2. • Humanistic approach referred to as the third force was founded in 1950s by the American
psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) and Carl Rogers (1902-1987). It was born out of
dissatisfaction of psychoanalytic and behavior therapies. Humanistic psychology assumes that
human beings have free will and are not pawns in the hands of unconscious motives or
environmental stimuli
• Maslow and Rogers assumed the subject matter of psychology should be individual’s unique
subjective mental experience of the world. Humanistic psychology’s assumption that human beings
have free will, and its emphasis on the study of subjective mental experience, reveals its kingship
with existential psychology. Existential base their approach on the belief that our psychological
development depends on the way we choose to face the reality of our ultimate mortality and
realization that we are responsible for our own lives. Two humanistic approaches which include
person-centered therapy and Gestalt therapy will be will be examined in due course.
• Person- Centered Approach to Therapy
• Person-centered approach is based on concepts from humanistic psychology, many of which were
articulated by Rogers in the early 1940s. This approach shares many concepts and values with
existential perspective. Rogers’s basic assumptions include: people are essentially trustworthy; they
have vast potential for understanding themselves and resolving their own problems without direct
intervention on the therapist’s part; They are capable of self-directed growth if they are involved in
a specific kind of therapeutic relationship; and for change to occur, the person must experience a
perceptual change not simply receiving data, thus the clients identify the themes they choose to
explore
• Rogers emphasized the attitudes and personal characteristics of the therapist and the quality of
client-therapist relationship as the prime determinants of the outcome of the therapeutic process
