Humanistic psychology - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the work of early pioneers like Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...

and the philosophies of existentialism

Existentialism

Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...

and phenomenology

Phenomenology (psychology)

Phenomenology is an approach to psychological subject matter that has its roots in the philosophical work of Edmund Husserl. Early phenomenologists such as Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty conducted their own psychological investigations in the early 20th century...

. It adopts a holistic

Holism

Holism is the idea that all the properties of a given system cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone...

approach to human existence through investigations of meaning, values, freedom, tragedy, personal responsibility, human potential, spirituality

Transpersonal psychology

Transpersonal psychology is a form of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience....

, and self-actualization. It believes that people are inherently good.

Conceptual origins

The humanistic approach has its roots in phenomenological

Existential phenomenology

Existential phenomenology is a philosophical current inspired by Martin Heidegger's 1927 work Sein und Zeit and influenced by the existential work of Søren Kierkegaard and the phenomenological work of Edmund Husserl....

and existentialist

Existentialism

thought (see Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...

, Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

, Heidegger

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...

, Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir...

and Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

). Eastern philosophy

Eastern philosophy

Eastern philosophy includes the various philosophies of Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Iranian philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Indian philosophy and Korean philosophy...

and psychology also play a central role in humanistic psychology, as well as Judeo-Christian philosophies of personalism

Personalism

Personalism is a philosophical school of thought searching to describe the uniqueness of a human person in the world of nature, specifically in relation to animals...

, as each shares similar concerns about the nature of human existence and consciousness.

For further information on influential figures in personalism

Personalism

Personalism is a philosophical school of thought searching to describe the uniqueness of a human person in the world of nature, specifically in relation to animals...

, see: Emmanuel Mounier

Emmanuel Mounier

Emmanuel Mounier was a French philosopher.Mounier was the guiding spirit in the French Personalist movement, and founder and director of Esprit, the magazine which was the organ of the movement. Mounier, who was the child of peasants, was a brilliant scholar at the Sorbonne...

, Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Honoré Marcel was a French philosopher, a leading Christian existentialist, and author of about 30 plays.He focused on the modern individual's struggle in a technologically dehumanizing society...

, Denis de Rougemont

Denis de Rougemont

Denis de Rougemont was a Swiss writer, who wrote in French.He studied at the University of Neuchâtel, and then moved to Paris in 1930. There he wrote for and edited various publications, associating with the personalist groupings and the non-conformists of the 1930s...

, Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

, Martin Buber

Martin Buber

Martin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship....

, Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Lévinas

Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...

, Max Scheler

Max Scheler

Max Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology...

, Karol Wojtyla

Pope John Paul II

Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...

and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...

.

It is also sometimes understood within the context of the three different forces of psychology: behaviorism

Behaviorism

Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...

, psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

and humanism

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

. Behaviorism grew out of Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....

's work with the conditioned reflex, and laid the foundations for academic psychology in the United States associated with the names of John B. Watson

John B. Watson

John Broadus Watson was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism. Watson promoted a change in psychology through his address Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it which was given at Columbia University in 1913...

and B.F. Skinner. This school was later called the science of behavior. Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow

Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...

later gave behaviorism the name "the second force". The "first force" came out of Freud's research of psychoanalysis, and the psychologies of Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. In collaboration with Sigmund Freud and a small group of Freud's colleagues, Adler was among the co-founders of the psychoanalytic movement as a core member of the Vienna...

, Erik Erikson

Erik Erikson

Erik Erikson was a Danish-German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on social development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. His son, Kai T...

, Carl Jung

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...

, Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm

Erich Seligmann Fromm was a Jewish German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was associated with what became known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory.-Life:Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900, at Frankfurt am...

, Karen Horney

Karen Horney

Karen Horney born Danielsen was a German-American psychoanalyst. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views, particularly his theory of sexuality, as well as the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis and its genetic psychology...

, Otto Rank

Otto Rank

Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's...

, Melanie Klein

Melanie Klein

Melanie Reizes Klein was an Austrian-born British psychoanalyst who devised novel therapeutic techniques for children that had an impact on child psychology and contemporary psychoanalysis...

