The Handy Psychology Answer Book. Lisa J. Cohen
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Название: The Handy Psychology Answer Book
Автор: Lisa J. Cohen
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Общая психология
Серия: The Handy Answer Book Series
isbn: 9781578595990
isbn:
In general, humanistic psychologists wanted to inject humanity back into the study of human beings. More specifically, they objected to a mechanical view of psychology, to the portrayal of human beings as passive objects at the mercy of either stimulus-response chains or unconscious drives. They insisted that people are active participants in their own lives. Humanists emphasized free will and the importance of choice. They also valued the richness of subjective experience and concerned themselves with the qualities of lived experience, of human consciousness.
Finally, they challenged the emphasis on pathology in psychoanalysis. In contrast to Freud, they believed that people are inherently motivated toward psychological growth and will naturally move toward health with proper encouragement and support.
What philosophical and psychological schools influenced humanistic psychology?
In Europe, the ravages of World War II and the Holocaust brought the question of meaning to the fore. How can life have meaning and purpose in the face of such senseless slaughter? The philosophical movement of Existentialism came out of these circumstances and provided a backdrop for the humanistic psychologists. Phenomenology, an earlier branch of European philosophy, also influenced the humanistic psychologists with its focus on the rich complexity of subjective experience. With regard to psychological schools, the functionalism of William James also played a role, as did the holistic theories of the Gestalt psychologists.
This triangle illustrates Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
What is meant by third force psychology?
In 1950s America, where humanistic psychology originated, the field of psychology was dominated by the twin giants of behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Behaviorism dominated academic psychology and psychoanalysis dominated clinical psychology. Humanistic psychologists wanted to create an alternative to these two great forces: a third force in psychology.
Who was Abraham Maslow?
The American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) was one of the founding fathers of humanistic psychology. Maslow wrote a number of books and also made several important theoretical contributions. He is perhaps best known for his concept of the hierarchy of needs. Maslow believed that human psychological needs are multidimensional and that there is no single motivating force to explain all of human behavior. He believed these needs could be organized hierarchically with the most fundamental needs related to biological survival. Once our fundamental biological needs—such as thirst, hunger, and warmth—are met, our needs for safety come into play. Following satisfaction of safety needs, psychological needs for emotional bonds with other people become important. Once those are met, we become concerned with self-esteem and the need to feel recognized and valued in a community. Finally, after all these more basic needs are met, we encounter the need for self-actualization, a kind of creative fulfillment of our human potential.
What did Maslow mean by self-actualization?
Although Maslow was not the first to use the term self-actualization, his name is most frequently associated with it. Self-actualization refers to a state of full self-expression, where one’s creative, emotional, and intellectual potential is fully realized. We recognize what we need to feel fully alive and we commit ourselves to its pursuit. Although Maslow was criticized for promoting what was seen as a selfish pursuit of pleasure, he stressed that it is only through development of our truest selves that we attain full compassion for others. In his view, self-actualized people make the strongest leaders and the greatest contributions to society. This concept illustrates humanistic psychology’s concern with personal growth and psychological health in contrast to psychoanalysis’s emphasis on psychopathology and mental illness.
What did Maslow mean by peak experiences?
A peak experience occurs in a state of total awareness and concentration, in which the world is understood as a unified, integrated whole where all is connected and no one part is more important than another. This is an awe-filled and ecstatic experience, which is frequently described in religious or mystical terms. It is not simply a rose-colored distortion of life, however, where all evil and tragedy is denied. Rather it is a moment of full comprehension, where good and evil are fully accepted as a part of a complete whole. Like William James and Carl Jung before him, Maslow believed the mystical and ecstatic aspects of religion were proper subjects of psychological study.
What is the difference between D-love and B-love?
Maslow also distinguished between two different kinds of love. D-love, or deficiency-love, refers to a kind of grasping, possessive love. In this state, we cling to the loved one out of desperate dependency and see the loved one as a means to fill come kind of deficiency in ourselves. B-love, or being-love, reflects a love based on full acceptance of the other person. In B-love, we love other people simply for who they are and not for what they can do for us. Naturally, B-love is seen as the healthier and more sustainable kind of love. Maslow was very focused on the importance of rising above selfish desires in order to embrace other people for their own sake rather than as means to a goal. Interestingly, Maslow described his own mother as an extremely disturbed woman who was incapable of valuing anyone for any reason outside her own personal agenda.
What impact did humanistic psychology have on the practice of psychotherapy?
A number of schools of psychotherapy came out of the humanistic movement and many more were influenced by it. Carl Rogers’s person-centered psychotherapy, Fritz Perls’s Gestalt therapy (named after Gestalt psychology but more closely tied to humanistic psychology), Victor Frankl’s logotherapy, and Rollo May’s existential psychoanalysis are all children of humanistic psychology.
Carl Rogers developed the school of client-centered therapy, which places great value on patients’ subjective experience.
Who was Carl Rogers?
Carl Rogers (1902–1987), another key figure in humanistic psychology, has had enormous influence on the practice of psychotherapy. His school of person-centered psychotherapy, originally known as client-centered psychotherapy (and often simply referred to as Rogerian therapy), placed the client’s subjective experience at the forefront of the therapy. He believed the therapist’s role was less to untangle psychopathology than to promote the client’s personal growth through empathic listening and unconditional positive regard. While Rogers has been criticized for a relative disregard of negative emotions and interpersonal conflict, therapeutic empathy is now universally recognized as an essential ingredient of psychotherapy.
What did Rogers mean by unconditional positive regard?
Rogers made a distinction between loving a child for his or her intrinsic worth and loving the child dependent upon some condition: “I will love you if you are a good student, beautiful, obedient,” etc. Children who feel loved unconditionally СКАЧАТЬ