Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic Psychology: An Overview and Application to Psychopathology Scott Rower Alliant International University

2 Overview In 1962 the famed Abraham Maslow founded a reactionary third leg of psychology. In his opinion the existence of behaviorism and psychoanalysis alone were leading to a deindividualization and dehumanization in the practice of psychology. This third force was that of humanistic psychology (Buhler & Allen, 1972). At its inception humanistic psychology was intended to create the study of and correction to full and healthy human living. This approach was self-touted to approach people in a more holistic essence rather than looking into just one’s specific hang-ups or fixations. Later the approach focused on not only alleviating presenting symptoms but aiding the progression of a patient toward the goal of becoming a fully functioning person. The tenet of viewing a person as a whole starts with taking into consideration the patient’s entire life instead of just what ails them as they seek treatment. Though it was proper procedure at the time for psychiatrists to take the patient’s history, the practice was a contradiction because the patient’s treatment was rarely related to the patient’s life as a whole (Buhler & Allen, 1972). Humanistic psychology has within it existential philosophy considerations to relate a person and his own experiences. It is thought within this framework that one can not observe and acknowledge his or her own problems until he or she is ready to do something about it. Every intention of the patient therefore translates to an attention; the attention translates to “I can” (Buhler & Allen, 1972). There are five main postulates that summarize the theory (Bugental, 1964). The first is that human beings cannot be reduced into components. The next, human beings exist in a uniquely human context. Human consciousness includes an awareness of oneself in context of other people. Human

3 beings have choices and responsibilities. Lastly, human beings are intentional, seeking meaning, creativity and value. The humanistic approach tends to look past a pathologized view of a person and focuses more on the healthy aspects of a person. The aim is to create a stronger and healthier sense of self. This goal of self actualization is brought about through understanding and the working through by the client and therapist of the client’s personal life experiences (Bugental, 1964). This type of approach can come in many forms, Maslow is famous for explaining the matter through his hierarchy of needs and motivations, Rollo May views therapy as a process of acknowledging human choice and the tragic aspects of human existence and Carl Rogers developed his person-centered therapy within the humanistic model. The therapist assumes the role of the facilitator towards effective self searching by the client. With this there are basic conditions that need to be supported for effective therapy for take place. There must be a fundamental sense of concern by the client to be mindful of what genuinely matters in concern to resolving any issues and evolving into a better functioning person. Concern can morph through work into the lesser form of effective intention, but it still should never fade completely. Another guideline is that when the journey of therapy unfolds, multiple paths to be taken can surface and the therapist must trust in the client’s choice of what to work on. The client’s own sense is the best teller of validity and the active participation and responsibility of the client is important as well. Next, the therapist should make clear that the therapeutic undertaking is only of the client’s own, that only the client can carry it out and is solely responsible for any change. Lastly there must be recognition by the client that the process can never

4 be completed perfectly, that they may lose sight of the correct path many times and it only through this process that the client will have the means for taking charge of his or her own life (Bugental, 1978). Carl Rogers’ approach to the subject involves a client’s drive to realize their own potential. When a client comes to a therapist there is an incongruence that must be worked out to be made congruent with their true self. This incongruence is most often formed from pressures to conform to others’ wants and expectations and thus the client embodies what is not authentic. The many people who live in this incongruent state lose out on the potential that comes from a having relationships with others that fully reflect who they are on the inside. Moreover, these individuals expend energy to keep up their false self concept and they are under constant threat of exposure which leads to the employment of defensive mechanisms (Buhler & Allen, 1972). Abraham Maslow worked within the same framework of humanistic psychology but he had a different approach to the subject than Carl Rogers. Maslow’s basic theory started with his hierarchy of needs. He suggests that humans have a number of needs that are innate and can be classified as conative, cognitive, neurotic and aesthetic needs. These needs are arranged in order of their relative potency and for visual convenience into a pyramid. The base of the pyramid starts with physiological needs such as food, water, air and sleep. Once this first level is met an individual can go on to work on meeting the needs of the next layer up. The second layer is the need for security and safety, the third is the need for love and belonging, the forth is the need of esteem and finally the apex of the pyramid is reaching what Maslow calls self actualization. One of the main points of his argument is that one can not go on to even think about dealing with

5 issues of friends and group identification in the third level if they are stuck on the second level by a threat to their own safety (Buhler & Allen, 1972). Also Maslow wrote extensively on the peak and goal of the pyramid, self actualization, which is the fulfillment of what a person is capable of becoming and which is often beyond what one would expect from oneself.

Application to Psychopathology When a client comes to a therapist there is a sense of possibility that their issues may be identified, explored and resolved through working with the therapist. There will be, with all hopes, an awakened potential that is otherwise blocked off at the moment. There is hope that life can be different than it has been and this is a chief motivation enthusiastically supported by the humanistic approach. Often a client has becomes blind to all the factors of their situation by unconsciously suppressing their awareness, they may unload the responsibility of their situation onto others or they may fall back into patterns that were more appropriate at a younger age (Bugental, 1978). All these behaviors were described by Sigmund Freud as defensive mechanisms but the humanistic therapist also takes particular note of these types of behaviors. A client that presents with some of these behaviors to a therapist following Rogers’ approach would mentally note that this is most likely the product of an incongruency of the inner self to the outwardly presenting self. A case example could be a boy that is referred to a therapist because he is seen as not adapting to a new school and a new region after recently moving from a different part of the country. His religion could be a contributing force to his difficulty fitting in as the local children are not