, Harry Stack Sullivan

Harry Stack Sullivan

Harry Stack Sullivan was a U.S. psychiatrist whose work in psychoanalysis was based on direct and verifiable observation .-Life and works:Sullivan was a child of Irish immigrants and allegedly grew up in an...

, and others. These theorists and practitioners, although basing their observations on extensive clinical data, primarily focused on the depth or "unconscious" aspects of human existence

In the late 1950s, psychologists concerned with advancing a more holistic vision of psychology convened two meetings in Detroit, Michigan. These psychologists, including Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow

, Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...

, and Clark Moustakas

Clark Moustakas

Dr. Moustakas is an American psychologist and one of the leading experts on humanistic and clinical psychology. He helped establish the Association for Humanistic Psychology and the Journal for Humanistic Psychology. He is the author of numerous books and articles on humanistic psychology,...

, were interested in founding a professional association dedicated to a psychology that focused on uniquely human issues, such as the self

Self

The self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness. The self has been studied extensively by philosophers and psychologists and is central to many world religions.-Philosophy:...

, self-actualization, health

Health

Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...

, hope

Hope

Hope is the emotional state which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. It is the "feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best" or the act of "look[ing] forward to with desire and reasonable confidence" or...

, love

Love

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...

, creativity

Creativity

Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs...

, nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

, being

Being

Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...

, becoming, individuality

Individualism

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...

, and meaning—that is, a concrete understanding of human existence. However, humanistic psychologists generally do not believe that we will understand human consciousness and behavior through scientific research.

Development of the field

These preliminary meetings eventually led to other developments, which culminated in the description of humanistic psychology as a recognizable "third force" in psychology (along with behaviorism and psychoanalysis). Significant developments included the formation of the Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP) in 1961 and the launch of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Journal of Humanistic Psychology is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of Psychology. The journal's editor is Kirk J. Schneider...

(originally "The Phoenix") in 1961.

Subsequently, graduate programs in Humanistic Psychology at institutions of higher learning grew in number and enrollment. In 1971, humanistic psychology as a field was recognized by the American Psychological Association

American Psychological Association

The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...

(APA) and granted its own division (Division 32) within the APA. Division 32 publishes its own academic journal called The Humanistic Psychologist.

The major theorists considered to have prepared the ground for Humanistic Psychology are Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow

, Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...

and Rollo May

Rollo May

Rollo May was an American existential psychologist. He authored the influential book Love and Will during 1969. He is often associated with both humanistic psychology and existentialist philosophy. May was a close friend of the theologian Paul Tillich...

. Maslow was heavily influenced by Kurt Goldstein

Kurt Goldstein

Kurt Goldstein was a German Jewish neurologist and psychiatrist who was a pioneer in modern neuropsychology. He created a holistic theory of the organism based on Gestalt theory which deeply influenced the development of Gestalt therapy...

during their years together at Brandeis University. Psychoanalytic writers also influenced humanistic psychology. Maslow himself famously acknowledged his "indebtedness to Freud" in Towards a Psychology of Being Other psychoanalytic influences include the work of Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...

, who discussed an essentially 'good', healthy core self and Character Analysis (1933), and Carl Gustav Jung

Carl Jung

's mythological and archetypal emphasis. Other noteworthy inspirations for and leaders of the movement include Roberto Assagioli

Roberto Assagioli

Roberto Assagioli was an Italian psychiatrist and pioneer in the fields of humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Assagioli founded the psychological movement known as psychosynthesis, which is still being developed today by therapists, and psychologists, who practice his technique...

, Gordon Allport

Gordon Allport

Gordon Willard Allport was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personality psychology...

, Medard Boss

Medard Boss

Medard Boss was a Swiss psychoanalytic psychiatrist who developed a form of psychotherapy known as Daseinsanalysis, which was largely based on the existential-phenomenological philosophy of friend and mentor Martin Heidegger. During his medical studies he was strongly influenced by the...

