The humanistic school of thought deals with the study of a person’s entirety depending on an individual's unique characteristics. The school of thought focuses on a person’s own way of thinking instead of generalizing the person’s behavior and grouping their actions with other individuals. The following will delve into the components of what the humanistic school of thought is, how the thought process had evolved, the key theorist associated with the paradigm, and the influences the school of thought had made in psychology.
Humanistic Overview
The Humanistic approach derived from the opposition of the belief that there was nothing that can be explored beyond behaviourist and psychodynamic psychology. The idea mainly derived from the works
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It helped to renew the study's interest in one's own self by saying that humans, individually, are unique beings and should be treated as such in psychology. As it was formed in protest to both Psychoanalysis and Behaviorism, it presented a new way of thinking about humans besides how they react to certain experiments, and viewed their behavior in a more positive way. In an article by Patrick Williams, the influence of Humanistic Perspective is described as such: ".... humanistic movement, while somewhat chaotic and experimental, paved the way for Coaching Psychology today and the rise of positive psychology, appreciative inquiry, and human systems theory…" (Williams, p. 223). Because of the Humanistic positive outlook, it has probably become a large example for certain jobs and fields that involve psychology …show more content…
226). Humanistic psychology allowed the restrictions of thought to be lifted; people could behave the way the do just because they chose to, and psychologists no longer had to prove it with experiments that suggested their subjects to fear or other negative emotions. The movement influenced psychologists to look at human potential. Rather than just trying to explain why humans do or say certain things because of certain reasons, it opened up a new category to study: what humans could do or say because of how they just simply feel. Humanistic Perspective encouraged people to believe in themselves and to be confident, and presented the idea that everyone's feelings are valid, which is a concept that is still widely accepted throughout the world to this day. It would be difficult to say that Humanistic Perspective has not left a pretty big mark on the way humans
Additionally, Humanistic Psychology studies how people value themselves. Today’s Psychologists are often faced with problems when diagnosing patients, and utilizing a Humanistic approach to their prognosis facilitates a more broad study of what may be occurring. Taking a step back, Jake is having a tough time with his classes; his classes are now more difficult than before, and they might be affecting how Jake perceives his own values. I.e. because Jake feels more nervous, he could be losing his sense of control, which goes against his personal growth and affects his values and image of himself. Applying the humanistic approach to Jake, his fulfillment as a student is his personal growth. However as the difficulty of his classes increase, so does his own personal perception on how much he is growing. For Jake, realizing that he’s not suited for a particular difficult class is upsetting and induces anxiety. Modern day Psychologists would concur because Jake is feeling less valued and lacking a proper humanistic view of himself, he is feeling uncomfortable, and thus more
Psycho analytical approach believed that human personality is controlled by our subconscious thought therefor to understand conscious we have to understand what is in the human mind.
The humanistic theory had much influence after the time of World War II toward the late 1950’s (Hansell & Damour, 2008). According to Dombeck, (2006), the humanistic approach was defined to be consciously reflective, allowing one to have the ability to experience self-determination. The humanistic approach combines philosophy, existentialism, and the hierarchy of needs that motivates every individual person on a unique level of growth potential; it worked to find the importance of life’s true meaning’s in an individual’s life for human characteristic (Dombeck, 2006). For obsessional-compulsion disorder, the goal of humanistic therapy is to create a suitable environment for the patient that will allow him or her to develop, mature, and evolve
Pyschodynamic pyschology is believing that the unconscious mind is on the most powerful effects of the human. Also no behavior is without cause, so it must be determined, or childhood expierences can really affect the behavior of adults. The humanistic view really focuses on the person who does the behaving. Also how the person percieves and interpets events. The humanistic view focuses too on the persons ability, growth, and potential. It really emphasizes on free will and how people make choices effectin their life in growth. The trait and temperament view is on peoples different pesronality traits and different internal dispositions. There are these traits that have been identified throughout cultures in this world that includes anxiety or well-being, openess to new expierences,agreeableness. and conscientiousness. For example if someone has a bad childhood growing up and they were molested. They might be afraid to be with a man or women due to the fact of the bad expierence they had as a child. Also the person could have severe depression and anxiety for the rest of their life due to the bad childhood expierence they
There are numerous advantages and complication in the humanistic approaches to the study of psychology. Numerous individuals sent out messages to each other, non-explicitly, thus, influencing the actions exhibited. As it was stated in the first letter written by Rilke, addressed to Kappus:”Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life” (Rilke 8). People are able to understand each other in the normal process since gestures have been popular among our societies. In addition, individuals would not have to waste so much time verbalizing everything in our today’s fast-paced societies. The only complication in this process had been individuals with difficulty processing cognitive information had struggling experiences adapting to this usual humanistic approach.
Humanistic Theory is based on the ability for individuals to be able to separately diverse with our own prospective on life. Maslow’s theory speaks to the potential and to positive outcome of human motivation and believes that every individual can and will strives to be more.
