Humanistic+Psychology+(System)

The humanistic point of view centers around the individual and the qualities that make people distinctly human. These qualities include the innate goodness in human beings as well as self-actualization. Self-actualization is the belief that problems with mental health are reflections of distortions to the natural drive to remain healthy as life continues and the mental capacity to be aware of one's existence. The humanistic school o9f thought believes a healthy person could also be called fully-functioning because of certain characteristics. Human beings should be open to new experience, live in the moment, be able to trust ourselves and other people, feel freedom of choice and therefore responsibility, and lastly, contribute to society creatively (Boeree, 2003).

The humanistic school of thought developed in response to the popularization of psychoanalysis and behaviorism, therefore, claiming its place as the "third force" of psychology. Psychoanalysis is the understanding of the study of unconscious behaviors while, behaviorism is analyzing the cognitive behaviors of people and their meaning. This system began around the 1950s coinciding with the times of popularization of belief in behaviorism and psychoanalysis (Emerson, 2006). Carl Rogers is identified as the founding father of the humanistic school of thought and many of the fundamental ideas behind the system were written by him. The humanistic system is interested in studying problem solving capabilities of human beings as well as better understanding mental illness. Mental illness, as it pertains to humanistic school of thought, is a deterioration from the norm or natural progress of life and understanding the deterioration can help to develop preventative measures (Boeree, 2003). The problem solving aspect of the system is meant to attempt to illustrate the problem to the person and then create effective methods of dealing with the problems (Emerson, 2006). The humanistic school of thought attempt to research the effects of learning about faults in the individual on how the individual will then use that information to change their behavior. Abraham Maslow and James Bugental added onto many of the fundamental ideas of the humanistic system. Maslow later on with another psychologist named, Anthony Sutich, created The Journal of Humanistic Psychology in 1961, which was a forum for all disciplines to address the current controversies and emerging ideas of humanistic psychology. Bugental was able to summarize and clarify the hypotheses within the humanistic system down to five items (Emerson, 2006).

Most works in The Journal of Humanistic Psychology illustrate the viewpoints of the answers. Maslow’s publication of //Motivation and Personality//, which the term, the third force of psychology, was first introduced (Hiles, 2010). Rogers’s book //Counseling and Psychotherapy// provides a similar look into the human psyche as the work of Freud who collected his data from working with psychotherapy patients (Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2010). The book demonstrated Roger’s findings about the goodness in human beings in contrast to the findings of Freud, for instance, who believed in the human beings underlying desires that may not conform to societal standards (Boeree, 2003).

Works Cited

Boeree, C. G. (2003). Individual, existential, and humanistic psychology. In General Psychology. Retrieved February 15, 2010, from [].

Emerson, P. (2006). Humanistic psychology. In Ezine Articles. Retrieved February 15, 2010, from [].

Hiles, D. (2010). Pioneers of humanistic-existential psychology. In The Virtual Office Of Dave Hiles. Retrieved February 15, 2010, from [].

Hockenbury, D. H. & Hockenbury, S. E. (2010). Carl rogers. Retrieved February 15, 2010. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

[James Bugental]. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from: []

[Maslow]. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from: []

[Rogers]. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from: []

[The Journal of Humanistic Psychology]. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from: []