20 Jun 2022

309

Humanistic vs. Existential Psychotherapy: What's the Difference?

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In the " Psychological Data and Human Values " by Maslow, the author states that for many years, humanists have made attempts to develop a naturalistic, as well as a psychological value system, which could easily be derived from individual’s own nature without the necessity of recourse to authority outside an individual’s being. However, the author explains that many such theories have been offered throughout history but the fact is that they have not succeeded due to reasons related to mass practical purposes. As such, people have about as many scoundrels today that has never been experienced before. In addition, there are many more neurotics due to such inadequate theories. Nevertheless, most of them depend on various psychological assumptions, especially of one sort over the other. 

Currently, it is practical that all these can be demonstrated with regards to the recently acquired knowledge to be false, inadequate, and or rather incomplete in some way or another may be regarded as lacking ( Maslow, A. (1962) . However, Maslow argues that it is in his view that certain developments, especially in the science and art of psychology, in the last few years that makes it possible for individuals, particularly at the first instance to demonstrate a feeling of confidence that the current age-old gold may rather be achieved if only individuals can work very hard. In addition, the Maslow asserts that people understand to criticize the old theories and refine them and understand where to search and what to do to be able to fill any gap that may occur in the knowledge, will enable people to provide solutions to the old-age questions. For instance, answers are required to understand the meaning of life, things are good for people, and the approach to teach people to desire and prefer god life. 

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Further, Maslow states that there is need to understand how children should be brought up to live a good life in their adult life. Meaning that, people should be able to think that a scientific ethic may be perceived to be possible coupled with how to go about constricting the same. 

In " The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change " by Rogers, the author states that for many decades he has been engaged in psychotherapy with individual who ate in distress. However, he found out that he was increasingly concerned with various processes of abstracting from his experience the principles that seems to be involved with it ( Rogers, 1967) . In addition, Rodgers states that he worked hard to discover the orderliness or any form of unity that appears to be inherent in the subtle, as well as the complex tissue of interpersonal relationships that embodies and contains the phenomena of his personal experience. In addition, in the article the author also talks about a very small part of the theory and expounds on it thoroughly and highlights its meaning and benefits. However, the author argues that the problem is possible to state in terms that are clearly defined or spelt out. 

Rodgers also states that the problem needs a deep as well as a serious consideration. Further, the author also focuses on the conditions as well as the basic processes that are involved in personality change. Consequently, the author also emphasizes on the relationship. He argues that the first condition mainly specifies a minimal relationship, which is considered as a physical contact that has to exist. As such, Rodgers hypothesized that any significant positive personality change may not necessarily occur except in relationships. As such, it is only in such difficult extreme situations that will make it to be relatively easy to define the condition particularly in operational terms and to provide evidence whether such conditions do exist. In addition, the author argues that the first condition of a therapeutic changes is rather simple; hence and should be categorized as an assumption or rather a precondition to set it apart from the others that follow. 

In " Logotherapy and Existentialism " by Frankl, the author provides an analysis of the existentialism as an approach to psychotherapy, Franks provides a great respect for an individual’s life choices with therapeutically effective means. In the article, the author also offers a phenomenological approach that permits therapists to take all possible aspects of a person’s experience into consideration. The article is grounded originally in the anthropological concepts that were coined by Franks. Therefore, the article explores a discussion of the main historical events coupled with the contributions of Frankl. It also emphasizes on his psychological developments that were initiated by a brief discussion of Freud as well as Alders teachings. Frankl develops the tenets of his theory as well as therapy as well as logotherapy. It is stated that former maintains that a human’s principal motivation is not the source of power or gratification but the main intention is to focus on the purpose of existence ( Frankl, 2016). The author discusses various existential ideas including the ideas of noological dimensions coupled with existential frustration. The author concludes his paper by stating that logotherapy has various usages, especially in the contemporary medical, psychological, as well as in the modern business segments. 

According to Frankl, he insists that the primary concern of humanity is not to search for enjoyment or supremacy but rather to discover the meaning of existence. He objects the notion that individuals can be reduced to the Freudian notion of life and death but to promote the notion that individuals have the freedom of response even in situation that are disastrous. In literal terms, logotherapy refers to the type of therapy through meaning but is more than helping clients to find a better meaning in life. 

Based on the humanistic approach, the response began by the concerns of therapists against the perceived limitations of the psychodynamic theories, particularly psycho analysis. For instance, authors, such as Rodgers and Maslow felt that the theories were not fruitful. As such, they never succeeded to address various challenging issues such as the actual meaning of behavior coupled with the nature of a healthy growth and development. Nevertheless, the results were not considered to be simply variations from the psychodynamic theory, but rather considered as a fundamental new approach. 

In essence, there are several factors that may be applied to distinguish the humanistic approach from the existential approach, which comprises of the emphasis on the subjective meaning, which refers to a rebellion against determination coupled with a concern for a positive growth rather that pathology. Despite that fact that individuals may make arguments that the psychodynamic theories provide a vision of a healthy growth, there are various other characters that differentiate the approach from other approaches with the wider field of psychology. As such, it may be argued that most psychologists’ behaviors can only be understood in an objective manner. On the other hand, the humanists argue that the outcome of making a conclusion that people do not have the ability to understand their own behavior, the argument can only be understood in an objective manner. In addition, humanists, such as Rodgers posit that the meaning of behavior is essentially personal and subjective; they further argue that accepting the idea is not very scientific. The main reason is that all people are subjective in one way or another. They further reason that accepting the idea may not be considered to be scientific due to the fact that all people are subjective. For this reason, all the issues that emphasize on the humanistic approach should not be considered in subjective terms. 

Thus, a study on humanistic and existentialism can be applied in today’s research because of the many opportunities that are available. In addition, there are both theoretical as well as practical basis of existential analysis, In combination, they are a vital source of a future the current and future research since the existential analysis is concerned with individual’s conditions which is deemed as a perquisite in ascertaining the actual meaning of existence. Further, the analysis also deals with personal conditions, which are necessary for a meaningful co-existence in today’s world. 

References 

Frankl, V . (2016). Logotherapy and Existential Analysis: Proceedings of the Place of publication not identified: Springer.. 

Maslow, A. (1962). Toward a psychology of being, (pp. 141-156). Princeton, NJ, US: D Van 

Rogers, C., R. (1967). The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, Vol. 21, pp. 95–103. 

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StudyBounty. (2023, September 17). Humanistic vs. Existential Psychotherapy: What's the Difference?.
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