During the 1950s, humanistic psychology, incorporating principles of Gestalt psychology, developed in reaction to behaviorism and psychoanalysis. In the early 1960s, less than two decades before the 100th anniversary of the formal founding of psychology, a so-called third force developed within American psychology. This “third force” is referred to as humanistic psychology but at first, it was not intended to be a revision or adaptation of any current school of thought, as was the case with some Neo-Freudian positions. Humanistic psychology emphasized human strengths …show more content…
The treatment process is mainly the responsibility of the patient; the therapist assumes a non-direct role to assist the individual by Increasing self-esteem and a larger openness to experience are the two main goals of this type of therapy. The success of client centered therapy depends largely on the attitude of the therapist, who must exhibit three intertwining attitudes for client centered therapy to be affective for the individual. Rogers believed that people must choose to guide their lives by their own interpretation and must strive actively to improve ourselves (Shultz). These attributes include congruence, unconditional positive regard for the individual, and empathy. These three attributes will assist in allowing the participant to feel comfortable in being themselves during therapy without judgment by the therapist. During the entire therapy session, the therapist must also have an emotional understanding and sensitivity of the client’s feelings (csun.edu, simplypsychology.org). Carl Rogers rejected deterministic nature of both psychoanalysis and behaviorism. Roger’s identified five characteristics of a fully functioning individual include being open to experience of various types of emotions and working through them, confidence in decisions and feelings, creativity and ability to adjust and evolve, and live a fulfilled …show more content…
The humanistic psychology movement became formalized with its own journal, association, and division of the APA, as stated in our text “A History in Modern Psychology.”. It began in 1961, the American Association for Humanistic Psychology in 1962, and the Division of Humanistic Psychology of the APA in 1971. The Humanistic Psychologist became the division’s official journal in 1989, and in 1986 the humanistic psychology archive was established at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Thus the distinguishing traits of a cohesive school of thought were evident. Humanistic psychologists offered a definition of psychology distinct from the other two forces in the field (behaviorism and psychoanalysis), and they possessed what every other school of thought boasted in its early days—a passionate conviction that theirs was the best path for psychology. The reasons humanistic psychology remained separate from the accepted body of psychological thought were due most of the humanistic psychologists were in clinical research practices instead of identifying these practices within universities and another reason is the timing and impact of the humanistic psychology protest.. At its peak—the 1960s and early 1970s—humanistic psychologists were attacking positions that they believed were no longer influential in psychology. Although humanistic psychology