Humanistic Psychology

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that humanistic psychology created a third method of understanding humans as living beings who are basically good and attempts to identify the importance of their subjective process rather than create arbitrary theoretical systems to describe human behavior. The author points out that humanistic psychology grew out of a large body of work being done by many psychologists; whereas, psychoanalysis, the foundation of modern psychology, was created by Freud and then extended by Jung, while behaviorism was developed by scientists like B.F. Skinner. The paper states that the aim of humanistic psychology is what is known as ?self-actualization?, or the reaching for the knowledge of the deepest and most hidden parts of ourselves that we desire to bring out and turn into a reality.

From the Paper:

"Thus, the major break between humanistic psychology and the previous schools is its tendency to place an essential importance on the subjective character of psychology. Humanistic psychology sees this subjective experience as the most important factor in understanding the entire human being. Moreover, instead of attempting to atomize experience and understand it in the sense of particular behaviors or disorders, humanistic psychology favors a holistic approach that values the whole of the human being, seeing the mind in the body as related parts of a continuum that affect and are affected by each other in a continuous feedback loop."

More papers on Humanistic Psychology:

• Analytical Essay # 125684 : "Ethnocentric Limitations of Humanistic Psychology"
• Term Paper # 138746 : "Humanistic Psychology"
• Research Paper # 68912 : "Current Manifestations of Humanistic Psychology"

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