essay on humanistic approach

Humanistic Approach in Psychology (humanism): Definition & Examples

Saul Mcleod, PhD

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BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Humanistic, humanism, and humanist are terms in psychology relating to an approach that studies the whole person and the uniqueness of each individual. Essentially, these terms refer to the same approach in psychology.

Humanistic psychology is a perspective that emphasizes looking at the the whole person, and the uniqueness of each individual. Humanistic psychology begins with the existential assumptions that people have free will and are motivated to acheive their potential and self-actualize.

The humanistic approach in psychology developed as a rebellion against what some psychologists saw as the limitations of behaviorist and psychodynamic psychology.

The humanistic approach is thus often called the “third force” in psychology after psychoanalysis and behaviorism (Maslow, 1968).

Humanism rejected the assumptions of the behaviorist perspective which is characterized as deterministic, focused on reinforcement of stimulus-response behavior and heavily dependent on animal research.

Humanistic psychology rejected the psychodynamic approach because it is also deterministic, with unconscious irrational and instinctive forces determining human thought and behavior.

Both behaviorism and psychoanalysis are regarded as dehumanizing by humanistic psychologists.

Humanistic psychology expanded its influence throughout the 1970s and the 1980s. Its 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 behavior. 3) It offered a broader range of more effective methods in the professional practice of psychotherapy .

Summary Table

Basic assumptions.

Humanistic psychology begins with the existential assumption that people have free will:

Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of free will . Free will is the idea that people can make choices in how they act and are self-determining.

Behavior is not constrained by either past experience of the individual or current circumstances (determinism).

Personal agency refers to the choices we make in life, the paths we go down, and their consequences. Individuals are free to choose when they are congruent (Rogers) or self-actualized (Maslow).

Although Rogers believes much more in free will, he acknowledges that determinism is present in the case of conditional love because that may affect a person’s self-esteem. In this way free will and determinism are integral to some extent in the humanistic perspective.

People are basically good, and have an innate need to make themselves and the world better:

Humanistic psychology: a more recent development in the history of psychology, humanistic psychology grew out of the need for a more positive view of human beings than was offered by psychoanalysis or behaviorism.

Humans are innately good, which means there is nothing inherently negative or evil about them (humans).

In this way the humanistic perspective takes an optimistic view of human nature that humans are born good but during their process of growth they might turn evil.

The humanistic approach emphasizes the individual’s personal worth, the centrality of human values, and the creative, active nature of human beings.

The approach is optimistic and focuses on the noble human capacity to overcome hardship, pain and despair.

People are motivated to self-actualize:

Major humanistic psychologists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow believed that human beings were born with the desire to grow, create and to love, and had the power to direct their own lives.

Self-actualization concerns psychological growth, fulfillment, and satisfaction in life.

Both Rogers and Maslow regarded personal growth and fulfillment in life as basic human motives. This means that each person, in different ways, seeks to grow psychologically and continuously enhance themselves.

However, Rogers and Maslow both describe different ways which self-actualization can be achieved.

According to Maslow, people also have needs which must be met for self-actualization to be possible. The basic needs e.g. food and water have to be satisfied before the higher psychological and emotional needs. This is shown in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

According to Rogers, people could only self-actualize if they had a positive view of themselves (positive self-regard). This can only happen if they have unconditional positive regard from others – if they feel that they are valued and respected without reservation by those around them (especially their parents when they were children).

Self-actualization is only possible if there is congruence between the way an individual sees themselves and their ideal self (the way they want to be or think they should be). If there is a large gap between these two concepts, negative feelings of self-worth will arise that will make it impossible for self-actualization to take place.

The environment a person is exposed to and interacts with can either frustrate or assist this natural destiny. If it is oppressive, it will frustrate; if it is favorable, it will assist.

Behavior must be understood in terms of the subjective conscious experience of the individual (phenomenology):

Humanistic psychologists also believe that the most fundamental aspect of being human is a subjective experience. This may not be an accurate reflection of the real world, but a person can only act in terms of their own private experience subjective perception of reality.

Humanistic psychologists argue that physical objective reality is less important than a person’s subjective (phenomenological) perception and understanding of the world. Thus, how people interpret things internally is (for them), the only reality.

Sometimes the humanistic approach is called phenomenological. This means that personality is studied from the point of view of the individual’s subjective experience. Meaning is the purpose or value that a person attaches to their actions or experiences

According to Rogers, we each live in a world of our own creation, formed by our processes of perception. He referred to an individual’s unique perception of reality as his or her phenomenal field.

As Rogers once said, “The only reality I can possibly know is the world as I perceive and experience it at this particular moment. The only reality you can possibly know is the world as you perceive and experience at this moment. And the only certainty is that those perceived realities are different. There are as many ‘real worlds’ as there are people! (Rogers, 1980, p. 102).

For Rogers, the focus of psychology is not behavior (Skinner), the unconscious ( Freud ), thinking (Piaget), or the human brain but how individuals perceive and interpret events. Rogers is therefore important because he redirected psychology toward the study of the self .

Humanistic theorists say these individual subjective realities must be looked at under three simultaneous conditions.

First, they must be looked at as a whole and meaningful and not broken down into small components of information that are disjointed or fragmented like with psychodynamic theorists. Rogers said that if these individual perceptions of reality are not kept intact and are divided into elements of thought, they will lose their meaning.

Second, they must be conscious experiences of the here and now. No efforts should be made to retrieve unconscious experiences from the past.

Phenomenenological means ‘that which appears’ and in this case, it means that which naturally appears in consciousness. Without attempting to reduce it to its component parts – without further analysis.

Finally, these whole experiences should be looked at through introspection. Introspection is the careful searching of one’s inner subjective experiences.

Humanism rejects scientific methodology:

Rogers and Maslow placed little value on scientific psychology , especially the use of the psychology laboratory to investigate both human and animal behavior.

Rogers said that objective scientific inquiry based on deterministic assumptions about humans has a place in the study of humans (science) but is limited in the sense that it leaves out inner human experiences (phenomenology).

Studying a person’s subjective experience is the biggest problem for scientific psychology, which stresses the need for its subject matter to be publicly observable and verifiable. Subjective experience, by definition, resists such processes.

Humanism rejects scientific methodology like experiments and typically uses qualitative research methods . For example, diary accounts, open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews, and 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 way to really understand other people is to sit down and talk with them, share their experiences, and be open to their feelings.

Humanism rejected comparative psychology (the study of animals) because it does not tell us anything about the unique properties of human beings:

Humanism views humans 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, behavior, and experience.

Humanistic Theory of Personality

Central to Rogers” personality theory is the notion of self or self-concept . This is defined as “the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself.”

The self is the humanistic term for who we really are as a person. The self is our inner personality, and can be likened to the soul, or Freud’s psyche . The self is influenced by the experiences a person has in their life, and out interpretations of those experiences. Two primary sources that influence our self-concept are childhood experiences and evaluation by others.

According to Rogers (1959), we want to feel, experience, and behave in ways that are consistent with our self-image and which reflect what we would like to be like, our ideal-self. The closer our self-image and ideal-self are to each other, the more consistent or congruent we are and the higher our sense of self-worth.

A person is said to be in a state of incongruence if some of the totality of their experience is unacceptable to them and is denied or distorted in the self-image.

Rogers believed this incongruence stems from the distorted perceptions that arise from adopting others’ conditions of worth , starting in infancy. As we depart from accurately integrating all of our authentic experiences into our self-structure, we are no longer a unified whole person. Rather, we develop different facets of self, some of which may feel threatened by certain experiences.

The humanistic approach states that the self is composed of concepts unique to ourselves. The self-concept includes three components:

Self-worth (or self-esteem ) comprises what we think about ourselves. Rogers believed feelings of self-worth developed in early childhood and were formed from the interaction of the child with the mother and father.

How we see ourselves, which is important to good psychological health. Self-image includes the influence of our body image on inner personality.

At a simple level, we might perceive ourselves as a good or bad person, beautiful or ugly. Self-image affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves in the world.

This is the person who we would like to be. It consists of our goals and ambitions in life, and is dynamic – i.e., forever changing.

The ideal self in childhood is not the ideal self in our teens or late twenties etc.

Historical Timeline

Maslow (1943) developed a hierarchical theory of human motivation.
Carl Rogers (1946) publishes Significant aspects of client-centered therapy (also called person-centered 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 1962, with the sponsorship of Brandeis University, this movement was formally launched as the Association for Humanistic Psychology .
The first issue of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology appeared in the Spring of 1961.
Clark Hull’s (1943) Principles of behavior was published.
B.F. Skinner (1948) published Walden Two , in which he described a utopian society founded upon behaviorist principles.

Issues and Debates

Free will vs. determinism.

It is the only approach that explicitly states that people have free will, but its position on this topic is somewhat incoherent as on one hand, it argues that people have free will.

However, on the other hand, it argues that our behavior is determined by the way other people treat us (whether we feel that we are valued and respected without reservation by those around us).

Nature vs. Nurture

The approach recognizes both the influence of nature and nurture, nurture- the influence of experiences on a person’s ways of perceiving and understanding the world, nature- influence of biological drives and needs (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs).

Holism vs. Reductionism

The approach is holistic as it does not try to break down behaviors in simpler components.

Idiographic vs. Nomothetic

As this approach views the individual as unique, it does not attempt to establish universal laws about the causes of behavior; it is an idiographic approach.

Are the research methods used scientific?

As the approach views the individual as unique, it does not believe that scientific measurements of their behavior are appropriate.

Critical Evaluation

Humanistic psychologists rejected a rigorous scientific approach to psychology because they saw it as dehumanizing and unable to capture the richness of conscious experience.

As would be expected of an approach that is ‘anti-scientific’, humanistic psychology is short on empirical evidence. The approach includes untestable concepts, such as ‘self-actualization’ and ‘congruence’.

However, Rogers did attempt to introduce more rigor into his work by developing Q-sort – an objective measure of progress in therapy. Q-sort is a method used to collect data on outcome of therapy based on changes in clients self-concepts before, during, and after therapy in that it is used to measure actual changes based on differences between self and ideal self.

In many ways, the rejection of scientific psychology in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was a backlash to the dominance of the behaviorist approach in North American psychology. For example, their belief in free-will is in direct opposition to the deterministic laws of science.

However, the flip side to this is that humanism can gain a better insight into an individual’s behavior through the use of qualitative methods, such as unstructured interviews.

The approach also helped to provide a more holistic view of human behavior, in contrast to the reductionist position of science.

The humanistic approach has been applied to relatively few areas of psychology compared to the other approaches. Therefore, its contributions are limited to areas such as therapy, abnormality, motivation , education, and personality.

Client-centered therapy is widely used in health, social work and industry. This therapy has helped many people overcome difficulties they face in life, which is a significant contribution to improving people’s quality of life.

Humanistic therapies are based on the idea that psychological disorders are a product of self-deceit. Humanistic therapists help clients view themselves and their situations with greater insight, accuracy and acceptance.

The fundamental belief of this type of therapy is that clients can fulfill their full potential as human beings if they can achieve these goals. Examples of humanistic therapies include client-centered therapy and Gestalt therapy.

Client-centered therapy aims to increase clients’ self-worth and decrease the incongruence between the self-concept and the ideal self.

It is a non-directive therapy in which the client is encouraged to discover their own solutions to their difficulties in an atmosphere that is supportive and non-judgemental and that provides unconditional positive regard.

It focuses on the present rather than dwell on the past unlike psychoanalysis. This therapy is widely used e.g. health, education and industry.

Rogers’ view of education saw schools as generally rigid, bureaucratic institutions which are resistant to change. Applied to education, his approach becomes ‘student-centered learning’ in which children are trusted to participate in developing and to take charge of their own learning agendas. His attitude to examinations, in particular, would no doubt, find a most receptive audience in many students:

‘I believe that the testing of the student’s achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher, is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning’.

Humanistic ideas have been applied in education with open classrooms. In the open classrooms, students are the ones who decide how learning should take place (student-centered), they should be self-directed, they’re free to choose what to study and the teacher merely acts as a facilitator who provides an atmosphere of freedom and support for individual pursuits.

