The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology

Theory, Research, and Practice

Kirk J. Schneider, J. Fraser Pierson, James F. T. Bugental, Kirk J. Schneider, J. Fraser Pierson, James F. T. Bugental

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781452267746
• eBook ISBN: 9781483322827
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The Second Edition of the cutting edge work, The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology, by Kirk J. Schneider, J. Fraser Pierson and James F. T. Bugental, represents the very latest scholarship in the field of humanistic psychology and psychotherapy. Set against trends inclined toward psychological standardization and medicalization, the handbook offers a rich tapestry of reflection by the leading person-centered scholars of our time. Their range in topics is far-reaching—from the historical, theoretical and methodological, to the spiritual, psychotherapeutic and multicultural.

Part I

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTION TO PART I

To illuminate humanistic psychology’s present, we must shed light on its past—and what a distinguished and colorful past it has been! What, then, were humanistic psychology’s major battles, wounds, and inspirations? Who were the central figures in these scenarios, and how did they influence psychology? Finally, how do we assess the legacy of these pioneers and milestones? Where have they left us as a perspective? To bring these concerns into context, and to set the stage for the unfolding volume, we present four interweaving historical reflections on humanistic psychology.

Beginning with Chapter 1 (“The Roots and Genealogy of Humanistic Psychology”), Donald Moss provides a succinct and informative historical overview of humanistic psychology. From its rudiments in ancient Greece to its emergence in Judeo-Christianity, to its flowering in the modern age, Moss’s “road map” is both unique and foundational.

In Chapter 2 (“Humanistic Psychology at the Crossroads”), Eugene Taylor and Fred Martin reflect on humanistic psychology’s recent lineage and arrive at some rather provocative conclusions. First, there is a window of opportunity for a humanistic reformation in psychology. Second, the question of whether this reformation actually will materialize remains open. Third, the revitalization of humanistic methodology, personology, and psychotherapeutic investigation is likely to bolster the chances of the reformation, whereas the overemphasis on humanistic folk psychology (e.g., the meditative and somatic traditions) is likely to dampen these chances. The authors leave us with a challenge: Can humanistic psychology “articulate a phenomenological . . . epistemology” as the basis for a new experimental psychology and, beyond that, “a new experimental science,” or will it go the way of disconnection from and the resultant absorption by the positivistic mainstream?

In the next two chapters, the historical perspective shifts to two relatively hidden, if not neglected, humanistic legacies: women and multiculturalism. In a thoroughly updated Chapter 3 (“Humanistic Psychology and Women: A Critical-Historical Perspective”), Ilene Serlin and Eleanor Criswell forcefully argue that although women’s relationship to humanistic psychology has been complex, at the same time it has been integral, both practically and theoretically. The authors trace the entangled strands of humanistic psychology’s approach to women, women’s ambivalent reaction to those entangled strands, and the present challenge for both women and humanistic psychology. Finally, they address the many promising resonances between women and humanistic psychology, such as the stress on holism, the prizing of interpersonal connection, and the concern with embodiment. The authors conclude that a revived humanistic psychology is contingent on a revived feminist humanism.

In Chapter 4 (“Humanistic Psychology and Multiculturalism: History, Current Status, and Advancements”), Louis Hoffman, Heatherlyn Hoffman, and Theopia Jackson conclude this part of the volume with a groundbreaking discussion of humanistic psychology’s multicultural legacy. They note—as did their predecessor, Adelbert Jenkins, in the first edition of this volume—that although humanistic psychology began, and in many cases evolved, in America in concert with a multicultural consciousness, nonwhites tend not to identify with it. They go on to critically evaluate this anomaly, tracing both the humanistic and the multicultural bases for its emergence. The authors conclude that though humanistic psychology has great potential to live up to its multicultural calling, it must do far more than invite representatives from diverse cultures to join in symposia or write the occasional multicultural article; rather, humanistic psychology itself must be prepared to change. That is, humanistic psychology must open itself to being altered by multicultural perspectives, and not just the other way around. This is a far more radical and, frankly, a more refreshing perspective than has been heard in the past, by any long-standing psychological orientation, and it is fitting that humanistic psychology lead the way. If “humanity” is not core to humanism, then humanism is not core to humanity.

CHAPTER 1

The Roots and Genealogy of Humanistic Psychology

DONALD MOSS

The humanistic movement in psychology has emphasized the search for a philosophical and scientific understanding of human existence that does justice to the highest reaches of human achievement and potential. From the beginning, humanistic psychologists have cared deeply about what it means to be fully human and have sought pathways and technologies that assist humans in reaching full humanness. Humanistic psychologists criticized the mainstream psychological schools of the first half of the 20th century for proclaiming a diminished model of human nature. Their strivings for a new and better concept of humanity provided much of the motivation for the early flourishing of humanistic psychology.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE FULLY HUMAN?

