Humanistic (Third-Force) Psychology

Question 1

the birth of humanistic (third-force) psychology

Answer 1

In the 1960s a group of psychologists emerged who believed that behaviorism and psychoanalysis, the two major forces in psychology at the time, were neglecting important aspects of human existence. What was needed was a third force that emphasized the positive, creative, and emotional side of humans using the methods of phenomenology.

Question 2

what was going on with psychology during the 1950’s?

Answer 2

By 1950s, behaviorism and psychoanalysis are the only intact schools of thought

Psychology is beginning to splinter into specialty areas

As a reaction against behaviorism and psychoanalysis – humanistic psychology

Question 3

what things did humanistic psychology emphasize?

Answer 3

free will
subjective reality
healthy living
happiness
human uniqueness

Question 4

influencers of humanistic psychology

Answer 4

existential thinkers like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard

romanticism: Rosseau - people are naturally good
existentialism: Kierkegaard: subjectivity-is-truth, meaning of human existence

Question 5

genesis of humanistic psychology

Answer 5

In the early 1960s, a group of psychologists headed by Abraham Maslow started a movement referred to as third-force psychology. These psychologists claimed that the other two forces in psychology, behaviorism and psychoanalysis, neglected a number of important human attributes. They said that by applying the techniques used by the natural sciences to the study of humans, behaviorism likened humans to lower animals or computing machines. For the behaviorist, there was nothing unique about humans. The major argument against psychoanalysis was that it concentrated mainly on emotionally disturbed people and on developing techniques for making abnormal people normal. What was missing, according to third-force psychologists, was information that would help already healthy individuals become healthier—that is, to reach their full potential. What was needed was a model of humans that emphasized their uniqueness and their positive aspects.

Question 6

Existential philosophy prior to humanistic psychology

Answer 6

Also in Chapter 7, we saw that the existentialists (such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche) emphasized the importance of meaning in human existence and the human ability to choose that meaning; this, too, is contrary to the philosophies of empiricism and rationalism. For Kierkegaard subjectivity is truth. That is, it is a person’s beliefs that guide his or her life and determine the nature of his or her existence. Truth is not something external to the person waiting to be discovered by logical, rational thought processes; it is inside each person and is, in fact, created by each person. According to Nietzsche, God is dead, and therefore, humans are on their own. People can take two approaches to life: they can accept conventional morality as a guide for living, thus participating in herd conformity; or they can experiment with beliefs, values, and life and arrive at their own truths and morality—thus becoming supermen.

Question 7

phenomenology

Answer 7

the introspective study of intact, mental experiences, WITHOUT attempting to reduce that experience to its component parts.

Question 8

ontology

Answer 8

The study of the nature of existence, or what it means to be.

The existentialists are concerned with two ontological questions:

(1) What is the nature of human nature? and
(2) What does it mean to be a particular individual? Thus, 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.

Question 9

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)

Answer 9

A French philosopher with interests in psychology. His existential writings earned him a Nobel Prize.

Question 10

Albert Camus (1913–1960)

Answer 10

A French writer who won the Nobel Prize for his works in existential psychology and political science.

Question 11

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)

Answer 11

Expanded Husserl’s phenomenology to include an examination of the totality of human existence.

was Husserl’s student and then his assistant, and he dedicated the first edition of his famous book Being and Time (1927) to Husserl. Heidegger had been chosen by Husserl to replace him as chair at Freiburg, but by the time this occurred, the men were no longer friends. Heidegger’s work is generally considered a key bridge between existential philosophy and existential psychology.

Question 12

Dasein

Answer 12

Heidegger’s term for “being-in-the-world.” The world does not exist without humans, and humans do not exist without the world. Because humans exist in the world, it is there that they must exercise their free will. Being-in-the-world means existing in the world, and existing means interpreting and valuing one’s experiences and making choices regarding those experiences.

Question 13

authentic life

Answer 13

According to existentialists, the type of life that is freely chosen and not dictated by the values of others. In such a life, one’s own feelings, values, and interpretations act as a guide for conduct.

Living an authentic life means experiencing some anxiety
Entering the unknown
Exercising freedom also means taking responsibility

Question 14

becoming

Answer 14

A characteristic of the authentic life because the authentic person is always becoming something other than what he or she was. Becoming is the normal, healthy psychological growth of a human being.

Question 15

inauthentic life

Answer 15

A life lived in accordance with values other than those freely and personally chosen. Such a life is characterized by guilt.

Question 16

guilt

Answer 16

The feeling that results most intensely from living an inauthentic life.

Heidegger believed we experienced guilt if we didn’t live out an authentic life.

All humans can do to minimize guilt is try to live an authentic life—that is, to recognize and live in accordance with their ability to choose their own existence.