Summerhill School in UK, founded by A.S. Neill is one of the schools that have applied humanistic ideas fully with some success to enhance motivation in students.

The school has a clear structure and rules and that students from Summerhill are very creative, self-directed (free to choose subjects, learning materials, etc.), responsible and tolerant.

Limitations

Psychoanalytic criticisms claim that individuals cannot explain their own behavior because the causes are largely unconscious. Consequently, conscious explanations will be distorted by rationalization or other defenses.

The behaviourists have been the severest critics of humanistic psychology because of the phenomenological approach, which they feel, is purely subjective and dualistic.

Thus, according to behaviourists, the theories lack any empirical validity and scientific method is abandoned in favour of introspection.

A possible reason for the limited impact on academic psychology perhaps lies with the fact that humanism deliberately adopts a non-scientific approach to studying humans.

The areas investigated by humanism, such as consciousness and emotion, are very difficult to scientifically study. The outcome of such scientific limitations means that there is a lack of empirical evidence to support the key theories of the approach.

Another limitation is the humanistic approach is that it is ethnocentric . Many ideas central to humanistic psychology, such as individual freedom, autonomy and personal growth, would be more readily associated with individualistic cultures in the Western world, such as the United States.

Collectivist cultures such as India, which emphasize the needs of the group and interdependence, may not identify so easily with the ideals and values of humanistic psychology.

Therefore, it is possible that the approach would not travel well and is a product of the cultural context within which it was developed, and an emic approach is more appropriate.

Humanism proposes a positive view of human nature, however, it could be argued that this might not be very realistic when considering everyday reality, such as domestic violence and genocides.

Furthermore, the approach’s focus on meeting our needs and fulfilling our growth potential reflects an individualistic, self-obsessed outlook that is part of the problem faced by our society rather than a solution.

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation . Psychological Review , 50, 370-96.

Rogers, C. R. (1946). Significant aspects of client-centered therapy. American Psychologist , 1, 415-422.

Maslow, A. H. (1968). Toward a psychology of being (2nd ed.) . New York: D. Van Nostrand.

Rogers, C. R. (1946). Significant aspects of client-centered therapy. American Psychologist 1, 415-422.

Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships as developed in the client-centered framework. In (ed.) S. Koch, Psychology: A study of a science. Vol. 3: Formulations of the person and the social context . New York: McGraw Hill.

What Is Humanistic Psychology?

A Psychology Perspective Influenced By Humanism

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

James Lacy, MLS, is a fact-checker and researcher.

Other Types of Humanism

How to Use It

Potential Pitfalls

Humanistic psychology is a perspective that emphasizes looking at the whole individual and stresses concepts such as free will, self-efficacy, and self-actualization. Rather than concentrating on dysfunction, humanistic psychology strives to help people fulfill their potential and maximize their well-being.

This area of psychology emerged during the 1950s as a reaction to psychoanalysis and behaviorism, which had dominated psychology during the first half of the century. Psychoanalysis was focused on understanding the unconscious motivations that drive behavior while behaviorism studied the conditioning processes that produce behavior.

Humanist thinkers felt that both psychoanalysis and behaviorism were too pessimistic, either focusing on the most tragic of emotions or failing to take into account the role of personal choice.

However, it is not necessary to think of these three schools of thought as competing elements. Each branch of psychology has contributed to our understanding of the human mind and behavior.

Humanistic psychology added yet another dimension that takes a more holistic view of the individual.

Humanism is a philosophy that stresses the importance of human factors rather than looking at religious, divine, or spiritual matters. Humanism is rooted in the idea that people have an ethical responsibility to lead lives that are personally fulfilling while at the same time contributing to the greater good of all people.

Humanism stresses the importance of human values and dignity. It proposes that people can resolve problems through science and reason. Rather than looking to religious traditions, humanism focuses on helping people live well, achieve personal growth, and make the world a better place.

The term "humanism" is often used more broadly, but it also has significance in a number of different fields, including psychology.

Religious Humanism

Some religious traditions incorporate elements of humanism as part of their belief systems. Examples of religious humanism include Quakers, Lutherans, and Unitarian Universalists.

Secular Humanism

Secular humanism rejects all religious beliefs, including the existence of the supernatural. This approach stresses the importance of logic, the scientific method, and rationality when it comes to understanding the world and solving human problems.

Uses for Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic psychology focuses on each individual's potential and stresses the importance of growth and self-actualization . The fundamental belief of humanistic psychology is that people are innately good and that mental and social problems result from deviations from this natural tendency.

Humanistic psychology also suggests that people possess personal agency and that they are motivated to use this free will to pursue things that will help them achieve their full potential as human beings.

The need for fulfillment and personal growth is a key motivator of all behavior. People are continually looking for new ways to grow, to become better, to learn new things, and to experience psychological growth and self-actualization.

Some of the ways that humanistic psychology is applied within the field of psychology include:

Humanistic therapy : Several different types of psychotherapy have emerged that are rooted in the principles of humanism. These include client-centered therapy, existential therapy, and Gestalt therapy .
Personal development : Because humanism stresses the importance of self-actualization and reaching one's full potential, it can be used as a tool of self-discovery and personal development.
Social change : Another important aspect of humanism is improving communities and societies. For individuals to be healthy and whole, it is important to develop societies that foster personal well-being and provide social support.

Impact of Humanistic Psychology

The humanist movement had an enormous influence on the course of psychology and contributed new ways of thinking about mental health. It offered a new approach to understanding human behaviors and motivations and led to the development of new techniques and approaches to psychotherapy .

Some of the major ideas and concepts that emerged as a result of the humanistic psychology movement include an emphasis on things such as:

Client-centered therapy
Fully functioning person
Hierarchy of needs
Peak experiences
Self-actualization
Self-concept
Unconditional positive regard

How to Apply Humanistic Psychology

Some tips from humanistic psychology that can help people pursue their own fulfillment and actualization include:

Discover your own strengths
Develop a vision for what you want to achieve
Consider your own beliefs and values
Pursue experiences that bring you joy and develop your skills
Learn to accept yourself and others
Focus on enjoying experiences rather than just achieving goals
Keep learning new things
Pursue things that you are passionate about
Maintain an optimistic outlook

One of the major strengths of humanistic psychology is that it emphasizes the role of the individual. This school of psychology gives people more credit for controlling and determining their state of mental health.

It also takes environmental influences into account. Rather than focusing solely on our internal thoughts and desires, humanistic psychology also credits the environment's influence on our experiences.

Humanistic psychology helped remove some of the stigma attached to therapy and made it more acceptable for normal, healthy individuals to explore their abilities and potential through therapy.

While humanistic psychology continues to influence therapy, education, healthcare, and other areas, it has not been without some criticism.

For example, the humanist approach is often seen as too subjective. The importance of individual experience makes it difficult to objectively study and measure humanistic phenomena. How can we objectively tell if someone is self-actualized? The answer, of course, is that we cannot. We can only rely upon the individual's assessment of their experience.

Another major criticism is that observations are unverifiable; there is no accurate way to measure or quantify these qualities. This can make it more difficult to conduct research and design assessments to measure hard-to-measure concepts.

History of Humanistic Psychology

The early development of humanistic psychology was heavily influenced by the works of a few key theorists, especially Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. Other prominent humanist thinkers included Rollo May and Erich Fromm.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow described his hierarchy of needs in "A Theory of Human Motivation" published in Psychological Review. Later during the late 1950s, Abraham Maslow and other psychologists held meetings to discuss developing a professional organization devoted to a more humanist approach to psychology.

They agreed that topics such as self-actualization, creativity, individuality, and related topics were the central themes of this new approach. In 1951, Carl Rogers published "Client-Centered Therapy," which described his humanistic, client-directed approach to therapy. In 1961, the Journal of Humanistic Psychology was established.

It was also in 1961 that the American Association for Humanistic Psychology was formed and by 1971, humanistic psychology become an APA division. In 1962, Maslow published "Toward a Psychology of Being," in which he described humanistic psychology as the "third force" in psychology. The first and second forces were behaviorism and psychoanalysis respectively.

A Word From Verywell

Today, the concepts central to humanistic psychology can be seen in many disciplines including other branches of psychology, education, therapy, political movements, and other areas. For example, transpersonal psychology and positive psychology both draw heavily on humanist influences.

The goals of humanism remain as relevant today as they were in the 1940s and 1950s and humanistic psychology continues to empower individuals, enhance well-being, push people toward fulfilling their potential, and improve communities all over the world.

Maslow AH. A theory of human motivation . Psychological Review. 1943;50(4):370-396. doi:10.1037/h0054346

Greening T. Five basic postulates of humanistic psychology . Journal of Humanistic Psychology . 2006;46(3): 239-239. doi:10.1177/002216780604600301

Schneider KJ, Pierson JF, Bugental JFT. The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice. Thousand Oaks: CA: SAGE Publications; 2015.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Humanistic Psychology

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Humanistic Psychology by Andrew M. Bland , Eugene M. DeRobertis LAST REVIEWED: 26 May 2023 LAST MODIFIED: 25 October 2018 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199828340-0225

Humanistic psychology emphasizes universal and individualized qualities of optimal well-being, the constructive use of creative potential, and the relational conditions that promote those qualities. It offers an alternative to mechanistic and/or reductionistic psychological explanations based on isolated, static elements of observable behavior or mental processes. Humanistic psychologists believe that the technocratic assumptions and practices of the natural science approach conventionally adopted by psychologists in the interest of prediction, manipulation, and control of behavior are insufficient to capture the nuances of how human experience and behavior dynamically co-contextualize and co-constitute one another. They question (1) the unreflective placement of formal theory and hypothetico-deductive method before considerations of human subject matter, which includes the impetus to cast research participants in passive roles in the interest of mathematical precision, and (2) the tendency to prioritize methods that valorize probabilistic generalizability to the detriment of contextually situated perspectives gleaned from meaningful interaction. Likewise, they consider the rigid, uncritical employment of monolithic theories and preoccupation with technique in psychotherapy inappropriate for adequately understanding and addressing human suffering. In contrast, humanistic psychologists employ holistic-systemic and empathically attuned approaches in their therapeutic and research practices to understand lived experiences of individuals as active participants situated in their sociocultural and eco-psycho-spiritual contexts. A flexible, process-oriented, rigorously descriptive approach is favored to elucidate individual self-awareness and self-regulation and to explore how values (autonomy and commitment , freedom and responsibility , personal decision and receptive world-openness ) influence both commonalities and divergences (that is, diversity) in human experience. The person is conceptualized as continually evolving, motivated by a need to progress toward greater levels of integrated interactive functioning, guided by intentionality and an ever-expanding awareness of self and others, with capacities for growth and change irrespective of past limitations and future uncertainties. Humanistic psychologists highlight overall maturity and the role of cooperative meaning making. This article begins with a list of sources for novices to obtain a “big picture” view of humanistic psychology as written by humanistic psychologists ( General Overviews and Textbooks ), followed by a selection of edited volumes ( Reference Works and Anthologies ), peer-reviewed publications ( Journals ), and multimedia presentations ( Online Resources ) that feature the broad range of voices that constitute classic and contemporary humanistic psychology. Next, recommendations are provided for primary source writings on humanistic psychology theorizing and its underlying philosophy ( Theory and Philosophy ), and its practical applications in therapy and research ( Applications ). Finally, a review of sources on humanistic psychology’s history, development, and influence ( History, Development, and Influence ) sets the stage for its contemporary applications: addressing cultural imbalances, technocracy and transhumanism, globalization, and climate change; enhancing education, career development, and leadership; promoting heroism, everyday creativity, and diagnostic alternatives ( Contemporary Applications ).

