Humanistic

Psychology
 Antecedent Influence
• Phenomenology – Refers to any methodology that
focuses on cognitive experience as it occurs,
without attempting to reduce that experience to its
component parts.
• Franz Brentano – Intentionality – The contents of
mental act could be real or imagined, but the act
always refers to (intends) something.
• Edmund Husserl – Pure phenomenology – The
term Phenomena is used to describe a mental
event, it refers to a whole, intact, meaningful
experience and not to fragments of conscious
experiences such as isolated sensations.
 Continued…
• The point is that it is incorrect to use the terms
subjective, cognitive, and mental as
synonymous for Phenomenological.
• The methods of the natural sciences are
inappropriate to the study of mental
phenomena. (Those who believed that
psychology should be an experimental science
made a mistake by taking the natural sciences
as their model.)
 Continued…
• Existential Psychology – The brand of
contemporary psychology that was influenced by
existentialist philosophy. The key concepts
include freedom, responsibility, anxiety, guilt,
thrownness and authenticity.
• Existential philosophy – Emphasis on human
emotions; the importance of subjective
experience; a deep respect for individuality; a
belief in free will; and a distrust of the grandiose
theories of human nature created by the
rationalists, the empiricists and sensationalists,
and the natural scientists.
 Continued…
• The existentialists use phenomenology to
study either the important experiences that
humans have in common or those experiences
that individuals have as they live their lives –
experiences such as fear, dread, freedom, love,
hate, responsibility, guilt, wonder, hope, and
despair.
 Antecedent continued…
• Martin Heidegger – Heidegger’s work is generally
considered the bridge between existential philosophy
and existential psychology.
• He used the term Dasein to indicate that a person and
the world are inseparable.
• Dasein means “to be” (sein) “there” (Da).
• “To be” means to exist, and to exist is a dynamic
process.
• To exist is to become different; to exist is to change.
• The Da, or there, in Dasein refers to that place in space
and time where existence takes place; but no matter
where and when it takes place, existence (to be) is a
complex, dynamic, and uniquely human phenomena.
 Continued…
• Authenticity and inauthenticity: For Heidegger, a pre-
requisite for living an authentic life was coming to
grips with the fact that ‘I must someday die’. People
refusing to recognize that fact and thereby inhibit a
full understanding of themselves and their
possibilities.
• Guilt and Anxiety: If we do not exercise our personal
freedom, we experience guilt. The feeling that results
when one confronts the unknown, as when one
contemplates death or when one’s choices carry one
into new life circumstances is anxiety. Anxiety is
necessary part of living an authentic life.
 Continued…
• The free individual cannot blame God,
parents, circumstances, genes, or anything else
for what he or she becomes. Freedom and
responsibility goes hand-in-hand.
• Thrownness – It provides the context for one’s
existence. What Heidegger called thrownness
has also been called facticity, referring to the
facts that characterize a human existence.
 Continued…
• Ludwig Binswanger – Binswanger’s goal was
to integrate the writings of Husserl and
Heidegger with psychoanalytic theory.
• He called his approach to psychotherapy
Daseinanalysis (existential analysis).
• According to Binswanger, one must learn how
that person views his or her life at the moment.
Each person lives in his/her own private,
subjective world, which is not generalizable.
 Continued…
• Modes of existence: Weltanschauung, or World design –
In general, world-design is how an individual views and
embraces the world.
• It is through the world-design that one lives one’s life, and
therefore the world-design touches everything that one
does.
• It id the therapist’s job to help the client see that there are
other ways of embracing the world, other people, and
oneself.
• Ground of existence – The condition under which one
exercises one’s personal freedom.
• Being-beyond-the-world – The way in which people try to
transform their circumstances by exercising their free will.
 Continued…
• Most existentialist accept Nietzsche’s
proclamation “that which does not kill me.
Makes me stronger.”
• Although physical circumstances may be the
same for different people, how those
circumstances are embraced, interpreted,
valued, symbolized, and responded to is a
matter of personal choice.
 Continued…
• Rollo May – Introduced Heideggerian
existentialism to US psychology through his
edited books Existence: A New Dimension in
Psychiatry and Psychology (1958) (with Angel &
Ellenberger) and Existential Psychology (1961).
• Strongly influenced by Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard
proposed that each person’s life is a separate
entity with its own self-determined meaning. For
him, subjectivity is truth; that is, a person’s
beliefs define that person’s reality.
 Continued…
• The Human dilemma – Humans are both objects and subjects
of experience. A Paradox of human existence.
• Normal and neural anxiety – Anxiety is normal, healthy
anxiety because it is conducive to personal growth
( becoming). Neurotic anxiety results from the fear of
freedom.
• Self-alienation – It occurs whenever people accept, as their
own, values dictated by society rather than those personally
attained.
• “Myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myth
are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.”
• According to May, myths serve four primary functions; They
provide a sense of identity, provide a sense of community,
support our moral values, and provide a means of dealing with
the mysteries of creation.
 Continued…
• George Kelly – Constructive alternativism – Kelly
maintained that people are free to choose the constructs
they use in interacting with the world. No one needs to be
a victim of circumstances nor of the past; all are free to
view things as they wish.
• Fixed-role Therapy – Kelly’s approach to therapy
reflected his belief that psychological problems are
perceptual problems and that the job of the therapist is
therefore to help client view things differently.
• Self-characterization – How the client viewed himself or
herself, the world, and other people. Kelly created a role
for the client to play for about two weeks. The character
in the role was markedly different from the client’s self-
characterization.