much psychology had contributed to th e understanding of human behavior.
He became determined “to prove that human beings are capable of some-
thing grander than war and prejudice and hatred ”(as cited in Hall, 1968,
p. 55).
Promoting their new ideas about human behavior became a life ’s work
for Rogers and Maslow. Their writings found a receptive audience among
psychologists also bothered by the limitations and deficiencies they saw in
other approaches. We will review the theories of both of these men after firstidentifying some of the key elements of the humanistic approach.
KEY ELEMENTS OF THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH
Describing humanistic psychology is difficult because there is no agreed-upon
definition of what constitutes a humanistic personality theory. This was made
obvious in the 1960s and early 1970s when it seemed nearly everyone identi-fied himself or herself as “humanistic ”in an effort to capitalize on the popu-
larity of the approach. As a result, humanistic psychology sometimes wasassociated with faddish therapies that promised to solve problems and providethe key to happiness for the price of a paperback book. Efforts to exploit the
humanistic association have faded as the public ’s fascination with humanistic
psychology has declined. But there remain a large number of psychologists —
especially psychotherapists —who identify with this perspective. Although no
clear criteria exist for identifying which approaches to psychotherapy fall
into the humanistic category, it is safe to say that the following four elementsare central to the general viewpoint to which we apply the “humanistic ”label:
(1) an emphasis on personal responsibility, (2) an emphasis on the “here and
now,”(3) a focus on the phenomenology of the individual, and (4) an empha-
sis on personal growth.
Personal Responsibility
Although we may try to deny it, we are ultimately responsible for what hap-
pens to us. This idea, borrowed from exi stential philosophers, is central to
the humanistic approach to persona lity and is illustrated in the way we
commonly use the phrase “I have to. ”We say, “I have to go to class, ”“I
have to meet some friends, ”“I have to take care of my children,” and so
forth. But the truth is that we don ’thave to do any of these. Within limits,
there is practically nothing we have to do. Humanistic psychologists argue
that our behaviors represent personal choices of what we want to do at a
particular moment. People choose to remain in relationships; they do not
have to. We choose to act passively; we could decide to act forcefully. We
choose to go to work, call our friends, leave a party, or send a Christmas pres-
ent. We do not have to do any of these things. The price we pay for makingsome of these choices can be steep, but they are choices nonetheless.
Unlike the Freudian or behavioral descriptions of people at the mercy of
forces they cannot control, humanistic psychologists see people as active sha-
pers of their own lives, with freedom to change limited only by physical con-
straints. A typical goal of humanistic psychotherapy is for clients to acceptKey Elements of the Humanistic Approach 277