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The Humanistic Approach

Humanism is a psychological approach that emphasises the study of the whole person. Humanistic psychologists look at human behaviour not only through the eyes of the observer, but through the eyes of the person doing the behaving. Humanistic psychologists believe that an individual's behaviour is connected to his inner feelings and self-image.

Humanistic psychology developed as a rebellion against what some psychologists saw as limitations of the behaviourist and psychodynamic psychology. The Humanistic approach is thus often called the “third force” in psychology after psychoanalysis and behaviourism.

Humanistic psychology rejected the behaviourist approach which is characterised as deterministic, focused on reinforcement of stimulus-response behaviour and heavily dependent on animal research.

Humanistic psychology also rejected the psychoanalytic approach because it also is deterministic, with unconscious irrational and instinctive forces determining human thought and behaviour. Both behaviourism and psychoanalysis are regarded as dehumanising by humanistic psychologists.

Humanistic psychology expanded its influence throughout the 1970s and the 1980s. It's impact can be understood in terms of three major areas:

1) It offered a new set of values for approaching an understanding of human nature and the human condition.

2) It offered an expanded horizon of methods of inquiry in the study of human behaviour.

3) It offered a broader range of more effective methods in the professional practice of psychotherapy.

Humanistic Psychology Assumptions

Humanistic psychology begins with the existential assumptions that phenomenology is central and that people have free will. Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of free will. Personal agency refers to the choices we make in life, the paths we go down and their consequences. A further assumption is then added - people are basically good, and have an innate need to make themselves and the world better. The Humanistic approach emphasises the personal worth of the individual, the centrality of human values, and the creative, active nature of human beings. The approach is optimistic and focuses on noble human capacity to overcome hardship, pain and despair.

Both Rogers and Maslow regarded personal growth and fulfilment in life as a basic human motive. This means that each person, in different ways, seeks to grow psychologically and continuously enhance themselves. This has been captured by the term self-actualisation which is about psychological growth, fulfilment and satisfaction in life. However, Rogers and Maslow both describe different ways of how self-actualisation can be achieved.

Central to the humanistic theories of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow are the subjective, conscious experiences of the individual. The humanistic psychologists argued that objective reality is less important than a person's subjective perception and subjective understanding of the world. Because of this, Rogers and Maslow placed little value on scientific psychology especially the use of the psychology laboratory to investigate both human and other animal behaviour.

Humanism rejects scientific methodology like experiments and typically uses qualitative research methods. For example, diary accounts, open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and unstructured observations. Qualitative research is useful for studies at the individual level, and to find out, in depth, the ways in which people think or feel (e.g. case studies).

The humanist's view human beings as fundamentally different from other animals mainly because humans are conscious beings capable of thought, reason and language. For humanistic psychologists’ research on animals, such as rats, pigeons, or monkeys held little value. Research on such animals can tell us, so they argued, very little about human thought, behaviour and experience. Humanistic psychologists rejected a rigorous scientific approach to psychology because they saw it as dehumanising and unable to capture the richness of conscious experience. In many ways the rejection of scientific psychology in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was a backlash to the dominance of the behaviourist approach in North American psychology.

The History of Humanistic Psychology

* Maslow (1943) developed a hierarchical theory of human motivation.

* Rogers (1946) publishes Significant aspects of client-centered therapy (also called person centred 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.

* In 1961, with the sponsorship of Brandeis University, this movement was formally launched as the American Association for Humanistic Psychology.

* The first issue of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology appeared in the Spring of 1961.

Humanistic Psychology Summary