From its inception, humanistic psychology has been a broad-based yet theoretically delineated movement rather than a highly specialized school. Initially known as the “Third Force” in American psychology, humanistic psychology began in the mid-twentieth century as an alternative to the limitations of and disparities between, on one hand, decontextualized experimentalism and behaviorism and, on the other hand, Freudian psychoanalysis. It both subsumed the strengths and transcended the limitations of those traditions by developing an intersubjective approach to arrive at a process-oriented conceptualization of optimally functioning (versus pathological) personality and personal growth that had been inadequately available in the field. Subsequently, humanistic psychology has become elaborated by three movements in psychology: existential (which emphasizes limited and situated freedom, existential givens, experiential reflection, and personal responsibility), transpersonal (which stresses spirituality, advanced forms of transcendence, and compassionate social action), and constructivist (which accentuates culture, political consciousness, and their relationship to personal meaning). Contemporary humanistic psychology has evolved into a tripartite approach that phenomenologically integrates these three ontologies as the foundation for a human science and clinical outlook that explores the processes that organically promote psychological health and growth in accordance with a person’s nature and potentials. Such an intentionally nonexclusive approach has been preferred to keep the movement open and flexible with the deliberate goal of continuous revision and elaboration so that it may remain relevant for new generations. As noted in Henry 2017 , DeRobertis 2021 , and Bland and DeRobertis 2020 , humanistic psychology often is presented inaccurately and/or one-sidedly in conventional psychology textbooks. For that reason, novices are encouraged to consult summaries that have been developed by reputable humanistic psychologists in consort with original source material. A concise overview of humanistic psychology from its inception to the 2010s (including the existential, transpersonal, and constructivist ontologies) is presented in Bland and DeRobertis 2020 . Brief undergraduate-friendly comparisons and contrasts of humanistic and conventional perspectives on a range of psychological topics are included in Bargdill and Broomé 2016 and Whitehead 2017 . A more detailed exposition of humanistic psychology are provided for intermediate readers in DeRobertis 2021 and Tageson 1982 . More advanced readers (graduate students, professionals, and academicians) are encouraged to consult the following, in order: Misiak and Sexton 1973 (surveys early phenomenological, existential, and humanistic traditions), Rowan 2001 (provides overviews of humanistic, transpersonal, and constructivist perspectives), Schneider 1998 (outlines humanistic psychology’s principal challenges to conventional natural science psychology), and Giorgi 1992 (suggests next steps for humanistic psychology). Interested readers are encouraged thereafter to consult primary source writings in specific topics of humanistic psychology (as identified in the remainder of this article).

Bargdill, R., and R. Broomé, eds. 2016. Humanistic contributions for Psychology 101: Growth, choice, and responsibility . Colorado Springs, CO: Univ. Professors Press.

This edited text written principally by graduate students introduces humanistic perspectives on topics across the spectrum of psychology: theory and research, neurophenomenology, sensation and perception, consciousness, learning, memory, thinking and language, motivation, development, personality, social, stress and health, psychopathology, and therapy. Following the chapter structure of typical introductory psychology textbooks, it provides a supplemental humanistic counterpart to conventional psychological theory and research in each area. Although some philosophical material may be better suited for upper-division students, down-to-earth anecdotes and vignettes elucidate nontraditional concepts.

Bland, A. M., and E. M. DeRobertis. 2020. The humanistic perspective. In Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences . Edited by V. Zeigler-Hill and T. K. Shackelford, 2061–2079. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Describes humanistic psychology’s key principles. Traces its influences (humanities; existential-phenomenological philosophy; Eastern wisdom; William James; systems, gestalt, organismic, personality, post-Freudian psychodynamic psychologies), and its historical development through four phases (1940s to 1960s: establishment as “Third Force”; 1960s to 1990s: expansion via existential and transpersonal movements; 1970s to 2000s: relationship with postmodernism and constructivism; and 2000s and 2010s: integration of perspectives and dialogue with conventional psychology). Identifies therapy and research applications. Outlines common critiques of humanistic psychology and provides counter-critiques as appropriate.

DeRobertis, E. M. 2021. The humanistic revolution in psychology: Its inaugural vision. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 61:8–32.

DOI: 10.1177/0022167820956785

Presents findings from a textual analysis of the first issue of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (cited under Journals: General ) in 1961. Humanistic psychology was envisioned to be a unique amalgam of what would today be considered cultural, cognitive, and developmental psychologies without being reducible to any one of these subfields. Clarifies humanistic psychology’s formative principles and identifies ways in which it has influenced both psychology and society.

Giorgi, A. 1992. Whither humanistic psychology? The Humanistic Psychologist 20:422–438.

DOI: 10.1080/08873267.1992.9986807

Discusses the essential characteristics of a humanistic conceptualization of the person and the promises of a humanistic psychology for revolutionizing the discipline at large. The article culminates with Giorgi’s assessment of the prospects of the humanistic movement with an eye toward a program of systematic, disciplined research from a human science viewpoint. A firm understanding of humanistic psychology is recommended before consulting this article.

Henry, C. D. 2017. Humanistic psychology and introductory textbooks: A 21st-century reassessment. The Humanistic Psychologist 45:281–294.

DOI: 10.1037/hum0000056

Presents findings from a content analysis of the portrayal of humanistic, existential, and phenomenological psychologies in twenty-one contemporary introductory psychology textbooks. Emphasis is given to inadequate coverage, substantial omissions, and both explicit and implicit critiques of humanistic psychologies in textbooks, as well as to their acknowledging the movement’s contributions.

Misiak, H., and V. S. Sexton. 1973. Phenomenological, existential, and humanistic psychologies: A historical survey . New York: Grune and Stratton.

This book offers a straightforward overview of the influence of phenomenological and existential philosophies in European and American psychology and their practical applications for an unbiased exploration of consciousness, inner experience, and individuals’ relationship to themselves, others, and the world. The authors trace the early history of humanistic psychology and address its controversial relationship with the human potential movement. They include contributions of numerous lesser-known figures and copiously summarize myriad formative humanistic texts that now are long out of print.

Rowan, J. 2001. Ordinary ecstasy: The dialectics of humanistic psychology . 3d ed. London: Taylor and Francis.

Rowan explores the emphasis in humanistic psychology on paradox, its relationship with natural science psychology, its influences and historical-perspectival trajectory, and its practical philosophy (questioning fixed categories, living spontaneously but not impulsively, approaching phenomena on their own terms, and breaking rigid patterns of thought and behavior) as applied in counseling and psychotherapy, education, organizations, sexuality and gender, society, power relations, and research. The author fittingly integrates assorted ontologies and epistemologies of humanistic psychology for 21st-century audiences.

Schneider, K. J. 1998. Toward a science of the heart: Romanticism and the revival of psychology. American Psychologist 53:277–289.

DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.53.3.277

Schneider critiques the foci in conventional psychology on standardization and expediency as reflections of mainstream American culture. The author suggests that both psychology and society acknowledge affective, intuitive, and holistic understandings of behavior as alternatives to linear and causal knowledge; considers the broader context of individuals’ lived realities; asks systemic questions about health, dysfunction, love, and work; and engages in sustainable, socially conscious pursuits. Schneider also proposes that the romantic and conventional positions ultimately can enhance and enrich one another.

Tageson, C. W. 1982. Humanistic psychology: A synthesis . Homewood, IL: Dorsey.

A textbook for upper-division/graduate students and professionals that integrates strands of existential-humanistic theorizing with an emphasis on consciousness; phenomenology; holism; self-actualization and self-determination; authenticity; self-transcendence; and applications of person centeredness in research, therapy, management, education, medicine, law, religion/spirituality, family life, and social justice.

Whitehead, P. 2017. Psychologizing: A personal, practice-based approach to psychology . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

This alternative introductory psychology textbook compares and contrasts conventional and humanistic and phenomenological psychologists’ perspectives on the following: methods; learning; thinking, knowledge, and intelligence; biological psychology; sensation and perception; memory, retrospection, and prospection; development; personality; motivation; emotion; normality and psychopathology; health psychology; dream analysis; and consciousness. Arguably, this volume is more accessible for beginners than Bargdill and Broomé 2016 ; however, in general, it covers less ground.

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Montaigne’s Essays : A Humanistic Approach to Fear

First Online: 18 April 2018

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Sergio Starkstein 2

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Montaigne’s Essays is of major importance for the philosophy of fear. In this work, Montaigne provides narratives of a variety of fears, and in doing so describes a full palette of fear-related emotions, from individual doubts and avoidance, to terror and generalised panic. Montaigne’s analysis and treatment of fear is unique because he is among the first philosophers to openly discuss his own fears and the variety of philosophical therapies he used to subdue them. After employing Stoic and Epicurean remedies, Montaigne found the most useful philosophical therapy in the sceptical Pyrrhonian tradition. Thus, the Essays express an open-minded, particularistic and anti-dogmatic approach to life. Montaigne’s motto ‘What do I know?’ reflects his non-partisan approach and receptiveness to improving his emotional well-being, as well as increasing his knowledge and joy of life by accepting life events as these unfold.

It is fear that I am most afraid of: In harshness it surpasses all other mischances . Michel de Montaigne, Essays (Book I, “On fear”) (Montaigne 2003 )

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It is difficult to introduce Montaigne as a philosopher, as he did not belong to the ‘establishment’ nor did he want to become a ‘professional’ philosopher. He was a ‘humanist’ in the sense of Petrarch and Erasmus, a man of letters, and a politician. Nevertheless, the Essays is the work of a profound philosopher, one of the most original thinkers of the Renaissance who understood the human soul as few before or after him. Julie Roberts ( 2015 , p. 246) considers the Essays as a “pathographically curative” text, with the effort to examine oneself as one of the main aspects of philosophical therapy. She connects Montaigne’s therapy with Foucault’s “care of the self” (Foucault 1986 ). Rachel Starr ( 2012 , p. 436) considers the Essays as the pinnacle of “humanistic psychotherapy.”

After publishing the first edition in 1580, Montaigne continued adding material, which creates some confusion, as he did not correct his previous concepts even when they were in contradiction with the new ones. The additions from 1580 to 1588 are marked with a “B”, whereas the additions from 1588–1592 made in the 1588 ‘Bordeaux copy’ (first published in 1595) are marked with a “C”. I have used Screech’s translation (Montaigne 2003 ), but also added material from Frame’s translation whenever I considered the concept to be more clearly conveyed (Montaigne 1965 ). Reference to specific essays will be given to by volume and number, and page numbers within specific essays will be referred to by volume, essay, and page number. Letters A, B and C are used, when necessary, to indicate the different editions.

The presence of clearly demarcated philosophical stages in Montaigne’s intellectual evolution has been contested by a number of authors, and is extensively discussed in Bermúdez ( 2015 , pp. 54–61). Frame ( 1955 , pp. 5–7) describes three periods in Montaigne’s philosophical development: the first one (“Stoic period”) extended from 1572 to 1574; the second one (“Sceptical period”) extended from 1575 to 1577, and the final period (“Epicurean period”) extended from 1578 until Montaigne’s death in 1592.

This type of autobiographical writing was not new (Montaigne’s Essays was preceded by Augustine’s Confessions and Petrarch’s Secretum ), but Montaigne’s text is unique in the frankness of personal descriptions, in which a reader of any place and period may be easily reflected.

Fear is a main theme in I.6 “The hour of parley is dangerous”, I.11 “On prognostications”, I.16 “On punishing cowardice”, I.19 “That we should not be deemed happy till after our death”, I.20 “To philosophise is to learn how to die”, I.21 “On the power of imagination”, I.33 “On fleeing from pleasures at the cost of one’s life”, I.39 “On solitude”, and I.57 “On the length of life”.

This sounds anachronistic, but the extrapolation of the Essays into contemporary life is commonly practiced and for good reasons (Lazar and Madden 2015 , pp. 1–2), as fear is one of the most primitive human emotions, the phenomenology in terms of feelings and behaviour has not changed in its conceptual essence, and the main causes of this emotion are perennial, such as the fear of death, poverty, sickness and wars.

Scholar ( 2010 ), remarks that the Essays “haunt its readers” by the free-thinking style of Montaigne’s writings. Montaigne was a scholar, but fiercely anti-dogmatic, anti-authoritarian, and able to make “all questions accessible to his readers” (Scholar 2010 , p. 7).

“When he is threatened with a blow nothing can stop a man closing his eyes, or trembling if you set him on the edge of a precipice…” (A.2.3.388).

“Anyone who is afraid of suffering suffers already of being afraid” (3.13.1243).