It helps many people to find their strength and to help them use those strengths to better themselves. This group of people often refers to Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”. They can see breaks in the pyramid, which can cause the hardships of anxiety. The pyramid works step by step up the pyramid starting at the lowest point, being physiological needs. It then continues up the pyramid through safety, love and belonging, ones self esteem, and ending at self-actualization. The humanistic view, in full can be described as a “crucial opportunity to lead us to our own healthy path”. In a humanistic therapy session the therapist uses a lot of empathy and hard listening. This allows the client to voice their concerns without the pressure of answering questions. But the therapists do help a lot too. With the help of humanistic therapist, the individual will learn to add or find positive experiences in their life. It can help those individuals find a sort of peace with who they are and with what
The psychoanalytic approach, proposed by Sigmund Freud, is based on the idea that childhood experiences significantly influence the development of later personality traits and psychological problems. In addition, psychoanalysis emphasizes the influence of unconscious fears, desires and motivations on thoughts and behaviors. The humanistic approach, presented by Abraham Maslow, emphasizes self actualization and free-will. It is based on the belief that each person has freedom in directing his or her future.
Features of the Psychoanalytic and Humanistic Perspectives Outline the key features of the psychoanalytic and humanistic perspectives, and briefly compare and contrast their views on conscious experience, a person as an integrated whole, and the role of therapists in arriving at changes. Answer In explaining and predicting animal behaviour, different schools of psychology are of different perspectives; e.g. cognitive approach focuses on the mental processes, behaviourism is based on external stimuli and reinforcement, biological approach is concerned with the relationship between the mind and body and the influence of heredity. However, they are only cope with a specific part of people, but neglect human as a whole.
The humanistic perspective on personality deals exclusively with human behavior. Humanistic psychologists believe that human nature includes a natural drive towards personal growth, that humans have the freedom to choose what they do regardless of environmental factors, and humans are mostly conscious beings and are not controlled by unconscious needs and conflicts. They also believe that a person's subjective view of the world is more important than objective reality. Two of the humanistic theorists that have made an impact of humanism are Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.
This psychology perspective emphasizes individuals ' inherent drive towards self-actualization, the process of realizing and expressing one 's own capabilities and creativity. It helps the client gain the belief that all people are inherently good. It adopts a holistic approach to human existence and pays special attention to such phenomena as creativity, free will, and positive human potential. It encourages viewing ourselves as a "whole person" greater than the sum of our parts and encourages self exploration rather than the study of behavior in other people. Humanistic psychology acknowledges spiritual aspiration as an integral part of the human psyche. It is linked to the emerging field of transpersonal psychology. As per usual, there are advantages and limitations to this particular theory. One of the greatest strengths of humanistic psychology is that it emphasizes individual choice and responsibility. Humanistic psychology satisfies most people 's idea of what being human means because it values personal ideals and self-fulfillment. Finally, humanistic psychology provides researchers with a flexible framework for observing human behavior because it considers a person in the context of his environment and in conjunction with his personal perceptions and feelings. As with any viewpoint, humanistic psychology has its critics. One major criticism of humanistic psychology is that its concepts are too vague. Critics
Personality is a person's characteristic pattern of behaving, thinking, and feeling. The development of reliable and valid measures of personality has been a boon to psychologists' attempts to define and explain individual differences in this important domain. Comprehensive theories of personality have been useful to these attempts as well. Psychoanalytic theories emphasizes unconscious forces, while humanistic approaches focus on individuals' attempts to better themselves and find acceptance. Each of these perspectives has been used to explain how and why variations in mental health develop.
In my point of view, "humanistic" in nature and approach, whatever the subject, seeks to solve problems "from a human-centered viewpoint." And hence this paper could be an attempt of such effort.
Self-actualization is an idea originating from the Humanistic psychological theory and particularly created by Abraham Maslow. The humanistic school of thought in psychology is the third force in psychology that attempts to regain the self, supporting that individuals do have free will and has the power to change for the better. Humanistic psychology was developed as a response to psychoanalysis and behaviorism focusing on individuality, personal growth and the concept of self-actualization. While early schools of thought were mostly concentrated on abnormal human behavior, humanistic psychology is different because of its emphasis on helping individuals achieve and fulfill their potential. The two main contributors to this school of thought
In the centre of the humanistic approach stands the subjective experience of individuals, the emphasis is that humans rather choose how to behave based on their free will (Derobertis, 2013). The approach rejects that behaviour is bound by past or current circumstances or ruled by uncontrollable forces, but rather believes that humans make decisions regarding their actions based on their own choices and that people are generally good (Glassman & Hadad, 2009). The main dominator of personality development is the self-actualization (Rogers, 1959). The pioneers of the humanistic approach are Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow and George Kelly. Carl Rogers named the person seeking treatment a client and not a patient, he established the client-centred