Concepts of Human Nature in Psychological Science

Articulate humanistic scholars such as Abraham Maslow and Rollo May criticized psychoanalysis and behaviorism for attempting to explain the full range of human nature in terms of mechanisms drawn from the study of neurotic patients and laboratory rats. Sigmund Freud wrote monographs about artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and religious leaders such as Moses. Freud used the concepts of abnormal psychology to explain the lifetime artistic and spiritual achievements of these outstanding humans (Freud, 1953–1974, Volumes 11, 13, 23).

John Watson (1924) arrogantly proclaimed that, given the opportunity, he could condition any human infant to become either a criminal or a scientist by consistently applying the principles of modern behavioral theory (p. 82). Later, B. F. Skinner (1971) attacked concepts such as freedom and dignity and proposed reengineering human society by a process of instrumental conditioning.

For humanistic psychology, this psychological reductionism presented a challenge. Can we study the higher reaches of human nature and discover a new basis for psychological science? Can we use the higher forms of human behavior to illuminate the lower ones instead of basing all psychological understanding on laboratory rats and the mentally ill? Authors as diverse as Straus (1930/1982), Maslow (1950/1973), and Csikszentmihalyi (1990) formulated this same challenge—to understand humans in terms of their highest potential and through the study of individuals who display the highest levels of human functioning.

Will Our Science Stifle or Nurture the Fulfilled Human Life?

The concern in humanistic psychology over inadequate scientific and philosophical models was not merely a matter of achieving a better understanding for the sake of understanding. Rather, reductionistic scientific theories of human behavior run the risk of constricting or reducing actual humans. If the prevailing understanding of humanness within science is narrow, then there is a risk that the same concepts will pervade popular culture as well and diminish the self-understanding and aspirations of the average human. Traditional “naturalistic” psychologies run the risk of harming humans by inviting them to lower their expectations of what is humanly possible.

A Prehistory and a History of Humanistic Psychology

This chapter provides a prehistory and a history of humanistic psychology. The history recounts the work of those significant figures in modern psychology and philosophy who provided the foundational ideas and approaches, making humanistic psychology what it is today. The prehistory examines the millennia before the advent of modern humanistic psychology and identifies some of the many antecedent figures who suggested more philosophically adequate concepts of being human. This portion of the chapter must remain sketchy—leaping across centuries at a time—because of the enormous variety of philosophers, theologians, and literary figures who have contributed at least passing insights into what it means to be fully human. More time is spent on antiquity because foundations for later understanding were laid down then. Many Renaissance and modern efforts to restore a more adequate image of humanity have returned to early Greek and Christian texts for inspiration.

THE PREHISTORY OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

Classical Greece

Homer and the Human Journey

At the dawn of Western civilization, Homer’s Odyssey created the image of the human individual as a hero and of human life as a quest or an adventure. Odysseus, returning to Ithaca from the communal quest of the Trojan wars, is detained far from home by the nymph Calypso, the Sirens, and a variety of other dangers and distractions. In the course of the epic, Odysseus becomes an individual and a hero facing danger, battling adversaries, and savoring the adventures of the road. Finally, he returns to his home and family in Ithaca. The modern Greek poet C. P. Cavafy (1961) wrote of each human’s journey to “Ithaca,”

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.

To arrive there is your ultimate goal.

But do not hurry the voyage at all.

It is better to let it last for long years;

And even to anchor at the isle when you are old, Rich with all that you have gained on the way,

Not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches. (p. 36)

Greek Tragedy

The Greek dramatists portrayed human heroes struggling powerfully against fates that define the course of human lives. The protagonists are heroic and inhabit a world peopled with gods, demigods, and humans, but their pathways are defined in advance and end in tragedy. The fate of Oedipus is foretold by an oracle and is changed neither by his father Laius’s actions nor by Oedipus’s heroic struggles. The final words of Sophocles’s drama Oedipus at Colonus express the tragic view of life: “Cease now and never more lift up these lamentations, for all this is determined.”