Question 17

anxiety

Answer 17

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. According to existentialists, one cannot live an authentic life without experiencing anxiety.

Question 18

responsibility

Answer 18

A necessary by-product of freedom. If we are free to choose our own existence, then we are completely responsible for that existence.

Question 19

throwness

Answer 19

According to Heidegger and Binswanger, the circumstances that characterize a person’s existence that are beyond the person’s control.

determines, for example, whether we are male or female, short or tall, attractive or unattractive, rich or poor, American or Russian, the time in human history that we are born, and so on. Thrownness determines the conditions under which we exercise our freedom.

Question 20

Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966)

Answer 20

Applied Heidegger’s existential philosophy to psychiatry and psychology. For Binswanger, a prerequisite for helping an emotionally disturbed person is to determine how that person views himself or herself and the world.

Binswanger applied phenomenology to psychiatry, and later he became an existential analyst. Binswanger’s goal was to integrate the writings of Husserl and Heidegger with psychoanalytic theory.

Question 21

Daseinanalysis

Answer 21

Binswanger’s method of psychotherapy that requires that the therapist understand the client’s worldview. Daseinanalysis examines a person’s mode of being-in-the-world.

Question 22

what did Binswanger emphasize?

Answer 22

Like most existential psychologists, Binswanger emphasized the here-and-now, considering the past or future important only insofar as they manifested themselves in the present. To understand and help a person, according to Binswanger, one must learn how that person views his or her life at the moment. Furthermore, the therapist must try to understand the particular person’s anxieties, fears, values, thought processes, social relations, and personal meanings instead of those notions in general. Each person lives in his or her own private, subjective world, which is not generalizable.

Question 23

ground of existence

Answer 23

Binswanger’s term for the circumstances into which a person is thrown and according to which he or she must make choices.

However, no matter what a human’s circumstances are, he or she aspires to transcend them—that is, not to be victimized or controlled by them.

Question 24

being beyond the world

Answer 24

Binswanger’s term for becoming. The healthy individual always attempts to transcend what he or she is.

Question 25

two interesting existential quotes

Answer 25

“What does not kill me, makes me stronger” (Nietzsche, 1889/1998b).

According to Victor Frankl (1946/1984), “Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning” (p. 135).

Question 26

big picture of humanistic psychology

Answer 26

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. By exercising our freedom, we grow as human beings; and because exercising freedom is an unending process, the developmental process is never completed. Becoming characterizes the authentic life, which, in turn, is characterized by anxiety.

Not becoming, or remaining stagnant, characterizes the inauthentic life—as does guilt—because the person does not attempt to fully manifest his or her potential.

Question 27

Rollo May (1909–1994)

Answer 27

Psychologist who was instrumental in bringing European existential philosophy and psychology to the United States.

Like many other existential thinkers, May was strongly influenced by Kierkegaard, who had rejected Hegel’s belief that an individual’s life had meaning only insofar as it related to the totality of things, which Hegel called the Absolute.

Question 28

George Kelly (1905–1967)

Answer 28

Emphasized that it is always possible to construe one’s self and the world in a variety of ways. For Kelly, psychological problems are essentially perceptual problems.

Whether or not a person has a psychological problem is mainly a matter of how that person views things.

Originally trained as a psychotherapist
Thought that by changing a person’s worldview, you could help them solve problems with living

Question 29

construct systems

Answer 29

According to Kelly, the collection of personal constructs with which people make predictions about future events.

Question 30

constructive alternativism

Answer 30

Kelly’s notion that it is always possible to view ourselves and the world in a variety of ways.

Question 31

propositional thinking

Answer 31

According to Kelly, the experimentation with ideas to see where they lead.

Question 32

self-characterization

Answer 32

The self-description that Kelly required of many of his clients before beginning their therapeutic program.

self-characterization, which provided Kelly with information about how the client viewed himself or herself, the world, and other people. Next, 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. The client became an actor, and the therapist became a supporting actor

Question 33

fixed-role therapy

Answer 33

Kelly’s brand of therapy whereby he would assign a role for his clients to play that was distinctly different from the client’s self-characterization. With this type of therapy, the therapist acts much like a supporting actor.

In the role of supporting actor, the therapist helps the client deal with this threatening moment and then provides experiences that validate the client’s new construct system. Kelly’s fixed-role therapy can be seen as an early version of narrative therapy that was discussed earlier.

Question 34

Abraham Maslow (1908–1970)

Answer 34

A humanistic psychologist who emphasized the innate human tendency toward self-actualization. Maslow contended that behaviorism and psychoanalysis provided only a partial understanding of human existence and that humanistic, or third-force, psychology needed to be added to complete our understanding.

