2. Existentialism
â˘âŻ Existentialism â An Area of philosophy
concerned with the meaning of human
existence.
â˘âŻ Being-in-the-World â The existential idea that
the self cannot exists without a world and the
world cannot exist without a person of being to
perceive it.
3. âIf a tree falls in a forest and no one is
around to hear it, does it make a sound?â
4. Nondeterministic
The existential
approach is also
nondeterministic
because it argues
against viewing
people as controlled
by fixed physical
laws.
5. The Phenomenological View
The concept that
peopleâs
perceptions or
subjective realities
are considered
valid data for
investigation.
7. Giving a Role to the Human Spirit
â˘âŻ Humanistic approaches are freer to give credit
to the human spirit. Abraham Maslow thus
called humanistic psychology the âthird force.â
The ďŹrst two forces being behaviorism and
psychoanalysis.
8. Relations with Other People Define
Our Humanness
â˘âŻ I-Thou Dialogue â A phrase used by
philosopher Martin Buber to describe direct,
mutual relationship in which each individual
conďŹrms the other person as being of unique
value.
â˘âŻ I-It Monologue â A phrase used by
philosopher Martin Buber to describe a
utilitarian relationship in which a person uses
others but does not value them for themselves.
9. The Human Potential Movement
Movement in which people are encouraged to
realize their inner potentials through small group
meetings, self-disclosure, and introspection.
â˘âŻ Dialectical Tension â Concept used by Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi for the idea that creative people
tend to have traits that are seemingly
contradictory but that play a role in their
creativity.
10. Love as a Central Focus of
Life: Erich Fromm
Loving is an Art
âLove requires knowledge, effort, and
experience. The capacity to love must be
developed with humility and discipline.
According to Fromm, love is the answer
to the avoidable questionâthe problem of
human existence.â
âImmature love says: 'I love you because I need you.'
Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.â â
Erich Fromm
11. Dialectical Humanism:
Transcending Conflict
Erich Frommâs approach to personality, which tries to
reconcile the biological, driven side of human beings
and the pressures of societal structure by focusing on
the belief that people can rise above or transcend
these forces and become spontaneous, creative, and
loving.
12. Evidence Supporting Frommâs Approach?
The Age of Anxiety?
Society has become more individualistic and consumerist,
the rate of major psychological depression and other serious
mental health problems in Western countries has risen
steadily.
13. The American Paradox
The contemporary situation where we have
material abundance co-occurring with social
recession and psychological depression.
14. Responsibility: Carl Rogers
â˘âŻ A key postulate of existential-humanistic
approaches is that each person is responsible
for his or her own life and maturity. Rogers
believed that people have an inherent
tendency toward growth and maturation.
â˘âŻ Responsibility, like love, is a term often
heard in humanistic analyses of personality
but rarely heard elsewhere.
15. Growth, Inner Control, and the
Experiencing Person
â˘âŻ Growth â Rogerâs perspective that people tend to
develop in a positive direction unless thwarted.
â˘âŻ Inner Control â Inner self-control is healthier than
forced, external control.
â˘âŻ Experiencing Person â In Carl Rogerâs
phenomenological view, important issues are
deďŹned by each person for himself or herself in
the context of the total range of things the person
experiences.
16. Rogerian Therapy
The client-oriented psychotherapy developed by
Carl Rogers in which the therapist tends to be
supportive, nondirective, and empathetic, and
gives unconditional positive regard.
17. Becoming Oneâs Self
â˘âŻ We all have ideas of what we should be like, however,
Rogers says that a person should âbecome oneâs self.â
A healthy personality can trust his or her own
experience and accept the fact that other people are
different.
â˘âŻ Existential anxiety and inner conďŹict often arise when
put a façade and try to conform to the expectations of
others.
âThe only person who cannot be helped is that person
who blames others.â
Carl Rogers
18. Anxiety, Threat, and Powerlessness:
Rollo May
Anxiety was a particular focus of the existential
psychologist Rollo May, who saw anxiety as a
triggered by a threat to oneâs core values of
existence. A sense of powerlessness if often the
key.
âOne does not become fully human painlessly.â
Rollo May
Â
19. Personal Choice:
Victor Frankl
â˘âŻ Existential-humanistic theorists like Victor
Frankl emphasize the benefits of personal
choice. If people choose to grow and develop,
the challenge of the unknown produces anxiety;
but this anxiety can lead to triumph and self-
fulfillment.
âWhen we are no longer able to change a situation â
we are challenged to change ourselves.â
Viktor Frankl
20. Self-Actualization:
Abraham Maslow
Being deprived of
companionship or being
deprived of meaning in
oneâs life can be just as
terrifying, and deadly as
being deprived of food.
21. Early
 Ideas
 about
 Self-ÂâActualization
Â
in
 Jungâs
 Work
Â
â˘âŻ Self-Actualization â The innate process
by which one tends to grow spiritually
and realize oneâs potential.
â˘âŻ Teleology â The idea that there is a grand
design or purpose to oneâs life.
âWho looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.â
Carl Jung
22. Peak Experiences
According to Abraham Maslow, powerful,
meaningful experiences in which people seem
to transcend the self, be at one with the world,
and feel completely self-fulfilled; Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi describes them as the âflowâ
that comes with total involvement in an activity.
âA musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must
write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.â
Abraham Maslow
23. The Internal Push for
Self-Actualization
â˘âŻ Organismic â A term
sometimes used to describe
theories that focus on the
development that comes
from inside the growing
organism and that assume a
natural unfolding, or life
course, for each organism.
24. Maslowâs Hierarchy of Needs
â˘âŻ DeďŹciency Needs â According to
Abraham Maslow, needs that are
essential for survival including
physiological, safety, belonging, love,
and esteem needs.
25.
26. Measuring Self-Actualization
â˘âŻ Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) â A
self-report questionnaire that asks people
to classify themselves on a number of
dimensions for the various characteristics
of self-actualization or mental health.
âWhat a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-
actualization.â
Abraham Maslow
27. Happiness and Positive Psychology
Subjective Well-Being
What individuals
think of their
own level of
happiness or
their quality
of life.
28. Positive Psychology
The movement in modern psychology to
focus on positive attributes rather than on
pathology.
Editor's Notes
Can something exist without being perceived? Pamela Jackson - e.g."is sound only sound if a person hears it?"
Rollo Mayâs sense of deep inner reflection intensified when, as a young tuberculosis sufferer, he was forced to spend several years in a sanitarium. In institutions, feelings of depersonalization and isolation can ben especially intense.
Frankl was a imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. He survived psychologically by choosing to find meaning in the suffering.
The word pathology is from Ancient Greek, pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and, -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling. Pathologies is synonymous with diseases. The suffix "path" is used to indicate a disease, e.g. psychopath.Schizophrenia Example â âSchizophrenia is bad but because of your brain structure, you have a predisposition to be gifted.â e.g. A Beautiful Mind