, Martin Buber

Martin Buber

(close to Jacob L. Moreno

Jacob L. Moreno

Jacob Levy Moreno was a Jewish Romanian-born Austrian-American leading psychiatrist and psychosociologist, thinker and educator, the founder of psychodrama, and the foremost pioneer of group psychotherapy...

), James Bugental

James Bugental

James Frederick Taylor Bugental was one of the predominant theorists and advocates of the Existential-Humanistic Therapy movement. He was a therapist, teacher and writer for over 50 years. He received his Ph.D...

, Victor Frankl, Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm

, Hans-Werner Gessmann, Amedeo Giorgi

Amedeo Giorgi

Amedeo Giorgi serves on the faculty of Saybrook Graduate School. He was an early member of the "Duquesne School" of psychology and is credited with formalizing phenomenological methods for psychology...

, Kurt Goldstein

Kurt Goldstein

, Sidney Jourard

Sidney Jourard

Sidney Marshall Jourard was a Canadian psychologist remembered most for his book on the psychology of self-disclosure The Transparent Self....

, R. D. Laing, Clark Moustakas

Clark Moustakas

, Lewis Mumford

Lewis Mumford

Lewis Mumford was an American historian, philosopher of technology, and influential literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer...

, Fritz Perls

Fritz Perls

Friedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....

, Anthony Sutich, Thomas Szasz

Thomas Szasz

Thomas Stephen Szasz is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990 he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social...

, Kirk J. Schneider

Kirk J. Schneider

Kirk J. Schneider, PhD is a psychologist and psychotherapist who has taken a leading role in the advancement of existential-humanistic therapy , and existential-integrative therapy...

, and Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber

Kenneth Earl Wilber II is an American author who has written about mysticism, philosophy, ecology, and developmental psychology. His work formulates what he calls Integral Theory. In 1998, he founded the Integral Institute, for teaching and applications of Integral theory.-Biography:Ken Wilber was...

.

A human science view is not opposed to quantitative methods, but, following Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

favors letting the methods be derived from the subject matter and not uncritically adopting the methods of natural science, and
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).

Counseling and therapy

Humanistic psychology includes several approaches to counseling and therapy. Among the earliest approaches we find the developmental theory of Abraham Maslow, emphazising a hierarchy of needs and motivations; the existential psychology of Rollo May acknowledging human choice and the tragic aspects of human existence; and the person-centered or client-centered therapy

Person-centered psychotherapy

Person-centered therapy is also known as person-centered psychotherapy, person-centered counseling, client-centered therapy and Rogerian psychotherapy. PCT is a form of talk-psychotherapy developed by psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s...

of Carl Rogers, which is centered on the client's capacity for self-direction and understanding of his or her own development.

Other approaches to humanistic counseling and therapy include Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating...

, humanistic psychotherapy, depth therapy, holistic health

Holistic health

Holistic health is a concept in medical practice upholding that all aspects of people's needs, psychological, physical and social should be taken into account and seen as a whole. As defined above, the holistic view on treatment is widely accepted in medicine...

, encounter groups, sensitivity training

Sensitivity training

Sensitivity Training is a form of training that claims to make people more aware of their own prejudices, and more sensitive to others. According to its critics, it involves the use of psychological techniques with groups that its critics, e.g. G. Edward Griffin, claim are often identical to...

, marital and family therapies

Family therapy

Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of...

, body work, and the existential psychotherapy of Medard Boss

Medard Boss

. Existential-integrative psychotherapy, developed by Kirk Schneider (2008), is a relatively new development within humanistic and existential therapy.

Self-help

Self-help

Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...

is also included in humanistic psychology: Sheila Ernst and Lucy Goodison

Lucy Goodison

Dr. Lucy Goodison is an archeologist and author from Dorset in the United Kingdom. She is a leading expert in Minoan tomb architecture and sacred practices, and has also written numerous general interest books on mythology, personal and social change....

have described using some of the main humanistic approaches in self-help groups

Support group

In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic...