The main essays discussing the fear of death are “Constancy” (1.12), “That the taste of good and evil…” (1.14), “That to philosophise is to learn to die” (1.20), “Solitude” (1.39) and “The inconsistency of our own actions” (2.1).

The topic on the futility of premeditation is discussed in-depth in the penultimate essay “On physiognomy” (3.22).

“I am one of those by whom the powerful blows of the imagination are felt most strongly. Everyone is hit by it, but some are bowled over” (A.1.21.109).

“When I contemplate an illness I seize upon it and lodge it within myself” (C.1.21.109).

“Once the pain has gone I am not much depressed by weakness or lassitude. I know of several bodily afflictions which are horrifying even to name but which I fear less than hundreds of current disturbances and distresses of the mind” (C.3.13.1245).

“Then, there is no madness, no raving lunacy, which such agitations do not bring forth” (A.1.8.30).

“Resigned to any outcome whatsoever once the dice have been thrown” (B.2.17.732); and “Few emotions have ever disturbed my sleep, yet even the slightest need to decide anything can disturb it for me” (B.2.17.732).

“In events I act like a man: in the conduct of events, like a boy. The dread of a tumble gives me more anguish than the fall” (B.2.17.733).

“…thank God we have nothing to do with each other” (A.1.24.143).

“I tell those who urge me to take medicine at least to wait until I am well and have got my strength back in order to have the means of resisting the hazardous effects of their potions” (A.1.24.143).

“Can I feel something disintegrating? Do not expect me to waste time having my pulse and urine checked so that anxious prognostics can be drawn from them: I will be in plenty of time to feel the anguish without prolonging things by an anguished fear” (B.3.13.1243).

His father lived to 74 years, a grandfather to 69, and a great-grandfather to almost 80, “none having swallowed any kind of drug” (A.2.37.864).

“How many men have been made ill by the sheer force of imagination? Is it not normal to see men bled, purged and swallowing medicines to cure ills which they feel only in their minds?” (A.2.12.547).

“Why do doctors first work on the confidence of their patient with so many fake promises of a cure if not to allow the action of the imagination to make up for the trickery of their potions? They know that one of the masters of their craft told them in writing that there are men for whom it is enough merely to look at a medicine for it to prove effective” (A.1.21.116). Thus, the trickery of doctors consisted in using medications as strong placebos to cure imaginary illnesses, as well as convincing patients that their drugs were curing an otherwise irreversible condition (Justman 2015 ).

Robert ( 2015 , pp. 721–744) has analysed the subtle way in which Montaigne ridiculed both physicians and patients for engaging in fully unproven expensive treatments.

“… they rob us of feelings and concern for what now is, in order to spend time over what will be – even when we ourselves shall be no more” (B.1.3.11).

“The continual suspicion, which leads a Prince to distrust everyone may torment him strangely” (A.1.24.145).

“So vain and worthless is human wisdom: despite all our projects, counsels and precautions, the outcome remains in the possession of Fortune” (A.1.24.143).

“The longest of my projects are for less than a year; I think only of bringing things to a close; I free myself from all fresh hopes and achievements” (C.2.28.797).

“My old age…deadens within me many of the desires and worries which trouble our lives: worry about the way the world is going; worry about money, honours, erudition, health… and me” (C.2.28.797).

“I am the most ill-disposed toward pain” (C.1.14.69).

“When my condition is bad I cling violently to my illness: I abandon myself to despair and let myself go towards catastrophe” (B.3.9.1072).

“Death is the only guarantor of our freedom, the common and ready cure of our ills” (A.1.14.53). Montaigne acceptance of suicide is not explicitly stated in the text, perhaps due to fear of the Inquisition.

It may also be the case that Montaigne had no firm opinion about the best ‘remedies’ for fear, and left different options open.

“The anxiety to do well…puts the soul on the rack, break it, and make it impotent” (Montaigne 1965 1.10.26, Frame’s translation).

Bakewell states that premeditation did not liberate Montaigne from his fears, but actually served to imprison him (Bakewell 2010 , p. 3).

“Do we ask to be whipped right now…just because it may be that Fortune will, perhaps, make you suffer a whipping some day?” (B.3.12.1189).

“No man has ever prepared to leave the world more simply nor more fully than I have. No one has more completely let go of everything than I try to do” (C.1.20.98) [my italics].

“How many country-folk do I see ignoring poverty; how many yearning for death or meeting it without panic or distress? That man over there who is trenching my garden has, this morning, buried his father or his son” (B.3.12.1178).

This description seems to idealise and romanticise the behaviour of the ‘lower classes’, but this is what Montaigne was contemplating, what he saw in his own estate. Although he cannot know what was going on in the minds of his peasants and he employs a clumsy generalisation I believe that this image can be read as being used to contrast different human responses to fear and to show that fear can be successfully dominated.

Hartle ( 2013 , p. 17) also believes in a more opinionated than a non-judgmental Montaigne, stressing that throughout the Essays Montaigne constantly makes judgments of all sorts. This is certainly true, except for the questions that obsessed Montaigne the most: the fears of sickness poverty and death. When discussing Montaigne’s scepticism in relation to Sextus Empiricus, Bermúdez Vazquez remarks that “philosophical speculation leads only to confusion because of the inevitability of uncertainty. It produces anxiety rather than peace of mind” (p. 17).

“Fear, desire, hope, impel us towards the future; they rob us of feelings and concern for what now is, in order to spend time over what will be – even when we ourselves shall be no more” (B.1.3.11).

This has obvious Buddhist resonances, and may be related to Montaigne’s admiration of Pyrrhonism, which has many affinities with Eastern thought (Beckwith 2015 ). Pyrrho’s main concepts as reported by Sextus Empiricus had been translated into French about 20 years before the first edition of the Essays (see Calhoun 2015 ).

Montaigne’s purported unnoticed way of life was only partially true, since while trying to stay away from the daily nuisance at his chateau, he would eagerly seek the company of the few erudite Montaigne had in esteem to engage in conversation, and more reluctantly, work for the king on political missions.

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to live to yourself” (A.1.39.272).

This is clarified in a footnote by Screech (Montaigne 2003 ) as “I make a distinction,” a term used in formal debates to reject or modify an opponent’s assertion.

“Life must be its own objective, its own purpose. Its right concern is to rule itself, govern itself, put up with itself” (C.3.12.1191).

The number following the year corresponds to the remark in Philosophical Investigations .

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Starkstein, S. (2018). Montaigne’s Essays : A Humanistic Approach to Fear. In: A Conceptual and Therapeutic Analysis of Fear. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78349-9_4

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Both positive psychology and the person-centered approach share a common aim to promote human flourishing. In this article I will discuss how the person-centered approach is a form of positive psychology, but positive psychology is not necessarily person-centered. I will show how the person-centered approach offers a distinctive view of human nature that leads the person-centered psychologist to understand that if people are to change, it is not the person that we must try to change but their social environment. Centrally, the paper suggests that respecting the humanistic image of the human being and, consequently, influencing people's social environment to facilitate personal growth would mean a step forward for positive psychology and would promote cross-fertilization between positive psychology and the person-centered approach instead of widening their gap.

Introduction

It was in the late 1980's that I first became interested in what later became known as positive psychology. I was completing my doctorate research in the psychology of trauma. An unexpected finding was that many survivors reported positive changes in outlook. But there was little written in the mainstream literature about this. I wanted to find a language with which to frame my observations. Like many, I had studied humanistic psychology briefly in my undergraduate studies, but not in a way that I understood its depth and richness, so it came as a revelation to me when I discovered that the same intellectual challenges I was now grappling with, had been tackled decades ago.

Specifically, I began to see how Carl Rogers' person-centered theory of personality development could be applied to understanding how people grow following adversity. Throughout the 1990's, I studied Rogers' ideas coming to realize that what he and his colleagues had achieved from the 1950's onwards had offered a new paradigm for the psychological sciences, one that focused on how to promote human flourishing. As a result, when I first encountered positive psychology in the early 2000's, my initial reaction was to dismiss it as it seemed to offer nothing new, but I also saw the enthusiasm of my students for positive psychology, and that positive psychology was succeeding in bringing ideas about well-being back into mainstream awareness when person-centered psychology seemed to be struggling to do so. I could see that person-centered psychology was not incompatible with being interested in positive psychology, so I began to think of myself as a person-centered positive psychologist. For the past two decades I have sought to build bridges between humanistic and positive psychology, to bring the person-centered approach to my work on posttraumatic growth and authenticity, and to make the case that the person-centered approach is a form of positive psychology.

In this article I want to elaborate on what I mean when I say that the person-centered approach is a form of positive psychology. My aim is to position the person-centered approach as part of contemporary positive psychology, as well as it being part of the humanistic psychology tradition. Carl Rogers, the founder of the person-centered approach, was one of the pioneers of humanistic psychology. As such, the person-centered approach is often associated with humanistic psychology. While the relationship between humanistic and positive psychology has been contentious in the past, it is now widely accepted that positive psychology has largely followed in the footsteps of humanistic psychology. In this way, person-centered psychology can be seen as a historical antecedent to positive psychology, but what I want to show is that it is not just a branch of research, scholarship, and practice from the past; it is one that has continued and developed over the past 70 years, that now sits comfortably under the wider umbrella of positive psychology.

I would like to invite readers of this special issue to become more fully acquainted with person-centered psychology and to consider its perspective on what it means to be a positive psychologist. I will provide a brief overview of positive psychology in the context of humanistic psychology, followed by a discussion of the person-centered approach and how it offers a distinctive view of human nature, and finally, reflections on my vision for a more person-centered positive psychology. In short, the person-centered positive psychologist would look not at ways to change people but at how to change their social environment. I will show that considering the influence of the social environment as the means to facilitate personal growth would mean a step forward for positive psychology in a direction away from its individualistic and medicalized focus and would promote cross-fertilization between positive psychology and humanistic psychology. In making this argument I am reiterating and developing Linley and Joseph's ( 2004b ) conclusion in their book Positive Psychology in Practice that there is a need to develop a theoretical foundation for positive psychology that offers a clear, coherent, and consistent vision of human nature, and how the agenda for the practice of positive psychology inevitably arises out of its vision. Speaking personally, my vision would be for a more person-centered positive psychology.

Positive Psychology in the Context of Humanistic Psychology

Positive psychology was formally launched by Martin Seligman in his 1998 presidential address to the American Psychological Association (Seligman, 1999 ), and in the special issue of the American Psychologist dedicated to the topic that soon followed (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000 ). Seligman later said how the idea of positive psychology came to him following a moment of epiphany when gardening with his daughter, Nikki, who was then aged five, when she instructed him not to be such a grouch. “In that moment, I acquired the mission of helping to build the scientific infrastructure of a field that would investigate what makes life worth living: positive emotion, positive character and positive institutions.” (Seligman, 2004 , p. xi). But while such thinking was a refreshing change for many, these were not new ideas. The idea of focusing on the positive was an idea that was always core to humanistic psychology.

The A merican Association for Humanistic Psychology was founded by Abraham Maslow in 1961 (renamed the Association for Humanistic Psychology in 1963). Bugental ( 1964 ) put forward five basic principles of humanistic psychology, which were later adapted by Tom Greening to define the parameters of humanistic psychology: “1. Human beings, as human, supersede the sum of their parts. They cannot be reduced to components. 2. Human beings have their existence in a uniquely human context, as well as in a cosmic ecology. 3. Human beings are aware and aware of being aware —i.e., they are conscious. Human consciousness always includes an awareness of oneself in the context of other people. 4. Human beings have some choice and, with that, responsibility. 5. Human beings are intentional, aim at goals, are aware that they cause future events, and seek meaning, value, and creativity.” Humanistic psychology was known as the third force of psychology, because it recognized the limitations of its predecessors, behavioral psychology and psychoanalytical psychology. As Sutich and Vich ( 1969 ), editors of Readings in Humanistic Psychology , wrote:

“Two main branches of psychology – behaviorism and psychoanalysis- appear to have made great contributions to human knowledge, but neither singly nor together have they covered the almost limitless scope of human behavior, relationships, and possibilities. Perhaps their greatest limitation has been the inadequacy of their approach to positive human potentialities and the maximal realization of those potentialities” (Sutich and Vich, 1969 , p. 1).

