Humanistic psychology. Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century in response to the limitations of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and B.F. Skinner's behaviorism.[1] With its roots running from Socrates through the Renaissance, this approach emphasizes individuals inherent drive towards self-actualization and creativity. It typically holds that people are inherently good. It adopts a holistic approach to human existence and pays special attention to such phenomena as creativity, free will, and human potential. It encourages viewing ourselves as a "whole person" greater than the sum of our parts and encourages self exploration rather than the study of behavior in other people. Humanistic psychology acknowledges spiritual aspiration as an integral part of the human psyche. Origins[edit] One of humanistic psychology's early sources was the work of Carl Rogers, who was strongly influenced by Otto Rank, who broke with Freud in the mid-1920s.
Existential therapy. Background[edit] The starting point of existential philosophy (see Warnock, 1970; Macquarrie, 1972; Mace, 1999; Van Deurzen and Kenward, 2005) can be traced back to the nineteenth century and the work of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Both were in conflict with the predominant ideologies of their time and committed to the exploration of reality as it can be experienced in a passionate and personal manner. Kierkegaard (1813–55) protested vigorously against popular misunderstanding and abuse of Christian dogma and the so-called 'objectivity' of science (Kierkegaard, 1841, 1844). He thought that both were ways of avoiding the anxiety inherent in human existence. He had great contempt for the way in which life was being lived by those around him and believed that truth could ultimately only be discovered subjectively by the individual in action. Nietzsche (1844–1900) took this philosophy of life a step further.
Development in Britain[edit] Psychological dysfunction[edit] Existentialism. Existentialism is a term applied to the work of certain late 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences,[1][2][3] shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual.[4] In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.[5] Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.[6][7] Definitional issues and background[edit] There has never been general agreement on the definition of existentialism.
The term is often seen as an historical convenience as it was first applied to many philosophers in hindsight, long after they had died. Concepts[edit] The Absurd[edit] Transpersonal psychology. Issues considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development, self beyond the ego, peak experiences, mystical experiences, systemic trance, spiritual crises, spiritual evolution, religious conversion, altered states of consciousness, spiritual practices, and other sublime and/or unusually expanded experiences of living. The discipline attempts to describe and integrate spiritual experience within modern psychological theory and to formulate new theory to encompass such experience.
Transpersonal psychology has made several contributions to the academic field, and the studies of human development, consciousness and spirituality.[3][4] Transpersonal psychology has also made contributions to the fields of psychotherapy[5] and psychiatry.[6][7] Definition[edit] Lajoie and Shapiro[8] reviewed forty definitions of transpersonal psychology that had appeared in academic literature over the period from 1968 to 1991. Development of the academic field[edit] Origins[edit] Dr. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs & Social Media – a modern take.