Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic Psychology

• 1950s and 1960s

  • Structuralism disappeared

  • Gestalt Psych and Functionalism absorbed into other schools

• Behaviorism

  • Dominant school

  • Humans and animals → treated similarly

  • Too much emphasis on observable behavior

• Psychoanalysis

  • Dominant school

  • Focused on making unhealthy people healthy

• Third Force Psychology

  • Humanistic psychology stood in opposition to behaviorism and psychoanalysis

• Humanistic Psychology

  • Little learned about humans by studying animals

  • Study individual, more info than studying groups

  • Focus on solving human problems

  • Provide complete description of human

Otto Rank (1884)

• Colleague of Sigmund Freud

  • Disagreed with psychoanalysis

    • Uncover past

    • Emotionally detached from patients

• Rank’s view of psychotherapy

  • Build patient’s self-confidence and personal growth

  • Therapist creates conditions for patient to explore and express feeling and relates to patients

Jessie Taft (1882)

• Social Worker

  • Helped adopted parents and children adjust to new family situations

• Psychoanalysis ISN’T helpful

  • Rank’s psychotherapy IS helpful

• Relationship Therapy

  • Therapist + Patient → Equals

  • Emphasized personal growth

• Introduced Rogers to Rank’s work

Carl Rogers (1902)

• Founder of Humanistic Psych

• People live life according to how they view events

  • Not rely on others’ views

• Investigated psychotherapy and personality

• Client Centered Therapy

  • First major alternative to psychoanalysis

  • No need to label or diagnose disorders

  • Therapist doesn’t make decisions, offer solutions, or pass judgment

    • Creates conditions for the client to guide therapy

  • At the beginning…

    • Clients describe themselves at the time (real self) and how they would like to be (ideal self)

  • If therapy is effective, there’s a higher correlation

• Roger’s Views of Personality

  • Need for Positive Regard

    • Everyone wants love from important people in their life

    • Sometimes given if person acts/thinks certain way

  • Conditions of Worth

    • Conditions that important people place on others in exchange for positive regard

  • Unconditional Positive Regard

    • Person loved/accepted for who they are

    • Love isn’t conditional and person can become more functioning

  • Incongruent Person

    • Not true to their feelings

  • Congruent Person

    • Person true to their feelings

Albert Ellis (1913)

• Emphasized personal growth

• Criticized Rogers; clients can’t discover solutions on their own

• Rational Emotive Therapy

  • Therapist tells client how to grow

• Problems caused by…

  • Faulty expectations

  • Irrational beliefs

• Change thinking → Change mood

• Direct and confrontational

Abraham Maslow (1908)

• Studied under Edward Thorndike

• Founder of humanistic psych

  • Hierarchy of Needs

    • Lower Needs

      • Basic

      • Close to animal needs

      • Longer evolutionary history

      • Stronger

    • Higher Needs

      • Specific to humans

      • Recent in evolutionary history

      • Fragile

    • If basic needs are met, higher needs must be satisfied

  • Self-Actualization

    • Complete realization of person’s full potential

    • Motivates behaviors

    • Only achieved in middle age

    • 8 Characteristics

      • Accurately perceive reality

      • Accept themselves and others

      • Spontaneous, creative, and humorous

      • Private

      • Peak experiences

      • Concerned with mankind

      • Have few friends

      • Strong ethics

Rollo May (1909)

• In the 1950s, having anxiety meant having poor mental health

• Followed existentialism

  • School of philosophy

  • Humans accept anxiety of living in meaningless world

• Anxiety was considered useful!

• Acknowledging anxiety and making changes can help reduce anxiety

Criticisms of Humanistic Psychology

• Behaviorism and psychoanalysis

  • Benefitted mankind

• Humanistic psychology doesn’t emphasize scientific process

• Terms and concepts were difficult to define and test

Positive Psychology

• Criticized psychology for focusing too much on mentally ill

• No focus on healthy people

• Spoke about

  • Characteristics of fulfilling life

  • Scientific study of happiness

• Psychologists

  • Martin Seligman

  • Mihaly Csikszentminski

Martin Seligman (1942)

• Founder of positive psychology

• Learned Helplessness

  • Bad events lead to passive behavior

• Punishment is inescapable

• Organism has no control over situation, leads to passive behavior

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934)

• Founder of positive psychology

• Studied creative process in artists

• Flow

  • Peak experience in which an individual reports ecstasy or loss of sense of self and time

Defining Positive Psychology

• Seligman’s definition…

  • Study of positive emotions

    • Happiness and flow

  • Study of positive personality traits

    • Which traits lead to happy lives

  • Study of positive institutions

    • How can people experience flow in home/school/work

Comparing Positive and Humanistic Psychology

• Positive Psychology

  • Scientific

  • Experiment-based

  • Quantitative research methods

• Humanistic Psychology

  • Rejected lab experiments to study humans

  • Focused on experiences

  • Qualitative research methods