Focusing on the potentialities of being human was always a feature of humanistic psychology. For the first decade of its existence, humanistic psychology went from strength to strength (Moss, 2001 ). It sought to understand the nature of humanity and the problems faced in the quest to live harmoniously and peacefully together and within nature. But by the 1980's, however, the influence of humanistic psychology had begun to dwindle (Taylor and Martin, 2001 ). Was humanistic psychology simply ahead of its time? Had it pushed forward its more radical ideas about qualitative ways of knowing too quickly? Did becoming associated with the counterculture lose it credibility?

It seems likely that humanistic psychology lost its power and influence, not only for these reasons, but because it was “…inherently incompatible with the basic assumptions and values of contemporary mainstream psychology and with the conservative ideologies that have increasingly gained power in American culture since the 1960s” (Elkins, 2009 , p. 267). By the late 1990's, humanistic psychology was largely seen as obsolete, irrelevant, and lacking in rigor by mainstream scholars (Krippner, 2001 ).

So it was that when positive psychology was introduced, it seemed that the ideas long championed by humanistic psychologists were now being put forward again, but it was done so in a way that was critical of humanistic psychology for what was perceived to be its anti-scientific stance, and paid scant acknowledgment to its achievements (Robbins, 2008 , 2015 ). In 2001, in response, the Journal of Humanistic Psychology had a special issue containing several articles dedicated to what had become a fraught relationship between humanistic and positive psychology. Greening ( 2001 ), the then editor, opened by remarking how positive psychology had appeared as if humanistic psychology, its decades of scholarship and research, and the fact that early pioneers of humanistic psychology had themselves been presidents of the American Psychological Association, had simply not existed. Taylor ( 2001 ), in his article in the special issue, refuted Seligman's arguments that humanistic psychology was anti-scientific and that it had not generated significant research. It was also argued that positive psychology would gain from recognizing the merits of experiential, process-oriented research methodologies common to the humanistic psychotherapies (Resnick et al., 2001 ).

Certainly, it is clear that some of the initial comments by positive psychologists in the early days were unjustified. That said, perhaps there was also some truth in positive psychology's initial negative portrayal of humanistic psychology as it had later become. Certainly, there were aspects of the 1960's counterculture that were questionable and did no favors to humanistic psychology's standing in the eyes of mainstream psychology by becoming so closely aligned (see Grogan, 2013 ). As such, and as I've argued before, it was possibly a politically astute move by the positive psychologists to distance themselves from the perceived embarrassments of humanistic psychology if it was to succeed where humanistic psychology had failed in garnering mainstream attention, funding, and prestige (see Joseph and Murphy, 2013a ). But as the positive psychology movement evolved, and gained footholds in the mainstream agenda, its leaders (e.g., Seligman et al., 2005 ) came to acknowledge, perhaps albeit reluctantly and without fully admitting their earlier critical comments were largely unfounded and misleading, that positive psychology built upon the earlier work of the pioneers of humanistic psychology (see DeRobertis and Bland, 2021 ). Whether intentional or not, positive psychology had helped to bring the ideas of humanistic psychology back into the mainstream.

In the early days of positive psychology, I believed that it offered the promise to bring these ideas of Rogers and other humanistic psychologists back into the mainstream agenda of scholars (see Linley and Joseph, 2004a ). Almost two decades later, I think positive psychology has indeed provided an important vehicle for renewed interest in humanistic psychology. Positive psychology has become a richer and deeper form of scholarship as a result. For example, one important shift that seems to reflect the accommodation of ideas from humanistic psychology is the movement toward more eudaimonic conceptualizations of well-being as opposed to the hedonic (Joseph, 2015a ). It is now not so easy to dismiss positive psychology as superficial (e.g., Ehrenreich, 2010 ).

One of the problems, however, in understanding what positive psychology can be, is the idea that all it offers is a corrective balance to mainstream psychology's focus on pathology. While that may be how many think of it, including perhaps how some of its pioneers originally thought of it, positive psychology has the potential to be so much more than that. As Wong ( 2011 ) wrote.

I propose that a stronger argument in support of the legitimacy of PP is that PP is much more than a corrective reaction to the perceived imbalance in the literature. Properly understood, the overarching mission of PP is to answer the fundamental questions of what makes life worth living and how to improve life for all People (p. 69).

To be more than a corrective reaction, it is essential to understand how the negative and the positive are related, and how one cannot understand the positive without the negative—what some have called positive psychology 2.0 (see Wong, 2011 ). There is a rich tapestry of humanistic psychology that positive psychologists are now beginning to unfold, one thread of which is the work of Carl Rogers and the person-centered approach. While Rogers is now widely recognized in positive psychology as one of the original pioneers of a more positive psychological approach, the depth and detail of his work is not in my view well-understood, and particularly how his approach offered a vision for what we now call positive psychology 2.0, or put another way, a meta-theory for positive psychology (Joseph and Linley, 2006a ). In the section below I will discuss the significance for practice of Rogers' ideas—specifically how the person-centered approach proposes that if we want to change people, we need to change their social environment.

Person-Centered Psychology

Rogers was originally a psychologist by training. In 1947 he served as the President of the American Psychological Association; the position later held by Seligman 50 years later when he founded the positive psychology movement. Throughout his life Rogers was a prolific researcher and writer, publishing numerous academic papers and books, many of which are still widely read today (see Kirschenbaum, 2007 ). Most known for his development of client-centered therapy (Rogers, 1951 ), Rogers went on to apply his theory more broadly, offering a theoretical framework encompassing personality development, psychological functioning, and helping relationships across different contexts (Rogers, 1959 ).

Meta-Theory of Human Nature and Development

For the present discussion, however, the way Rogers' theory is most obviously relevant to a discussion of positive psychology is his conceptualization of the fully functioning person (1963a). Rogers ( 1963a ) described the fully functioning person as (1) open to all their experiences, they are sensitive to the world around them, other people's reactions, and their own internal feelings, reactions, and meanings; (2) living existentially, able to be fully present in the moment; and (3) able to trust their feelings and reactions to guide them in their actions. Such a person has a non-defensive attitude, can listen to others empathically, unconditionally, communicate clearly and effectively, and respond to situations creatively. In describing the fully functioning person, Rogers provided an alternative to then dominant illness-related concepts. John Shlien, originally writing in 1956, noted:

In the past, mental health has been a ‘residual' concept – the absence of disease. We need to do more than describe improvement in terms of say ‘anxiety reduction'. We need to say what the person can do as health is achieved. As the emphasis on pathology lessons, there have been a few recent efforts toward positive conceptualizations of mental health. Notable among these are Carl Rogers' ‘fully Functioning Person' …(Shlien, 2003 , p. 17).

The idea that the task should be to promote more fully functioning behavior has always been at the core of person-centered psychology (see Levitt, 2008 ; Joseph, 2015b ). While Rogers' ideas about becoming more fully functioning may have been familiar to person-centered psychologists, they were less known to mainstream psychologists who continued to view mental health as a residual concept, until the advent of positive psychology. It should also be recognized that Rogers approached this work using the methods of traditional empirical psychological science. In this way, it is evident that person-centered psychology is a form of positive psychology.

However, and this now takes me to the main point of my article, positive psychology is not necessarily person-centered. This is because the defining feature of Rogers' person-centered theory of how fully functioning arises, is that it was grounded in a growth model (DeCarvalho, 1991 ; Joseph and Patterson, 2008 ; Joseph and Murphy, 2013b ). Rogers presented a view of human nature in which becoming fully functioning was a state toward which people were intrinsically motivated. For Rogers, the person-centered approach was based on an image of the person that is basically trustworthy, and that humans are intrinsically motivated toward:

…development, differentiation, cooperative relationships; whose life tends to move from dependence to independence; whose impulses tend naturally to harmonize into a complex and changing pattern of self-regulation; whose total character is such as to tend to preserve himself and his species, and perhaps to move toward its further evolution (Rogers, 1957 : p. 201).

Rogers ( 1959 ) referred to this as the actualizing tendency, a universal human motivation resulting in growth, development, and autonomy of the individual. The actualizing tendency, Rogers argued, was the one natural motivational force of human beings and which is always directed toward constructive growth (Rogers, 1963b ). This will happen automatically given the optimal social environment. But too often people don't have the optimal social environment, and the unfolding of the actualizing tendency is usurped and thwarted, leading people to self-actualize in ways that are less than fully functioning. Thus, while both positive psychology and person-centered psychology might often share the same goal, how they do this may be very different and hard to reconcile (see e.g., van Zyl et al., 2016 ). My aim is to reflect on positive psychology from the perspective of the person-centered approach, from the point of view that the term positive psychology simply describes a broad discipline with a range of topics of scholarly and practical interest whereas person-centered psychology is a specific approach to those topics; or put another way, positive psychology is about the content, whereas the person-centered approach is about a process.

There is a famous quote from Kurt Lewin: “There is nothing so practical as a good theory” (Lewin, 1951 , p. 169). I think that Rogers' ( 1959 ) approach provides a brilliant illustration of Lewin's quote. For Rogers, it followed that the logical implication of the growth model was that if people are less than fully functioning because of their social environment, then providing them with the optimal social environment would be necessary and sufficient for constructive personality change. Given the optimal social environment the person's intrinsic motivation toward fully functioning would do the rest 1 .

This ontological view of human nature is what underpins the non-directivity of the person-centered practitioner. Non-directivity is an ideological position that arises from the aforementioned fundamental assumptions of the practitioner that humans are intrinsically motivated toward personal development, differentiation, and cooperative relationships, when in optimal social environments. Non-directivity is a much-misunderstood concept. It does not mean no direction; rather it means the practitioner is not imposing their direction but trusting in and helping the client to find their own direction.

The idea that the world around us influences how we think, and feel is of course not new, and many positive psychologists have already emphasized that attention cannot only be placed on the individual. As Wong ( 2011 ) wrote.

“…you cannot live a healthy and fulfilling life in a sick world contaminated by crime, corruption, injustice, oppression, and poverty. Such evils can destroy individuals and societies like cancer cells. Positive psychology 2.0 emphasizes the need to develop good and decent people as well as a civil society by promoting meaning/virtue and overcoming and transforming negatives” (pp. 77).

Humanistic psychologists of all persuasions would no doubt wholeheartedly agree with this, but what is radically different about Rogers' person-centered approach is that it is all about the social environment—we develop “good and decent people” through the society we create. In short, when the optimal social environment is present, people will automatically move in directions toward fully functioning. This is the theoretical core of the person-centered approach that led to 70 years of research and scholarship concerning the operational definition of what constitutes the optimal social environment to produce constructive personality change (Cornelius-White and Motschnig-Pitrik, 2010 ; Murphy and Joseph, 2016 ). Rogers ( 1959 ) proposed that the optimal social environment was one that was experienced as unconditional, positively regarding, empathic and genuine. Taking these principles seriously in the way that Rogers' theory suggests, is an antidote to crime, corruption, injustice, oppression, and poverty. Imagine if that was the attitudinal climate experienced by children in their homes and schools, and by adults in their workplaces and in all other areas of their life.

Applications: Prevention, and Cure

Up to this point, I've deliberately avoided the topic of psychotherapy as I wanted to make it clear that Rogers' theory is about the social environment and its influence on a person's psychological development, and in this way show how applications of his theory may be upstream in education, parenting, public policy, and so on, concerned with prevention, and not just downstream in psychotherapy and clinical psychology, dealing with problems after they arise. Applications of Rogers' ( 1959 ) theory are as much about ensuring that the unfolding of the person's actualizing tendency is not usurped and thwarted in the first place, as it is about the self-righting process subsequently.

Also, because psychotherapy and clinical psychology, more generally, are often understood from the perspective of an illness ideology, as involving activities in which one person (the therapist) attempts to change another in some predetermined way (the client), discussion of Rogers' ( 1959 ) theory in the context of therapy can be misunderstood, as if the necessary and sufficient conditions are something that one person does to another to get them to change. In this way, I wanted to situate the discussion outside the therapeutic context to avoid this misunderstanding. As such, it might therefore surprise some readers to think of Rogers' conditions as describing a social environment as more often his theory is caricatured as something the therapist does to a patient.

