Humanistic, Existential, and Positive Aspects of

Personality

Existentialism

•  Existentialism – An Area of philosophy concerned with the meaning of human existence.

•  Being-in-the-World – The existential idea that the self cannot exists without a world and the world cannot exist without a person of being to perceive it.

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” �

Nondeterministic

The existential approach is also nondeterministic because it argues against viewing

people as controlled by fixed physical

laws.

The Phenomenological View

The concept that people’s

perceptions or subjective realities

are considered valid data for investigation.

Humanism A philosophical movement

that emphasizes the personal worth of the

individual and the importance of human

values.

Giving a Role to the Human Spirit

•  Humanistic approaches are freer to give credit to the human spirit. Abraham Maslow thus called humanistic psychology the “third force.”

The first two forces being behaviorism and psychoanalysis.

Relations with Other People Define Our Humanness

•  I-Thou Dialogue – A phrase used by philosopher Martin Buber to describe direct, mutual relationship in which each individual confirms the other person as being of unique value.

•  I-It Monologue – 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.

The Human Potential Movement

Movement in which people are encouraged to realize their inner potentials through small group

meetings, self-disclosure, and introspection.

•  Dialectical Tension – 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.

Love as a Central Focus of Life: Erich Fromm

Loving is an Art “Love 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 question—the problem of human existence.”

“Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.’ ”

Erich Fromm

Dialectical Humanism: Transcending Conflict Erich Fromm’s 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.

Evidence Supporting Fromm’s 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.

The American Paradox The contemporary situation where we have material abundance co-occurring with social

recession and psychological depression.

Responsibility: Carl Rogers •  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.

•  Responsibility, like love, is a term often heard in humanistic analyses of personality but rarely heard elsewhere.

Growth, Inner Control, and the Experiencing Person

•  Growth – Roger’s perspective that people tend to develop in a positive direction unless thwarted.

•  Inner Control – Inner self-control is healthier than forced, external control.

•  Experiencing Person – In Carl Roger’s phenomenological view, important issues are defined by each person for himself or herself in the context of the total range of things the person experiences.

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.

Becoming One’s Self •  We all have ideas of what we should be like, however,

Rogers says that a person should “become one’s self.” A healthy personality can trust his or her own experience and accept the fact that other people are different.

•  Existential anxiety and inner conflict often arise when put a façade and try to conform to the expectations of others.

“The only person who cannot be helped is that person who blames others.”

Carl Rogers

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 one’s core values of

existence. A sense of powerlessness if often the key.

“One does not become fully human painlessly.” �Rollo May

 

Personal Choice: Victor Frankl

•  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.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.” ���

Viktor Frankl

Self-Actualization: Abraham Maslow

Being deprived of companionship or being deprived of meaning in one’s life can be just as

terrifying, and deadly as being deprived of food.

Early  Ideas  about  Self-­‐Actualization  in  Jung’s  Work  

•  Self-Actualization – The innate process by which one tends to grow spiritually and realize one’s potential. •  Teleology – The idea that there is a grand

design or purpose to one’s life.

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” �Carl Jung

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 “flow”

that comes with total involvement in an activity.

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.”

Abraham Maslow

The Internal Push for Self-Actualization

•  Organismic – 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.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

•  Deficiency Needs – According to Abraham Maslow, needs that are essential for survival including physiological, safety, belonging, love, and esteem needs.

Measuring Self-Actualization

•  Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) – 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.

“What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.”

Abraham Maslow

Happiness and Positive Psychology

What individuals think of their own level of happiness or their quality

of life.

Subjective Well-Being

Positive Psychology

The movement in modern psychology to focus on positive attributes rather than on

pathology.