situated to assist the client’s explorations into their phenomenological world while CBT provides structure with empirically tested techniques that support the client

    Read More

  • The Benefits Of Humanistic Therapy

    393 Words  | 1 Pages

    It also focuses that the therapist is non judgmental and is encouraging of thoughts and feelings from the patient. There are many benefits that come with this type of therapy, such as the promotion of mindfulness, so people can enter a healthier lifestyle. Therapy session help people see their potential regarding thoughtful and actions of self awareness. It is important to know that “Humanistic therapy has a crucial opportunity to lead our troubled culture back to its own healthy path. More than any other therapy, Humanistic-Existential therapy models democracy. It imposes upon the client least of all. Freedom to choose is maximized. We validate our clients’ human potential.” (Hurst) Patients must try to act in a positive

    Read More

  • Humanistic Theory Reflection Paper

    1052 Words  | 3 Pages

    Education is learning to become good citizens of the world. Education is not only going to school through the years from K-12 and beyond to learn certain subjects and acquire certain skills. It is also to learn how to become better people and help create a better world. Learning is knowledge acquired through experiences, study and being taught. Students have different ways of learning. It is important to know that every student learns in a different way. Students might be auditory learners, visual learners, reading/writing and or kinesthetic learners and teachers should make lesson plans that include all of them in order to help students learn in the best way. The teacher’s role in the classroom is the most important role that could be played

    Read More

More about Humanistic Existential Theory

Open Document