Introduction: The area of Humanistic psychology
has been critical in the rational history of Western
psychology. This form of psychology has led to
many crucial issues which were unexplored till
recently. Owing to the advancements in this form
of psychology, psychology has extended to the
study of human lived experiences and the study
of practices for promoting human growth and potential.
Apart from this, this form of psychology has also
been able to recognize the importance of various
advancements in Western philosophies which the
other forms of psychology haven’t been able
to venture into due to various reasons. [Hiles,
2002]
Through Humanistic psychology, challenges to
scientism have been done by psychologists and
the significance of a human science approach to
psychology has been able to take place. Though
not a very favorite subject among psychologists,
it is fast gaining popularity. However, psychologists
are not completely focusing on its content, the
philosophical issues and the methodological approach
as much as is required. It has not received the
desired recognition or progress which is expected
from the field. [Aanstoos, 1994; Moss, 1999a]
Analysis: This new field of psychology needs
to prove itself through its ability to define
itself along with creating its core concerns as
well as values. Humanistic-Existential psychology
encompasses two critical components which includes
the requirement to define and redefine the underlying
parameters that merges the area as well as the
need to choose and process the appropriate research
methodologies. Extensive discussion is underway
on the importance of this form of psychology as
well as its methodologies. There have been arguments
on what makes research humanistic is not mainly
through its research methods rather it is through
the outlook it follows towards the behavior and
experiences of humans. [Polkinghorne, 1982]
Considering these above mentioned points, it
now becomes critical to understand what exactly
humanistic-existential psychology is. Over the
years, the field of psychology especially human
psychology has been reinventing itself owing to
various new ideas and developments taking place
in the field. In all probabilities, this is basically
due to the advancements in the field as well as
increase in human knowledge. Each field had its
own share of ideas and developments taking place,
which sometime gets forgotten only to be revived
later for various purposes. However, by now, there
might be a collection of different types of versions
of the same idea or development. [Wertz, 1994]
According to various psychologists, this field
of Humanistic-Existential psychology has still
relevance; however, it is in decline which is
clear from the estimates put forth on the current
state of the field as indicated in the Macmillan
Dictionary of Psychology [Sutherland, 1989]. It
is indicative from various researches that in
the field of humanistic psychology, the principles
followed by the psychologists should concentrate
on conscious processes which are predominantly
those which are based on emotions, and should
give confidence to others to be independent and
to attain personal growth. A lot of humanistic
psychologists are under the wrong notion that
all men are naturally good and only require the
correct environment to develop their potential.
This delusion was due to the cult of irrationalism
which came into being in the 1960s in the USA.
It is disappointing to know that this form of
psychology demonstrated a lot of confusion in
the minds of the analysts. The message conveyed
through this was that it was a humanistic movement
which was prominent for its third force in psychology
and resulted in the formation of the fourth force
which was the Transpersonal psychology which became
quite famous in the 60s and 70s but has lost its
charm and popularity off late.
Humanistic psychology movement started in early
50s with the psychologist being quite disappointed
with the kind of psychological climate prevalent
during that period. Abraham Maslow, a prominent
psychologist of that period published his book,
Motivation and Personality in 1954 which led to
the advent of the humanistic Psychology. [Maslow,
1954] Owing to the success of this publication,
he was able to seek the attention of psychologists
who were disheartened with the theories and methods
of the dominant behavioral approach which according
to them was a negative view of humanity. Owing
to this there was formation of an association,
American Association of Humanistic Psychology
(AAHP) in 1963. [Rowan, 1988]
Humanistic-Existential psychology was a result
of the opposition to behavioral and psychodynamic
psychology. Apart from this, the opposition also
led to the formation of a new approach to psychology
which examined the issues prevalent then and offered
new theories for these issues. Humanistic-Existential
psychology worked as a movement and believed that
humanistic themes prevailed throughout the history
of psychology. The various issues raised by this
psychology influenced and led to the birth and
eventually the growth of the humanistic movement
in psychology. Though faded over the years, it
is still relevant and important and none of the
issues have till date been resolved.
One of the most critical issues related to the
Humanistic-Existential psychology is that the
problems with the current situation of the subject
is due to its success which was followed by fragmentation
which has led to its weakening. There have been
much new advancement in this field both directly
as well as indirectly which has been predominantly
due to their progress to the humanistic movement
as in the case of Existential psychology, Phenomenological
psychology, Counselling psychology, Transpersonal
psychology. Due to these fragmentations there
have been a whole lot of diversifications in counseling
and therapeutic practices. The issue here is that
it has become more and more difficult to keep
these diversifications united into one general
paradigm.
Another critical issue is that the philosophical
base of the sector is not well received or appreciated
by the psychologists. They are more inclined towards
the positivism which has been set up in the general
public mind. The humanistic viewpoint is based
upon the views of the philosopher Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804), who suggested that the real world
is ultimately unknowable. According to him, all
the things that can be dealt with are just mere
appearances which are predominantly descriptions
and interpretations of reality rather than physical
reality itself. To add to this, Kant commented
that these descriptions and interpretations reproduce
as much the properties of the human mind as the
various events taking part around people which
eventually become their experiences. The thoughts
the human mind brings to bear on events are as
important as that of the events themselves. Most
of the modern psychology does not consider the
post-Kantian revolution as well as major connotations
for a study of human behavior and experience.
Another considerably important issue is that
the growth in the field of application of humanistic
theory in order to generate a wide range of therapeutic
practice has led to a great success. Owing to
the resulting diversification in the said field
as well as the inability to recognize the matching
progress in theory, it has led to the downfall
of this form of psychology. This might further
lead to consequences like adoption of inadequately
understood and untested practices and the continuing
deviation of counseling from psychology.
Yet another critical issue in the field of humanistic
psychology has been that since its very beginning
it has been following the custom of focusing on
one individual. This has led to confusion on the
consideration of the rich complete with cultural,
discursive and narrative issues to be considered
as being human and issues are raised continuously
as being crucial to the contextualization of human
behavior and experience. Human subject are considered
in relation to the `world’ to the `other’
and positioned by various discourses, narratives
and various other practices which formulate the
human culture.
Apart from all these issues, the Humanistic-Existential
psychology is alleged as a threat by other areas
of psychology that are considered to be taking
an uncritical positivist position. This sense
of being threatened was considered as defensiveness,
or in some cases also as being arrogant. Though
the humanistic movement initially was set up owing
to some kind of disagreement between the two dominant
schools of thought in psychology which were the
behaviorism and psychodynamic psychology, however,
humanistic psychology has been able to classify
itself on its own terms.
Conclusion: The most important aspect of Humanistic
Psychology is that it needs to be a clear cut
demarcation of this paradigm as well as a clear
demonstration of the crucial insights this areas
provides on human psychology. While it may be
true that much of the criticism that has been
derived on this field is from outside the field,
however, it may be a little unfair to put the
complete blame on the other forms of psychology
for these critical issues. It is quite true that
this area of psychology has actually become lackluster.
This is predominantly due to it becoming fragmented
as well as in most of the cases becoming rather
superficial.
With the advent of constructionist and postmodern
perspectives, it becomes quite critical to reinvent
this field of psychology. It becomes quite obvious
that many of the ideas and influences which led
to the growth of the movement are still quite
relevant and inspiring for the reinvention of
this field. These ideas and influences might eventually
lead to the disturbing fragmentation of the field
to be seen in the current state of the field which
again might lead to its success rather than fading
away.
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