I was once involved in a discussion about Jim Morrison, the leader of the
1960s rock group The Doors. For a few years Morrison was a rock legendwho personified counterculture thinking. But he also abused his body with
drugs and alcohol and died of an apparent heart attack at age 27. One
man in this discussion blamed society for Morrison’ s self-destructive behav-
ior and death. He argued that Morrison’ s alienation from his parents, ha-
rassment by police, and pressure from music industry executives pushed
the singer to his tragic death. A woman in the group disagreed. She arguedthat no one forced Jim Morrison to take outrageous doses of dangerous
drugs or to go on daily drinking binges. For that matter, no one kept him
in the music business. If it was that much hassle, he could easily havegotten out.
Which of these views do you suppose is more “humanistic ”? You may be
surprised to find that the woman who blamed Morrison ’s problems on him-
self is probably more aligned with the view of humanistic psychology than
the man who pointed to society and the hassles Morrison faced. This is not
to say that humanistic psychologists are heartless or insensitive to the pro-blems society tosses our way. But failure to take personal responsibility for
how we react to those problems is completely foreign to the humanistic ap-
proach to personality and well-being.
This perspective is easier to understand if we look at the circumstances
that gave birth to the humanistic view. By the middle of the 20th century,two major views of humanity had emerged from the discipline of psychology.
One was the Freudian concept. According to this perspective, we are all vic-
tims of unconscious sexual and aggressive instincts that constantly influence
our behavior. The other view came from the behaviorists (discussed in
Chapter 13), who, in the extreme, view humans as little more than large,
complex rats. Just as a rat is conditioned to respond to laboratory stimuli,
humans are said to respond to stimuli in their living environments over whichthey have no control. We act the way we do because of the situation we are
in or the situations we have been in before —not because of some personal
choice or direction.
Many psychologists had difficulty accepting either of these descriptions
of human nature. In particular, important aspects of human personality
such as free will and human dignity were missing from the Freudians ’and
behaviorists ’descriptions. Behavior was said to be under the control of
id impulses or learning histories rather than personal choices. In response tothese concerns, a so-called third force was born. The humanistic approach(sometimes, perhaps incorrectly, referred to as existential orphenomenological
psychology) paints a much different picture of our species.
A key distinction between the humanistic approach and other theories of
personality is that people are assumed to be largely responsible for their
actions. Although we sometimes respond automatically to events and may at
times be motivated by unconscious impulses, we have the power to determineour own destiny and to decide our actions at almost any given moment. We
have free will. Jim Morrison may have found himself under tremendous
pressure and difficulties, but how he responded to that situation was his ownThe Humanistic Approach 275