HUMANISTIC APPROACH

Humanistic Approach is also called the Phenomenilogical Approach, this evolved as alternative to the pessimism and determinism of the psychodynamic and the behavioristic models.  According to humanists, people are neither driven by powerful, instinctive forces nor manipulated by their environments.  They are active creatures who are innately good and capable of choice.  They strive for growth and development of their potentials, seek change, and plan restructure their lives to achieve optimal self-fulfillment.

In sharp contrast to the behaviorist, the humanistic psychologist focuses on the phenomenal world experienced by the individuals, rather that the objective world seen by external observes and researchers.  Unlike the cognitive oriented psychologists who search for general laws that govern people's perceptions and decisions, the humanistic psychologists delve on immediate, individual experience.

The theory gave rise to encounter groups and other types personal growth groups in the 1960s and 1970s.  The three important contributors were Carl Rogers, Rollo May and Abraham Maslow.  Rogers emphasized the individual's natural tendency toward psychological growth and health, and the importance of a positive self-concept in this process.  May integrated some aspects of existential philosophy into his new psychological approach.  Existentialism emphasizes an individual's free will and his search for meaning or purpose in life.  Maslow postulated the need for self-actualization and studied the characteristics of people he judged to be actualized.  The humanistic approach expands the realm of psychology beyond the confines of science to include valuable lessons learned from the study of literature, history and the arts.  In this way psychology becomes a more complete discipline that balances the empirical and the non-empirical, imaginative approaches.  This unification hopes to see the two usually divergent human realms of the science and the humanities together.