. Co-counselling

Co-counselling

Co-counselling is a grassroots, low-cost method of personal change based on reciprocal peer counseling. It uses simple methods that can be seen as a refinement of "you tell me your problems and I'll tell you mine"...

, which is a purely self-help approach, is regarded as coming within humanistic psychology . Humanistic theory has had a strong influence on other forms of popular therapy, including Harvey Jackins

Harvey Jackins

Carl Harvey Jackins was the founder, leader and principal theorist of Re-evaluation Counseling .-Early life:Jackins was born in Northern Idaho on June 28, 1916....

' Re-evaluation Counselling

Re-evaluation Counseling

Re-evaluation Counseling or RC is an organization founded by Harvey Jackins in the 1950s and led by him until his death in 1999. It introduced a procedure called "co-counseling", which Jackins said was a new and effective method of helping people and bringing about social reform. RC teaches...

and the work of Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...

.

Humanistic psychology tends to look beyond the medical model of psychology in order to open up a nonpathologizing view of the person. This usually implies that the therapist downplays the pathological aspects of a person's life in favour of the healthy aspects. A key ingredient in this approach is the meeting between therapist and client and the possibilities for dialogue. The aim of much humanistic therapy is to help the client approach a stronger and more healthy sense of self, also called self-actualization. All this is part of humanistic psychology's motivation to be a science of human experience, focusing on the actual lived experience of persons.

Humanistic psychology and social issues

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

Erich Fromm

), the growing technological dominance over human life (Medard Boss

Medard Boss

), and the question of evil (Rollo May

Rollo May

-Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...

debate). 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.

Criticism

Critics of the field point out that it tends to ignore social change research. Isaac Prilleltensky, a self-described radical who champions community

Community psychology

Community psychology deals with the relationships of the individual to communities and the wider society. Community psychologists seek to understand the quality of life of individuals, communities, and society...

and feminist psychology

Feminist psychology

Feminist psychology, is a form of psychology centered on societal structures, and gender. Feminist psychology critiques the fact that historically psychological research has been done from a male perspective with the view that males are the norm. Feminist psychology is oriented on the values and...

, has argued for years that humanistic psychology inadvertently contributes to systemic injustice.

Further, it has been argued that the early incarnations of humanistic psychology lacked a cumulative empirical base, and the architects of the movement endorsed an "unembarrassed denial of human reciprocity and community." However, according to contemporary humanistic thinkers, humanistic psychology need not be understood to promote such ideas as narcissism

Narcissism

Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...

, egotism

Egotism

Egotism is "characterized by an exaggerated estimate of one's intellect, ability, importance, appearance, wit, or other valued personal characteristics" – the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself....

, or selfishness

Selfishness

Selfishness denotes an excessive or exclusive concern with oneself, and as such it exceeds mere self interest or self concern. Insofar as a decision maker knowingly burdens or harms others for personal gain, the decision is selfish. In contrast, self-interest is more general...

.

The association of humanistic discourse with narcissistic and overly optimistic worldviews is a misreading of humanistic theory. In their response to Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a Hungarian psychology professor, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22. Now at Claremont Graduate University, he is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake...

(2000), Bohart and Greening (2001) note that along with pieces on self-actualization and individual fulfillment, humanistic psychologists have also published papers on a wide range of social issues and topics, such as the promotion of international peace and understanding, awareness of the Holocaust, the reduction of violence, and the promotion of social welfare and justice for all.

Criticisms that humanistic psychology lacks an “empirical base” have tended to rely on allegedly "restricted views" of what constitutes “empirical,” an uncritical adoption of natural science methods (as opposed to human science methods), and an outright neglect of Rogers’ own empirical work. To the contrary, humanistic psychology has a long history of empirical research, including but not limited to the work of Maslow, Amedeo Giorgi and David Elkins. In fact, humanistic psychology research traces its origins all the way back to American psychology pioneer William James’

William James

William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...

masterpiece, “Varieties of Religious Experience”

Conceptual origins

Development of the field

Counseling and therapy

Humanistic psychology and social issues

Criticism

See also

External links

Further reading