Humanistic psychology (from the English humanistic psychology) is a direction in Western, mainly American, psychology, which was formed in the 1960s. XX century, within the humanistic approach. The humanistic approach appeared as a response and opposition to the administrative-authoritarian, impersonal approach to man, which dominated at the beginning of the XNUMXth century (See N.I. Kozlov’s article The Limits of Humanistic Psychology and the Requirements of Realistic Psychology).
On the other hand, humanistic psychology rather joined the humanitarian wing in psychology and in many respects opposed itself to the natural-scientific approach.
Adams’ speech is not an academic approach. This is a worldly, spiritual, human approach, and this is its strength.
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It is difficult to formulate the views and principles of humanistic psychology in any strict way; the humanities are not inclined to clear formulations.
The origins of the ideas of humanistic psychology are in the philosophical traditions of the humanists of the Renaissance, the French Enlightenment, German romanticism, the philosophy of Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Husserl, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, as well as in modern existentialism and Eastern philosophical and religious systems.
Nevertheless, she is close to the views that a person is integral and should be studied in his integrity, each person is unique, so the analysis of individual cases (case study) is no less justified than statistical generalizations. In comparison with behaviorism, humanistic psychology believes that a person has a certain degree of freedom from external determination due to the meanings and values that guide him in his choice. Unlike psychoanalysis, from which there was also a clear distancing, the views of humanistic psychology on a person are very positive: according to the ideas of its representatives, a person is an active, intentional, creative being with the potential for continuous development and self-realization. Proximity to existentialism was expressed in the postulate that human life should be considered as a single process of becoming and being of a person, while a person’s experience of the world and himself in the world is the main psychological reality. Here, obviously, humanistic psychology adjoins the phenomenological approach, moving away from the behavioral approach.
To a lesser extent, humanistic psychology managed to oppose itself to psychotherapeutic work: despite the call of one of its founders A. Maslow to study psychologically healthy, mature, creatively active people, humanistic psychology still found its main application in psychotherapy. The main area of practical application of humanistic psychology today is psychotherapeutic practice.: non-directive psychotherapy by K. Rogers (a person-centered approach in psychotherapy) and logotherapy by V. Frankl are among the most popular and widespread psychotherapeutic systems. Another important area of practical application of humanistic psychology is humanistic pedagogy, which is based on the principles of non-directive interaction between a teacher and a student and is aimed at shaping the creative abilities of an individual↑. The third area of practical application of humanistic psychology is socio-psychological training, one of the founders of which was K. Rogers.
Today, humanistic psychology occupies an important and stable place in Western psychology; tendencies of its partial integration with other schools and trends, including psychoanalysis and neobehaviorism, have been outlined.
Humanistic psychology and the Synton approach
Together with Abraham Maslow, the synton approach aims to explore the highest levels of personal development and mental health, and self-actualization of the individual is one of the values of the synton approach. The Synton approach implements the view proposed by Carl Rogers, according to which the best results in personal growth are achieved when working on the positive, in the format of supporting the best intentions and aspirations of the individual. Look→
Criticism of humanistic psychology
Humanistic psychology has its critics.
K. Benson shows the ethnocentrism of the concept of a self-actualizing personality and the hidden immoral consequences of its use in cultures other than Western. His conclusion: «This is an acultural, anti-historical psychology in complete self-confidence flying under the camouflage of historical references» [Benson, 2001, p. 227].
B.S. Bratus also believes that humanistic psychology, despite its name, is non-moral — it is «the psychology of the self as an end in itself of a person» [Bratus, 1997, p. 12]. Referring to V. Frankl, he emphasizes that “self-actualization aimed at oneself means a miss in the main thing,” since “the central, meaning-forming characteristic of a person is his way of relating to another person” [Bratus, 1997, p. eight].