6 appearing to be accepting of it. As reported by the boy’s mother, he is withdrawn from his usual congenial self. The boy is resistant to therapy and denies he is having trouble. The goal here would be to disband the incongruency of his denial and have it become more in-tune with the reality that he is having a hard time adjusting. If labeled by the DSM criteria, the boy would qualify for adjustment disorder with anxiety and or depressive features. The boy shows the classic defensive mechanism of denial which helps to aid him in dealing with his everyday life at school by masking the threat to his conscious but the threat is by no means dealt with. The longer this threat is not dealt with the more rigid and difficult that boy will become with dealing with his role as an outcast. Eventually if the threat is taken to an extreme enough degree, the defense could altogether cease to function leaving the boy with irrational, disorganized and bizarre behavior as he becomes aware of his perceptual incongruency of the situation (Bugental, 1978). In treatment, to go about opening the boy up to his current experience and lessen his defensiveness, the therapist would need to have him identify that it is normal for someone in a religious minority, or anyone who is new to a town for that matter, to feel like an outcast at first. He must then ease into allowing the boy to take full control of his ability to deal with the issue (Buhler & Allen, 1972). There are several models within the humanistic approach that the therapist would build his rapport with the client around. If the therapist chose for this case to use the congruent mirror approach he would try his best to experience within himself the emotions as he fully listens to the client’s state of mind. Also, the therapist tries to mirror back as accurately as possible to the client what the therapist is hearing the client say with strict attention to not include any interpretation,

7 teaching or guidance. This approach is goaled to try and foster a congruent relationship between the client and therapist which in turn reflects back, with the help of the mirroring, to the client to hopefully foster growth potential for self-renewal. With all hope, by the conclusion of therapy the boy would be more mentally harmonious and would realize an enlarged sense of self potential (Bugental, 1978). The fundamental goals of the humanistic theory can be boiled down into realizing inherent potential and resolving any existential fears; this happens to dovetail most effectively with treating clients whom are battling anxiety as well as depressive disorders. In another example, a woman client comes to therapy complaining of early morning awakening, uncontrollable crying, fatigue and a lack of motivation. According to the DSM, the client would fit a preliminary diagnosis of major depressive disorder. The nurturing sense of humanistic therapy often gives a client back their own sense of self approval needed for themselves to overcome their own issues, which is what the process will entail for this second theoretical client. The therapist is there for the client to be open, to be accepting of all the aspects of the client’s personality that unfold over the course of long term therapy and to not show any sense of disapproval that the client expects and so new doors of inner opportunity often open. When this process works as anticipated through work on both the part of the therapist as well as the client over the course of many sessions, the client is much more apt to develop trust in their own reality. The reaffirming words, behaviors and reflected feelings of the therapist nurture a relearning of inner trust to express what is deeply most true for the client. This expression of what often can be completely forgotten to have existed literally leads to a reawakening of possibility and sense of control over one’s own life (Bugental, 1978).

8 Clients are free to be more of themselves than they ever thought possible and to discern what comes from themselves compared to what comes from a “should” of external experience. Assuming ideal humanistic treatment in this manner, this client will be a different, more genuinely experiencing person at the conclusion of treatment compared to the repressed and depressed woman who first came into the therapist’s office. In a third example, is a man who is brought to therapy by his wife for compulsively hoarding possessions and for his lack of emotional reciprocation. The man is far past frugal and a collector to the fact that he is excessively storing away food, books, magazines and money. A classification of the man by other standards would be that he has attachment issues with possible depression. For the humanistic therapist though this type of case would be a standard case for examination into the man’s fulfillment of Maslow’s needs pyramid. Within the clinical interview it is revealed that the man was unfortunately raised by very poor parents in an unstable environment and that most of his own parenting was done by himself. Therefore, Maslow’s model explains that the client’s need for safety was never fully fulfilled in childhood and it is there that he became fixated. Never having a definite feeling of security led the man to have an insatiable need for structure, order and predictability which lead to his current symptoms. Specifically the man’s cognitive needs as a child were never met and they have thus manifested themselves in adulthood as neurotic needs (Buhler & Allen, 1972). One of the many effects of this type of upbringing is that the man never received any emotional parenting. In a normal childhood a child is reinforced their safety by the interpersonal relationships they develop within the family which aids the child through normal progression through the second layer of the pyramid (Buhler & Allen, 1972). In

9 his attempt to compensate for this need the client collects whatever he relates to him as giving him security and control. The client must be made aware that his seeking of safety by lesser means through the possessions he is hoarding will never satiate this need. The client never fully processed his awareness of and comfort with love and belonging by relating to others. This would be a main goal of therapy as well as instilling a feeling of self security by inner awareness and congruency over his attachments to external objects. Humanistic theory goes above and beyond the call to relinquish the public from mental distress as other theories do and looks into how to develop beyond the state of normalcy. The search for personal meaning of the self and also of existence, that is promoted by this approach, leads people both with and without mental suffering down a path toward a more richly experienced life. Thus the humanistic psychologist takes the advice of the Delphic Oracle- “know thyself” and expands the urge to “be thyself” (Buhler, 1962).

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References Bugental, J. F. T. (1964). The third force in psychology. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 4, 19-25. Bugental, J. F. T. (1978). Psychotherapy and process: The fundamentals of an existential-humanistic approach. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Buhler C. (1962). Values in psychotherapy. New York: Free Press. Buhler C. & Allen, M. (1972). Introduction to humanistic psychology. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.