Schools and Movements
Humanistic Psychology
Also Known As Third Force Psychology
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Humanistic psychology arose in the 1950s-1960s as a deliberate third force reacting against the determinism of psychoanalysis and the reductionism of behaviorism, insisting on understanding people holistically, as wholes greater than the sum of their parts, with attention to self-actualization, meaning and creativity. Clinically it favors approaches built on self-awareness, empathy and unconditional positive regard.
Facts
Central QuestionWhat accounts for uniquely human concerns and positive potential, self, self-actualization, meaning, creativity, growth, that reductionist psychoanalysis and behaviorism leave out? 1 Founded Year Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Existential and humanistic psychology are closely allied, both part of what is often called the third force in psychology alongside behaviorism and psychoanalysis, and their leading figures overlapped and collaborated.
Critiqued Here
Maslow named behaviorism psychology's 'first force' and argued it systematically excluded the subjective data of consciousness and the complexity of human personality, one of the two schools humanistic psychology positioned itself as a 'third force' against.
Maslow argued psychoanalysis addressed only human pathology, framing humanistic psychology's 'third force' as the healthy complement Freud's system left out.
Founded By
In Branch
Sources
1. Humanistic psychology
Wikimedia FoundationOrigins sectionQuote, Origins section
the self, self-actualization, health, hope, love, creativity, nature, being, becoming, individuality, and meaning
1. Humanistic psychology
Wikimedia Foundationopening paragraphQuote, opening paragraph
built on their work establishing a third force in psychology in the 1950s
1. Humanistic psychology
Wikimedia FoundationConceptual origins sectionQuote, Conceptual origins section
built on their work establishing a 'third force' in psychology in the 1950s.
1. Humanistic psychology
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Behaviorism, History sectionQuote, Associated With: Behaviorism, History section
Maslow believed the first force systematically excluded the subjective data of consciousness and much information bearing on the complexity of the human personality and its development.
1. Humanistic psychology
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Psychoanalysis, History sectionQuote, Associated With: Psychoanalysis, History section
it is as if Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half.
Wikipedia: Existential Therapy
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Existential Psychology
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