Socrates (ca. 469–399 BCE) and Plato (ca. 427–347 BCE)

Our image of Socrates is filtered largely through Plato, who recorded many of the Socratic dialogues decades later. Socrates left his heritage in the dialogues—dialectical conversations that sought deeper truths through examination of simple illustrations from daily life (Taylor, 1997). In the Socratic view, the psyche is the abode of character, intelligence, and virtue. Human well-being depends on the state of this psyche. Socrates’s philosophy is ethical and personal. Socratic discourse perfects character and instills virtue through knowledge. Knowledge leads to good, and wrongdoing is involuntary and based on ignorance. In Socrates’s view, no human would wish for anything less than true good and true happiness, but many individuals miscarry in their actions because of lack of knowledge of the true good. Enlightenment by reason and dialogue leads to correction of one’s actions and perfection of the human individual.

For Plato (1941), this earthly life is but a dim likeness of the real and eternal life. A human lives as though in a cave without light, and by philosophical reflection, the human gains a glimpse of the true Eidos, the transcendent essence of things as they are in truth. Plato’s philosophy conveys a sense of values that we associate with Greek culture and with today’s humanistic ideal. The true, the good, and the beautiful were elevated to the status of ends in themselves. The concept of an Eidos (or essence) reappeared in German phenomenological psychology when Straus (1930/1982) conceived of the essence of the person—the true self—as an Eidos that one sees actualized only in glimpses, in the course of existence, such as glimpses of light through a prism.¹

Platonism survived many centuries after Plato himself, especially in the form of neo-Platonism. Plotinus (205–270 CE) and Proclus (410–485 CE) stand out as central neo-Platonists. Neo-Platonism portrayed each individual human life as a type of falling from an eternal origin in divine oneness into earthly multiplicity. The task of human existence became a journey of inward reintegration, recovering the lost oneness. This metaphysical schema of existence, in which the eternal origin is the true reality and all of life seeks restoration, lingered in the background through the early centuries of the Christian era and resurfaced to influence the medieval and Renaissance views of life. For the neo-Platonists, philosophy remained a pathway for personal renewal through moral and intellectual self-discipline. The pathway of renewal took a mystical turn as an awakening from the normal human, alienated state toward a mystical union with the one and the good.

Aristotle (384–322 BCE)

Aristotle developed his own ethics and psychology, systematically defining the soul and its attributes. Of equal importance for psychological theory, however, Aristotle developed a systematic empirical approach to natural science. In combination with Christianity, this Aristotelian philosophy served as the framework for most of medieval scholastic philosophy, for example, in the works of Boethius and Aquinas. The empirical framework of scientific research in psychology reflects this Aristotelian heritage.

Stoicism

Stoicism as a philosophical movement commenced in Greece with Zeno (ca. 333–262 BCE). It became a widely taught approach to rational living, with influence on leading figures in Greece and Rome, through the time of the Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE). The Stoics advocated a thoughtful human life of self-cultivation, virtue, and wisdom (Inwood, 1985; Long, 1974). Philosophy for the Stoics was a love of wisdom (philo [“loving”] plus sophia [“knowledge”]) and calls for a personal search for mastery over one’s own life and emotions through reason. The Stoics developed confession or personal disclosure as a tool for increasing self-knowledge (Georges, 1995). The Stoics taught inward self-sufficiency through reason and wisdom regardless of how external tragedy might affect one’s life. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus (b. ca. 50 CE) anticipated the core of cognitive psychology when he wrote that it is not events that shape human life but rather the view that humans take of these events (Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). The Stoic values of self-examination, self-discipline, and self-determination are consistent with the theories of modern humanistic and cognitive psychologies. The Stoics’ use of philosophy as a tool for living anticipated the present-day movement of philosophical psychotherapy.

Athens and a Humanistic Way of Life

It was not only in epic, drama, and philosophy that Greek civilization conveyed an image of the human. Rather, the entire Athenian way of life, epitomized during the age of Pericles (443–429 BCE), was dedicated to stretching human capacities and talents to a higher level. Athens valued the pursuit of athletic prowess, intellectual competence, artistic gifts, political sophistication, and architectural beauty. The institution of democracy, the academies of philosophy, the flowering of literature, and the displays of art were all part of a public pursuit of higher levels of human potential. The Olympic Games took this cultivation of perfection to the highest possible level.

Christian Authors in the Early Church

The life and teachings of Christ conveyed a new and different image of a perfected life. The Sermon ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword to the Second Edition
• Foreword to the First Edition
• Preface
• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• PART I. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
• PART II. HUMANISTIC THEORY
• PART III. HUMANISTIC METHODOLOGY
• PART IV. HUMANISTIC APPLICATIONS TO PRACTICE
• PART V. HUMANISTIC APPLICATIONS TO BROADER SETTINGS
• PART VI. EPILOGUE: LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARD
• Appendix: Regionally Accredited Schools With Graduate Programs in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• About the Contributors
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