Question 35

humanistic psychology

Answer 35

The branch of psychology that is closely aligned with existential psychology. Unlike existential psychology, however, humanistic psychology assumes that humans are basically good. That is, if negative environmental factors do not stifle human development, humans will live humane lives. Humanistic psychology is concerned with examining the more positive aspects of human nature that behaviorism and psychoanalysis had neglected. (Also called third-force psychology.)

Question 36

basic tenants of Maslow’s humanistic psychology

Answer 36

No studying nonhuman animals
Subjective reality is what’s important
Study of individuals
Look for things that expand/enrich human experience
Help solve human problems
Goal: Complete description of human experience

Humanistic psychology, which rejects the notion that psychology should be entirely scientific, sees humans as indivisible wholes. Any attempt to reduce them to habits, cognitive structures, or S–R connections results in a distortion of human nature.

Question 37

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Answer 37

Maslow’s contention that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy and that lower needs in the hierarchy must be adequately satisfied before attention can be focused on higher needs. The most basic and powerful needs in the hierarchy are physiological needs, and then come safety needs, needs for belonging and love, and the need for self-esteem. When all lower needs in the hierarchy are adequately satisfied, a person becomes self-actualizing.

Question 38

self-actualization

Answer 38

According to Rogers and Maslow, the innate human tendency toward wholeness. The self-actualizing person is open to experience and embraces the higher values of human existence.

Question 39

characteristics of self-actualizing people

Answer 39

They perceive reality accurately and fully. They demonstrate a great acceptance of themselves and of others.
They exhibit spontaneity and naturalness. They have a need for privacy. They tend to be independent of their environment and culture.
They tend to have periodic mystic or peak experiences. Maslow (1954/1987) described peak experiences as feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of great ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placing in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject is to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences (p. 137).
They are concerned with all humans instead of with only their friends, relatives, and acquaintances.
They tend to have only a few friends. They have a strong ethical sense but do not necessarily accept conventional ethics.
They have a well-developed but not hostile sense of humor.
They are creative.

Question 40

transpersonal psychology

Answer 40

Maslow’s proposed fourth force in psychology that stresses the relationship between the individual and the cosmos (universe) and in so doing focuses on the mystical and spiritual aspects of human nature.Maslow’s proposed fourth force in psychology that stresses the relationship between the individual and the cosmos (universe) and in so doing focuses on the mystical and spiritual aspects of human nature.

Question 41

Carl Rogers (1902–1987)

Answer 41

A humanist psychologist whose nondirective and then client-centered psychotherapy was seen by many as the first viable alternative to psychoanalysis as a method for treating troubled individuals. Like Maslow’s, Rogers’s theory of personality emphasized the innate tendency toward self-actualization. According to Rogers, a person continues toward self-actualization unless his or her organismic valuing process is displaced by conditions of worth as a guide for living. The only way to avoid creating conditions of worth is to give a person unconditional positive regard.

Question 42

unconditional positive regard

Answer 42

Need for positive regard
Parents may set up conditions of worth
Give people unconditional positive regard, they can become a fully functioning person

Question 43

organismic valuing process

Answer 43

According to Rogers, the innate, internal guidance system that a person can use to “stay on the track” toward self-actualization.

Question 44

comparison of existential and humanistic psychology

Answer 44

Humans have a free will and are, therefore, responsible for their actions.
The most appropriate method by which to study humans is phenomenology, the study of intact subjective experience.
To be understood, the human must be studied as a whole. Elementism of any type gives a distorted view of human nature.
Humans are unique, and therefore anything learned about other animals is of limited use for the understanding of humans.
Each human is unique; therefore, anything learned about one human is of limited use for the understanding of others.
Living an authentic life is better than living an inauthentic one.
Because they possess unique attributes such as free will, humans cannot be effectively studied using just traditional scientific methodology.

Question 45

criticisms of humanistic psychology

Answer 45

The description of persons that humanistic psychologists offer is like the more favorable ones found through the centuries in poetry, literature, or religion. It represents a type of wishful thinking that is not supported by the facts that more objective psychology has accumulated. We should not ignore facts just because they are not to our liking.
Humanistic psychology criticizes behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and scientific psychology in general, but all three have made significant contributions to the betterment of the human condition. In other words, all three have done the very thing that humanistic psychology sets as one of its major goals.
If humanistic psychology questions traditional scientific methodology as a means of evaluating propositions about humans, what is to be used in its place? If phenomenology is to be used, this enterprise should not be referred to as psychology. The humanistic approach to studying humans is often characterized as a throwback to psychology’s past.
By minimizing animal research, humanistic psychologists are devaluing an extremely important source of knowledge about humans.
Many of the terms and concepts that humanistic psychologists use are so nebulous that they defy clear definition and verification. There is even confusion over the definition of humanistic psychology.