Regardless of the nature of the application of Rogers' approach, however, it is not about doing something to people. The attitudinal conditions of unconditionality, positive regard, empathy and genuineness come together to create the fundamental non-directive attitude of the practitioner, which because of his or her trust in the agency of the client, means that they do not intervene, and have no intention of intervening. As Bozarth ( 1998 ) wrote of client-centered therapy:

“The therapist goes with the client, goes at the client's pace, goes with the client in his/her own ways of thinking, of experiencing, or processing. The therapist cannot be up to other things, have other intentions without violating the essence of person-centered therapy. To be up to other things – whatever they might be – is a ‘yes, but' reaction to the essence of the approach. It must mean that when the therapist has intentions of treatment plans, of treatment goals, of interventive strategies to get the client somewhere or for the client to do a certain thing, the therapist violates the essence of person-centered therapy (Bozarth, 1998 , pp. 11–12).

In creating an empathic, unconditional, and congruent social environment, the therapist is not trying to change the person, has no agenda for the person whatsoever, but they trust that given the optimal environment the person will change toward becoming more fully functioning. Unlike other psychologically based interventions, the person-centered practitioner is not doing anything to the person, they have no agenda for the person to change in any particular way, rather the practitioner's only agenda is for themselves to be able to create a social environment characterized by these conditions. This remains a revolutionary idea in psychology that remains underappreciated in my view, perhaps because while Rogers' theory of therapy is well-known, it is less well-understood that it is about changing the social environment, not the person. And this is what makes it a radically different form of practice to most other psychological interventions, which focus on changing the person. This can be difficult to understand if looking at the person-centered approach from outside its paradigmatic stance. But imagine if you truly believed that people would only move in directions toward becoming more fully functioning when they experience themselves in the optimal social environment.

Originally writing about therapy, Rogers ( 1959 ) soon developed his thinking more widely into how the same optimal social environment could be facilitative of growth in a range of contexts. Psychotherapy and clinical psychology are obvious applications of the person-centered approach, but in these contexts, it is about a self-righting process, helpful to people whose tendency toward actualization has already been usurped and thwarted. Of more importance, in my view, is that positive psychology expends its energy on upstream interventions, to facilitate people's psychological development in the first place, such that the eventual need for psychotherapy and clinical psychology is reduced. In this respect, education is the most powerful institution in the world for shaping the future of humanity because of its influence on how each generation comes to view what matters, and what to prioritize and to value.

Recent years have seen much interest in positive psychology applications to education and the development of the new subfield of “positive education” (Seligman et al., 2009 ). Positive education is a relatively new initiative, but its aims are similar to those of person-centered education, as developed by Carl Rogers in his subsequent writings about the applications of the person-centered approach. In 1969, Rogers published his influential book Freedom to Learn (Rogers, 1969 ), in which, building on his earlier writings, he set out his full philosophy of education: in essence, that human beings have a natural urge to learn, that this most readily happens when the subject matter is perceived as relevant to the student, that learning involves change and as such is threatening and resisted; that learning is best achieved by doing, and that the most lasting learning takes place in an atmosphere of freedom in which students were trusted to be autonomous learners. In essence, the goal of education should be to assist people to learn to be self-determining; to take self-initiated action and to be responsible for those actions; to be able to adapt flexibly and intelligently to new problem situations; internalize an adaptive mode of approach to problems, utilizing all pertinent experience freely and creatively; cooperate effectively with others in these various activities; and work, not for the approval of others, but in terms of their own socialized purposes. To adopt other goals in which the teacher has a pre-determined intention that the student should change in any particular direction was seen from Rogers' person-centered perspective as contradictory to the act of nurturing self-determination.

While Rogers' influence has been greatest in the field of psychotherapy, it is I would argue his contributions to education which are the most significant and important for the modern world. However, Rogers' writings on person-centered education have received little attention in the positive education literature. Positive education, whilst offering a new focus on human flourishing, does not challenge traditional education with its largely teacher-centered approach. Rogers' view on education was that it was this teacher-centered approach that was itself the problem that thwarted and usurped developmental processes and stifled creativity and curiosity. Both person-centered education and positive education have a shared focus on human flourishing. But what makes person-centered education different to positive education is its clear ontological stance that people are their own best experts, and the resultant hypothesis that with the right social environment, students will be self-determining and move in autonomous and socially constructive directions (see Joseph et al., 2020 ).

All the different applications of the person-centered approach—whether downstream in the domains of clinical psychology, coaching, counseling, conflict resolution, psychotherapy; or upstream in business, education, encounter groups, leadership, management, parenting, or policy, are all about changing the social environment, because they are grounded in a vision of humanity in which people are always striving toward becoming fully functioning, a tendency which will automatically be released when the social environment is optimal. This is what makes the person-centered approach distinctive, the fact that its interventions are always about changing the social environment and not about changing the person. And in changing the social environment, people will change in a way that is toward becoming more fully functioning. In turn, more fully functioning people, by definition, will create more facilitative social environments for others (Motschnig-Pitrik and Barrett-Lennard, 2010 ). This way of thinking is what I believe would make for a more person-centered positive psychology. But, as already indicated, a more person-centered positive psychology involves more than a simple change of focus from the individual to the social, it also challenges us to think from a different paradigmatic stance and to ask questions about the positionality of positive psychology, its politics, and its subtle use of power over others.

Toward a More Person-Centered Positive Psychology

In this final section I will offer some reflections on positive psychology from the perspective of person-centered psychology. In so doing, I hope to show how a consideration of the person-centered approach leads to questions about positionality, politics, and power in positive psychology.

The Unspoken Positionality of Positive Psychology

One criticism that I have heard leveled against Rogers' theory many times is that it is an ideological position. This argument implies however that there is a neutral position that one could take while waiting for that evidence. But as Burr ( 2015 , p. 172) wrote: “No human can step outside their humanity and view the world from no position at all, and this is just as true of scientists as of everyone else.” All interventions in psychology represent ideological positions and this is one of the lessons to be learned for positive psychology as it moves forward. All forms of psychological practice and policy are grounded in a vision of the human being (Joseph, 2017 ). But for positive psychology, if not the growth model, what model?

To illustrate what I mean, first, all constructs used in research are derived from theories that represent an ideological position, whether expressed implicitly or explicitly, and in turn, the choice of which constructs to investigate represents one's own ideological views. Second, how we interpret the implications for practice from research is ideological. For example, research shows that greater authenticity leads to greater well-being. The implication is that increasing levels of authenticity would be desirable. But what sort of intervention should be designed to promote authenticity? There is nothing inherent in the research finding itself that presupposes the nature of the intervention, whether it be through changing the social environment or by altering the person's thoughts, feelings or behaviors. If one holds to the growth model, then changing the social environment will make sense. But if it is thought that people need instruction from others, then introducing interventions targeted directly at somehow pushing the person toward authenticity will make sense.

In this way, the choice of intervention only looks like it arises out of the research findings if one thinks of oneself as taking a neutral position. Interventions are always ideologically driven and based on the researcher's or practitioner's assumptions about human nature. And those assumptions about human nature are baked into the design of research and the language used to discuss findings. Of course, subsequent research can show support or fail to show support for an intervention, and in that way, we can be guided subsequently by research. If changing the environment doesn't work, then maybe we need to push. But, if there is no neutral position, which ideological position should be our default setting? Furthermore, out positionality also determines what factors are deemed appropriate as targets for intervention. In sum, most positive psychology interventions involve directive interventions targeted at changing the person in ways decided upon by the practitioner as best for the client, which presupposes an ideological position that runs counter to a growth model.

The Hidden Politics of Positive Psychology

If we reflect on one reason for the demise of humanistic psychology being its clash with conservative ideologies (Elkins, 2009 ), I believe we also learn about the success of positive psychology. One of the features of the conservative ideology is its focus on individualism, and it is a focus on individualism that has led to the rise of a culture in which positive psychology research has been used to promote mindfulness in school children, to deal with the stressors of failing educational systems, resilience training in workers to help them cope with punitive workloads, and well-being applications to help people manage the stresses of economic insecurity (Joseph, 2020 ). The person-centered psychologist would see the challenges in such situations to be how to create more growth promoting climates in schools, and workplaces, and in everyday life, how to build more empathic, genuine, and unconditional relationships in which people can be autonomous and free from coercion and control, and thus able to express themselves in a more socially constructive way. This too could be the research agenda for positive psychology if it took seriously a model of growth as its paradigm.

The word paradigm is often overused to refer to new ideas and practices, but its real meaning is that of a world view underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject. Within the history of psychology, the growth model of person-centered psychology represented a genuine paradigm shift from the first and second forces in psychology, the behaviorist image of the human being as a blank slate on which anything could be written or the psychoanalytical view of the human being as driven by destructive impulses (see DeCarvalho, 1991 ). I believe that positive psychology was a welcome shift in the everyday business of mainstream psychology, but as Seligman ( 2004 ) made clear, it was not a paradigm shift. It continued to operate within the same world view as mainstream psychology. Thus, despite the language of positivity, it appears to me that positive psychology as a movement, largely continues to operate within models that implicitly condone the idea that less than fully functioning human behavior is not so much the result of the social environment, but of a deficit in the person themselves (an absence of a strength), and thus putting the responsibility on the person to manage or cope better in adverse circumstances.

Positive psychologists might not always be the people behind such interventions, but it is the technology and tools of positive psychology which are used when stressed and overworked employees are forced by their managers to attend well-being sessions, or school children are given mindfulness classes to cope with the mental health concerns. The gap that exists between research and practice might blind some to how their research is understood and used, and how ultimately its implementation may condone ideas about deficit and dysfunction within the person. In sum, if we reflect on the demise of humanistic psychology relative to the success of positive psychology, we might wonder if the latter's rise was at least in part because it fits well with the demands of conservative ideologies and the need for many organizations and institutions to control and coerce people to behave in particular ways, which presupposes an ideological position that runs counter to a growth model.

The Subtle Use of Power in Positive Psychology

One of the ways in which psychology has power over people is through its adoption of the medical model. Humanistic psychology has long challenged the traditionally accepted parameters in psychology, including the model of a practitioner taken from medicine (Bugental, 1963 ). Rogers' ( 1959 ) approach succeeded in doing this because of how he theorized the nature of psychological problems as having a unitary cause in incongruence and he offered a form of therapy which was about the social environment; in these ways he moved beyond a separation of the negative and the positive into distinct fields of study, and the need for practitioners to take an expert stance over the person's inner experiences. In this way, the person-centered approach offers a different understanding of the power relations between practitioners and clients. Positive psychology promises to offer an alternative to the medicalisation of human experience (Maddux and Lopez, 2015 ), but yet it does so only in the most superficial of ways by not using the language of medicine but continuing to condone the essential elements of the medical model (see Joseph and Linley, 2006b ).

The first way it does this is because the remit of positive psychology is often seen as a supplement to traditional psychology, which focuses on distress and dysfunction. In doing this it serves to condone the idea that there is a separation between the clinical and the more fully functioning aspects of human experience. The person-centered conceptualization is that while there is a universal human tendency toward actualization, this tendency becomes thwarted in non-optimal social environments, which create an incongruence between the tendency toward actualization and self-actualization. As such, it is usual for people to self-actualize in ways that are less than fully functioning. In this way, person-centered therapy effectively posits a unitary cause of distress, but varied expressions of that distress will arise according to the uniqueness of each individual's incongruence (see Sanders and Joseph, 2016 ).

A second way in which positive psychology continues to condone an illness ideology is through the notion that different interventions are needed for different states of positivity. It is a common assumption in clinical psychology that different interventions are needed for different clinical states, referred to as the specificity myth by person-centered psychologists (Bozarth and Motomasa, 2005 ). It is an assumption from clinical psychology that is applied to positive psychology that there are specific interventions for specific positive psychological states. But it is an assumption that runs counter to the person-centered proposal that there is a unitary cause of distress and growth, and thus a single form of intervention. Shlien ( 1989 ) wrote:

‘Client-centered therapy has only one treatment for all cases. That fact makes diagnosis entirely useless. If you have no specific treatment to relate to it, what possible purpose could there be to specific diagnosis? Nothing remains but the detrimental effects.' (p. 402).

