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Overview of Humanistic Psychology
David Oguns
Rochester Institute of Technology
May 22, 2007
0514-441-01 Humanistic Psychology
Running head: HUMANISTIC PSY
ABSTRACT
Humanistic psychology is sometimes referred to as the naïve branch of
psychology because some of the theories are unable to be supported by scientific
methods. Despite this, humanistic psychology still has substantial practical application
related to therapy. Many of the theories born from the Neo-Freudians Alfred Alder,
Karen Horney, and Carl Jung paved the way to humanistic psychology. One of the first
humanistic psychologists was Abraham Maslow.
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Overview of Humanistic Psychology
Sigmund Freud is considered to be the father of modern psychology. His theory
suggests that humans have three major parts of their mind that affect their behavior – the
id, the ego, and the superego. However, the important distinguishing characteristics
between Freudian theories and humanistic theories on psychology are not the semantics
of why humans behave a certain way. Humanistic psychology generally looks at what all
human beings are trying to achieve in life and how we go about achieving those goals.
Neo-Freudian psychology was often considered to be the “Second Force” of psychology
by Abraham Maslow. The psychologists that fall into this category started integrating
ideas of personality and individualism into their theories which made behavior stemming
from the person less deterministic.
Alfred Alder believed that there were two unconscious levels that made up a
human being - the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The personal
unconscious is the concept most people have of the unconscious. It can be brought into
the conscious and affect behavior that a person is aware of(Boeree, 2007). The collective
unconscious is
A humanistic view of psychology believes all humans are good and that the only thing
that sets them apart behaviorally are differences in values or perceived meanings of
various actions.
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It requires analyzing the values, intentions, and meanings of an individual(Humanistic
Psy, 2007).
REFERENCES
Boeree, George C. Alfred Alder. Personality Theories (2007). Retrieved May 22, 2007
from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/adler.html
Boeree, George C. Karen Horney. Personality Theories (2007). Retrieved May 22,
2007 from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/ horney.html
Boeree, George C. Carl Jung. Personality Theories (2007). Retrieved May 22, 2007
from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/ jung.html
Boeree, George C. Abraham Maslow. Personality Theories (2007). Retrieved May 22,
2007 from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/ maslow.html
Humanistic Psychology Overview. Association for Humanistic Psychology. Retrieved
May 22, 2007 from http://ahpweb.org/aboutahp/whatis.html
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