The need for diagnosis, formulation, and all expressions of expertise over the person dissolve when it is the social environment that is the focus of intervention, not the person (Joseph, 2021 ). In this way, the positive psychologist may not be using diagnosis in the clinical sense, but if they are developing an intervention suitable for some people but not others, the same logic applies. As such, much of contemporary positive psychology remains underpinned by the medical model, but that fact is disguised by its language of strengths, virtues, and happiness. In sum, the assumption that different problems or people require different interventions leads the practitioner to take an expert stance, implying that they know what the client needs better than the client knows themselves, which presupposes an ideological position that runs counter to a growth model.

Conclusions

As described above, reflection on positive psychology from the perspective of the person-centered approach leads to questions about the positionality of positive psychology, its politics, and its subtle promotion of power. The adoption of a growth model leads to a different way of addressing these same issues.

A growth model offers: (1) an alternative nomological net of variables for research, to do with the quality of relationships, growth promoting climates, and fully functioning personality dimensions, with (2) different implications for practice, to do with non-directive rather than directive interventions, and (3) significance in terms of real-world relationships between people, institutions, and society, as the aim is to work toward a social environment free from corruption, injustice, oppression, and poverty, and all other ways in which the growth of people is usurped and thwarted.

For researchers, this offers new challenges to understand whether and in what ways people will be intrinsically motivated to move in positive psychological directions when in optimal social environments, and how to define the optimal social environment, across different contexts and cultures. It alerts researchers that research findings in themselves do not indicate an approach to an intervention, and that there is a need to understand the relative merits of directive and non-directive approaches. It also helps us think about how our research is used by others and what other agendas our findings might be used to serve.

Such a shift in thinking would also have implications for what it means to be a positive psychologist. For example, in psychotherapy and clinical psychology, the practitioner must learn new ways of relating to people. Or in education, the educationalist must learn to trust in their students that they have the intrinsic need to learn and to develop. Adopting a person-centered approach to practice offers challenges to positive psychologists in terms of their own psychological development. Because the person-centered approach focuses on the relational climate that the practitioner fosters through their ability to be genuine, empathic, and congruent, the importance of the practitioner's own psychological development and emotional maturity cannot be understated.

Positive psychology is a broad discipline of study and practice. It isn't defined in terms of its approach. Positive psychologists take a variety of approaches to their work, including a person-centered approach, although it may not always be recognized as such.

While my own vision is for a more person-centered positive psychology, and that is the branch of positive psychology that I identify with most strongly, it might be said by some that it is a strength of positive psychology that it has no single paradigmatic positionality on human nature, as that allows for great flexibility in exploration, crossing between ideas and assumptions about human nature traditionally associated with the psychoanalytical, behavioral, and humanistic. As a discipline I would agree that positive psychology need not take any single paradigmatic stance. But that is not the same as it being neutral, as each instance of research or practice does have a stance, whether it is made explicit or not. Unless each researcher and practitioner acknowledges their own positionality, and describes how their focus of interest, measures chosen, and so on, arises from their point of view, what otherwise appears like a coherent and building body of knowledge is actually founded on a tangle of different assumptions. What could be a strength is a weakness. It is a weakness when positionality in research and practice is implicit and unacknowledged, as if it were not true that all research and practice comes from a position, as it allows for the fact that all research and practice is ultimately ideological to go unnoticed.

Seen like this, positive psychology provides a smorgasbord of methods, lacking in any single underpinning ontological approach. In this respect, positive psychology is not person-centered, but person-centered psychology can be thought of as a specific approach to positive psychology. Recognizing it as such places a much-needed new stake firmly in the ground to draw attention to, and create a tension with, whatever the other implicitly accepted ontological stances of mainstream positive psychology are, and which often imply that people's intrinsic motivation cannot be relied upon.

In these ways, I believe that positive psychology can learn from the person-centered position, to realize the often dark and destructive images of humanity that actually lie at the core of much contemporary positive psychology, disguised by its language of positivity. Despite the similarity in stated goals there can be gulf between humanistic and positive psychology. To close the gap, perhaps it may be helpful for positive psychologists to revisit Bugental's ( 1964 ) five basic principles of humanistic psychology and make them their own. Moving forward with a new research agenda, positive psychologists must become more explicit about their own positionality, to be clear what theoretical assumptions underpin their choice to focus either on the person or the social environment. Respecting the humanistic image of the human being and, consequently, considering and influencing people's social environment to facilitate personal growth would promote cross-fertilization between positive psychology and the person-centered approach instead of widening their gap. It would be useful for positive psychologists to be open regarding their image of humanity, thus offering positive psychology as an umbrella for interventions from different theoretical foundations and making that explicit would seem a step forward for positive psychology and a door-opener to include the person-centered approach.

In summary, while the move toward studying the good life is surely to be welcomed, in taking up the baton from humanistic psychology, positive psychologists left behind what I believe is the most vital part of the humanistic approach—its view of human nature. Whereas, humanistic psychology and specifically the person-centered approach provided an alternative growth paradigm to the behavioral and psychoanalytical schools that had come before, positive psychology as a whole takes no single paradigmatic stance. This might be seen as a strength for a discipline, but it is misleading to think that this means that each instance of research or practice is not based in a paradigm. Positive psychology may use the language of positivity, yet implicitly condone ideas about deficit and dysfunction within the person, and talk about growth, yet promote practices that quietly curtail freedom and self-direction. In this way, positive psychology may yet learn from humanistic psychology that our ideas about how to treat people are always based in our visions of human nature.

Data Availability Statement

Author contributions.

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

1 It is beyond the scope of this paper to go into the detail, but it is worth noting that this view of human nature was also taken up and developed subsequently by Ryan and Deci ( 2000 ) in their self-determination theory, which, by and large, offers theory and evidence consistent with and supportive of Rogers' theory (see Sheldon and Kasser, 2001 ; Patterson and Joseph, 2007 ; Joseph and Murphy, 2013b ; Sheldon, 2013 ).

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Providing a study guide and revision resources for students and psychology teaching resources for teachers.

Humanist Approach (To Human Behaviour)

March 10, 2021 - paper 2 psychology in context | approaches to human behaviour.

Back to Paper 2 - Approaches to Human Behaviour

Main assumptions of the Humanist Approach :

The Humanist Approach emerged from the US in the 1950s (work of Maslow & Rogers)
Focus on conscious experience, rather than behaviour (like Behaviourist , Social Learning Theory and Cognitive )
Personal responsibility & free will
Experience rather than the use of the experimental method
Specific to the individual

Humanist Approach And Free Will:

The Humanistic Approach is quite different to the other approaches we’ve already studied, in that it claims that human beings are essentially self-determining and have free will . The approach still maintains that people are affected by internal (biological) and external (societal) influences but they are active agents who have the ability to determine their own development within the constraints imposed by the other forces. The humanistic approach rejects scientific models that attempt to establish general laws of behaviour and instead concerns itself with the study of subjective experience. Often referred to as a person-centred approach

Self-Actualisation And Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs:

Self-actualisation represents that uppermost level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow considered that whilst everyone has the desire to, not everyone achieves self-actualisation.

It’s considered that self-actualisation can be achieved in stages, he identified the 5 most basic needs an individual has and suggested that the lower 4 stages (deficiency needs) must be attained before someone can work towards self-actualisation (growth need).

Visual representation of Maslow's hierarchy/triad of needs.

Self-actualisation Definition The desire to grow psychologically and fulfil one’s potential, becoming what you’re capable of.

Focus On The Self And Congruence:

In order to self-actualisation and person growth to be achieved an individual’s concept of self ( how they see themselves ) must be almost equivalent (have congruence) to their ideal self ( the person they want to be ).

Diagram displaying congruence - self-actualisation possible.

If too big a gap exists between these two ‘selves’ the person will be in a state of incongruence and self-actualisation won’t be possible, this is because incongruence breads negative feelings of self-worth.

Conditions of worth (why incongruence happens) Rogers believed that that of the issues we experience as adults, like feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem, have their roots in childhood. He suggested that these issues can be explained by a lack of unconditional positive regard from our parents, basically, that the parents hadn’t provided unconditional love. Parents who set boundaries, limits and conditions on their love for their child stores up psychological issues for later life, e.g. of conditional love , “I will only love you if you behave well”

Influence On Counselling (How Incongruence Can Be Resolved)

In order to reduce the gap between the concept of self and the ideal self, Rogers developed client-centred therapy to help people cope with the problems of everyday living.

Those in therapy are clients, not patients, the individual is an expert on their own condition. A non-directive therapy where the client is encouraged towards the discovery of their own solutions within a warm, non-judgemental, therapeutic atmosphere. An effective therapist should be able to provide their clients with the unconditional positive regard that they failed to receive as a child. The aim is to increase a person’s feelings of self-worth and reduce incongruence.

Humanist Approach Evaluation (AO3):

(1) POINT: A strength of the Humanist Approach is that it is not deterministic. EXPLAIN/EXAMPLE: For example, according to this approach an individual has the ability to determine their own development. ELABORATION: This is a strength because, it means that this approach to human behaviour doesn’t reduce human behaviour down to simple pre-programmed behaviours, instead it considers the individuals ability to determine their own behaviour.

(2) POINT: A strength of the Humanist Approach is that it isn’t reductionist. EXPLAIN/EXAMPLE: For example, humanists reject any attempt to break up behaviour and experience into smaller components. ELABORATION: This is a strength because it means that the approach may have much more validity that its alternatives by considering meaningful human behaviour within its real-life context.

Weaknesses:

(1) POINT: A weaknesses of the Humanist Approach is that there is evidence to criticise the humanistic approach. EXPLAIN/EXAMPLE: For example , many qualities considered desirable by the approach (autonomy, personal growth) are more readily associated with an individualistic, rather than collectivist culture. ELABORATION: This is a weaknesses because the approach can be considered to be ethnocentric and culturally bias.

(2) POINT: A weaknesses of the Humanist Approach is that it can be criticised for having limited applications . EVIDENCE/EXAMPLE: For example, the approach is described as a loose set of components rather than a comprehensive theory. ELABORATION: This is a weakness because whilst it’s revolutionised counselling therapy the approach has had little impact on psychology generally.

(3) POINT: A weaknesses of the The humanistic approach is that it does not advocate the use of scientific methods . EVIDENCE/EXAMPLE: For example, humanistic concepts such as congruence and self actualisation cannot be scientifically tested with scans or carefully constructed experiments. ELABORATION: This is a weakness because it means that the theory cannot be measured objectively.

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What Is Humanistic Learning Theory in Education?

Professional Education
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Good teachers are always looking for ways to improve their methods to help students thrive in their classroom. Different learning theories and techniques help teachers connect with different students based on their learning style and abilities. Teaching strategies that are student-centered often have great success in helping students learn and grow better. Learner-centered approaches place the student as the authority in the educational setting, helping ensure that they are the focus of education and are in control of their learning to an extent.

The idea of student-centered learning is an example of the humanistic learning theory in action. It’s valuable for current and aspiring educators alike to learn about student-centered education and other humanistic approaches to use in their classroom. These approaches can be vital in helping students truly learn and succeed in their education. Learn more about the humanistic learning theory and discover how it can be implemented in the classroom.

The humanistic theory in education.

In history humanistic psychology is an outlook or system of thought that focuses on human beings rather than supernatural or divine insight. This system stresses that human beings are inherently good, and that basic needs are vital to human behaviors. Humanistic psychology also focuses on finding rational ways to solve these human problems. At its root, the psychology of humanism focuses on human virtue. It has been an important movement throughout history, from Greek and Latin roots to Renaissance and now modern revivals.

This theory and approach in education takes root in humanistic psychology, with the key concepts focusing on the idea that children are good at the core and that education should focus on rational ways to teach the “whole” child. This theory states that the student is the authority on how they learn, and that all of their needs should be met in order for them to learn well. For example, a student who is hungry won’t have as much attention to give to learning. So schools offer meals to students so that need is met, and they can focus on education. The humanistic theory approach engages social skills, feelings, intellect, artistic skills, practical skills, and more as part of their education. Self-esteem, goals, and full autonomy are key learning elements in the humanistic learning theory.

The humanistic learning theory was developed by Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and James F. T. Bugental in the early 1900’s. Humanism was a response to the common educational theories at the time, which were behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Abraham Maslow is considered the father of the movement, with Carl Rogers and James F.T. Bugental adding to the psychology later down the line.

Maslow and the humanists believed that behaviorism and other psychology theories had a negative perception of learners—for example operant conditioning in behaviorism psychology suggested that students only acted in a good or bad manner because of the reward or punishment and could be trained based on that desire for a reward. Maslow and humanistic psychology suggests that students are inherently good and will make good decisions when all their needs are met. Humanistic psychology focuses on the idea that learners bring out the best in themselves, and that humans are driven by their feelings more than rewards and punishments. Maslow believed this and wrote many articles to try and demonstrate it.

This belief that humans are driven by feelings causes educators who understand humanistic psychology to focus on the underlying human, emotional issues when they see bad behavior, not to just punish the bad behavior. The humanistic learning theory developed further and harnesses the idea that if students are upset, sad, or distressed, they’re less likely to be able to focus on learning. This encourages teachers to create a classroom environment that helps students feel comfortable and safe so they can focus on their learning. Emotions are at the center of humanism psychology.

The principles of humanistic learning theory.

There are several important principles involved in the humanistic learning theory that all lead to self-actualization. Self-actualization is when all your needs are met, you’ve become the best you’ve can, and you are fulfilled. While Maslow and the humanists don’t believe that most people reach self-actualization, their belief is that we are always in search of it, and the closer we are, the more we can learn.

Student choice. Choice is central to the humanistic learning theory and humanistic psychology. Humanistic learning is student-centered, so students are encouraged to take control over their education. They make choices that can range from daily activities to future goals. Students are encouraged to focus on a specific subject area of interest for a reasonable amount of time that they choose. Teachers who utilize humanistic learning believe that it’s crucial for students to find motivation and engagement in their learning, and that is more likely to happen when students are choosing to learn about something that they really want to know.

Fostering engagement to inspire students to become self-motivated to learn. The effectiveness of this psychology approach is based on learners feeling engaged and self-motivated so they want to learn. So humanistic learning relies on educators working to engage students, encouraging them to find things they are passionate about so they are excited about learning.

The importance of self-evaluation. For most humanistic teachers, grades don’t really matter. Self-evaluation is the most meaningful way to evaluate how learning is going. Grading students encourages students to work for the grade, instead of doing things based on their own satisfaction and excitement of learning. Routine testing and rote memorization don’t lead to meaningful learning in this theory, and thus aren’t encouraged by humanistic teachers. Humanistic educators help students perform self-evaluations so they can see how students feel about their progress.

Feelings and knowledge are both important to the learning process and should not be separated according to humanistic psychology. Humanistic teachers believe that knowledge and feelings go hand-in-hand in the learning process. Cognitive and affective learning are both important to humanistic learning. Lessons and activities should focus on the whole student and their intellect and feelings, not one or the other.

A safe learning environment. Because humanistic learning focuses on the entire student, humanistic educators understand that they need to create a safe environment so students can have as many as their needs met as possible. They need to feel safe physically, mentally, and emotionally in order to be able to focus on learning. So humanistic educators are passionate about the idea of helping students meet as many of their needs as possible.

The role of teacher and student in humanistic learning theory.

In the humanistic learning theory, teachers and students have specific roles for success. The overall role of a teacher is to be a facilitator and role model, not necessarily to be the one doing the teacher. The role of the teacher includes:

Teach learning skills. Good teachers in humanistic learning theory focus on helping students develop learning skills. Students are responsible for learning choices, so helping them understand the best ways to learn is key to their success.

Provide motivation for classroom tasks. Humanistic learning focuses on engagement, so teachers need to provide motivation and exciting activities to help students feel engaged about learning.

Provide choices to students in task/subject selection. Choice is central to humanistic learning, so teachers have a role in helping work with students to make choices about what to learn. They may offer options, help students evaluate what they’re excited about, and more.

Create opportunities for group work with peers. As a facilitator in the classroom, teachers create group opportunities to help students explore, observe, and self evaluate. They can do this better as they interact with other students who are learning at the same time that they are.

Humanistic approach examples in education.

Some examples of humanistic education in action include:

Teachers can help students set learning goals at the beginning of the year, and then help design pathways for students to reach their goals. Students are in charge of their learning, and teachers can help steer them in the right direction.

Teachers can create exciting and engaging learning opportunities. For example, teachers trying to help students understand government can allow students to create their own government in the classroom. Students will be excited about learning, as well as be in-charge of how everything runs.

Teachers can create a safe learning environment for students by having snacks, encouraging students to use the bathroom and get water, and creating good relationships with students so they will trust speaking to their teacher if there is an issue.

Teachers can utilize journaling to help students focus on self-evaluation and their feelings as part of learning. Using prompt questions can help students better understand their feelings and progress in learning.

Best practices from humanistic theory to bring to your classroom.

A teaching degree is a crucial step for those who want to be teachers. A degree can help them learn about current practices and trends in teaching, learning theories, and how to apply them to the classroom. Established teachers can also greatly benefit from continuing education and continuously expanding their techniques.

When considering their own teaching practices, teachers can work to incorporate humanistic theory into their classroom by:

Making time to collaborate with other educators

Co-planning lessons with other teachers

Evaluating student needs and wants regularly

Connecting with parents to help meet specific student needs

Preparing to try new things with students regularly

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Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Humanism — The Humanistic Approach To Personality

The Humanistic Approach to Personality

Categories: Humanism

About this sample

Words: 738 |

Published: May 31, 2021

Words: 738 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Works Cited:

Dietz, R. S., & Holden, J. C. (1970). Plate tectonics and sedimentation. Elsevier.
Oreskes, N. (2001). Plate tectonics: an insider's history of the modern theory of the Earth. Westview Press.
Palmer, D. (1983). The origin of continents and oceans. John Wiley & Sons.
Press, F., & Siever, R. (1974). Earth. W.H. Freeman.
Tarbuck, E. J., & Lutgens, F. K. (2011). Earth science. Prentice Hall.
Turcotte, D. L., & Schubert, G. (2014). Geodynamics. Cambridge University Press.
van der Pluijm, B. A., & Marshak, S. (2004). Earth structure: an introduction to structural geology and tectonics. WW Norton & Company.
Wegener, A. (1966). The origin of continents and oceans (J. Biram, Trans.). Methuen & Co.
Wicander, R., & Monroe, J. S. (2016). Historical geology. Cengage Learning.
Wilson, J. T. (1963). A possible origin of the Hawaiian Islands. Canadian Journal of Physics, 41(6), 863-870.

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English Studies

This website is dedicated to English Literature, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, English Language and its teaching and learning.

Humanism: A Literary Theory

Humanism Literary Theory, rooted in the Renaissance, emphasizes the value of human experience, reason, and individualism in the interpretation and creation of literature.

Humanism: Introduction

Table of Contents

It prioritizes the exploration of human nature, emotions, and intellect within literary works, placing human concerns at the forefront. Humanism advocates for a deep engagement with classical texts and languages, aiming to draw inspiration from the wisdom of the past.

This approach encourages a profound understanding of human thought and culture, fostering a human-centered perspective in the study and appreciation of literature.

Humanism: Types

Humanism: principals.

Human Dignity : Humanism places a high value on the inherent dignity of every individual, recognizing their worth and treating each person with respect and compassion.
Reason and Rationality : It promotes the use of reason, critical thinking, and evidence-based decision-making as essential tools for understanding the world and solving problems.
Ethical Responsibility : Humanism emphasizes the importance of ethical behavior and taking responsibility for one’s actions, both in personal life and as a member of society.
Human Potential : It believes in the boundless potential of human beings to learn, create, and achieve, encouraging the pursuit of knowledge, self-improvement, and personal growth.
Individual Autonomy : Humanism values individual autonomy and personal freedom, supporting the right of individuals to make choices based on their own judgment and values.
Secularism : Humanism is often associated with secularism, advocating for a separation of religious institutions and state governance to ensure religious freedom and equal treatment for all.
Empathy and Compassion : It encourages empathy and compassion as guiding principles in human interactions, promoting understanding and support for one another.
Social Justice : Humanism is committed to the pursuit of social justice, advocating for equality and fairness in society, and working towards the betterment of all individuals.
Environmental Stewardship : It emphasizes a sense of responsibility towards the well-being of the planet and encourages ethical behavior and environmental stewardship.
Human Rights : Humanism aligns with the protection of human rights, advocating for the rights and freedoms of all individuals, regardless of their background or beliefs.

Humanism: Steps for Critiquing a Literary Work

Humanism: example of a critique, humanism: suggested readings.

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Translated by Mark Musa, Penguin Classics, 2003.
Erasmus, Desiderius. Praise of Folly. Translated by Betty Radice, Penguin Classics, 1993.
Grayling, A.C. The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Translated by Peter Bondanella, Oxford University Press, 2005.
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni. Oration on the Dignity of Man. Translated by Kristeller, Paul Oskar, and Yates, Frances A. Harper & Row, 1953.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. Simon & Schuster, 1945.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edited by Harold Jenkins, Arden Shakespeare, 1982.
Spretnak, Charlene. The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics. Continuum, 1986.

Penn Nursing Dean Emerita to Receive 2024 National Humanism in Medicine Medal

Afaf Ibrahim Meleis, PhD, FAAN, LL , Professor of Nursing and Sociology and Penn Nursing Dean Emerita, will be one of three awardees of the 2024 National Humanism in Medicine Medal from The Arnold P. Gold Foundation , the leading nonprofit dedicated to humanism in health care for all.

“I am deeply touched that my contributions and humble impact are celebrated by the Gold Foundation,” said Meleis. “I accept the honor on behalf of my mentees and collaborators who continue to inspire me with their dedication to humanistic care and scholarship.”

“This is a well-deserved honor,” said Penn Nursing Dean Antonia M. Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN .

“Afaf Meleis’ leadership and commitment to women embodies humanism in health care—compassionate, collaborative, and scientific excellence. She has had a global impact in advocating for humanistic care. The echoes of her dedication to a more equitable society are foundational of our School, and we join the Gold Foundation in applauding her many contributions.”

Penn’s Interim President J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD , who worked closely with Meleis while dean of the Perelman School of Medicine , said his colleague and friend is “richly deserving of this recognition.” Jameson continued: “Through her scholarship, Afaf Meleis has championed the essential role of nurses in providing humanistic care on a global scale, and through her teaching and mentorship, she has trained compassionate leaders who have made health care delivery more patient-centered and equitable.”

Meleis is an internationally renowned nurse scientist and medical sociologist who has made an extraordinary impact on nursing, global health, and women’s health through her groundbreaking research and mentorship.

Much of her life’s work has been dedicated to uncovering the experiences and the voices of vulnerable women who are burdened by societal inequities, multiplicity of roles, differential compensation and rewards, and the gender divide. Her leadership in the International Council on Women’s Health Issues played a central role in inspiring scholarship on women’s health and in bringing together world leaders to form partnerships to improve the lives of women.

Born in Egypt, she was named “one of the great immigrants in the United States of America,” by the Carnegie Corporation, and designated as a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the recipient of many honorary doctorates and professorships from American and global universities. She has been invited as a consultant in more than 40 countries.

Meleis is the author of more than 200 articles, 7 books, and numerous monographs, proceedings, and policy papers. She has had an enormous international impact from her Transition Theory, visionary research on women’s health, to her mentorship of hundreds of students, faculty, clinicians, and administrators, within the United States and around the globe.

Meleis was the Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing, and director of the school’s WHO collaborating center from 2002 through 2014. This followed her 34 years tenure as a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and where she is a professor emeritus. Currently, she serves as a trustee of Aga Khan University in Pakistan and East Africa, and of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, in California. She also serves on the National Advisory Committee for the Josiah Macy Foundation Faculty Scholars Program in New York City.