Proponents of Humanistic Therapy

Carl Rogers

SELF-ACTUALIZATION

Carl Rogers rejected the claims of both behaviorism (which claimed behavior was the
result of conditioning) and psychoanalysis (which focused on the unconscious and
biological factors), instead theorizing that a person behaves in certain ways because of
how he or she perceives a situation and that only people themselves can know how they
perceive things.
Rogers believed that people have one basic motive, the propensity to self-actualize.

SELF-ACTUALIZATION: When a person fulfills their potential and becomes fully-

functioning, achieving the highest level of “human-beingness.”

IDEAL SELF: This is what a person would like to be. This includes goals and ambitions,
and is always changing.
In its most basic form, self-actualization can be understood by using the metaphor of a
flower. A flower is constrained to its environment, and only under the right conditions will
it be able to grow to its full potential.
Of course, humans are much more complex than flowers. We develop according to our
personalities. Carl Rogers posited that people were inherently good and creative, and
only became destructive when external constraints or a poor self-concept superseded the
valuing process. Rogers claimed that a person with high self-worth, who has come close
to attaining their ideal self, would be able to face the challenges they encountered in life,
accept unhappiness and failure, feel confident and positive about his or herself, and be
open with others. In order to achieve high self-worth and a degree of self-actualization,
Rogers felt one must be in a state of congruence.
CONGRUENCE

If someone’s ideal self is similar to or consistent with their actual experience, then they
are experiencing a state of congruence. When there is a difference between someone’s
ideal self and their actual experience, this is known as incongruence.
It is very rare for a person to experience a complete state of congruence; but, Rogers
states, a person has a higher sense of worth and is more congruent when the self-image
(how one sees oneself) approaches the ideal self that a person is striving for. Because
people want to view themselves in ways that are compatible with their self-image, they
may begin to use defense mechanisms like repression or denial to feel less threatened
by feelings that might be considered undesirable.
Rogers also emphasized the importance of other people in our lives, believing that
people need to feel that they are regarded positively by others, because everyone
possesses an inherent wish to be respected, valued, loved, and treated with affection.
Rogers broke his idea of positive regard into two types:

1. Unconditional positive regard: When people are loved and respected for who they are,
especially by their parents, significant others, and therapist. This leaves a person
unafraid to try new things and to make mistakes, even if the consequences of these
mistakes are not good. When a person can self-actualize, he or she usually receives
unconditional positive regard.
2. Conditional positive regard: When people receive positive regard not because they
are loved and respected for who they are, but because they behave in ways others
think are correct. For example, when children get approval from their parents because
they behave the way their parents want them to act. Someone who always seeks
approval from others most likely experienced conditional positive regard when he or
she was growing up.

Abraham Maslow

HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

In 1943, Abraham Maslow first introduced the world to his hierarchy of needs, which is
most often expressed as a pyramid. According to Maslow, needs play an important role
in motivating a person to behave a certain way. The more basic a need is, the lower it is
on the pyramid; and the more complex a need is, the higher it is on the pyramid. Needs
towards the bottom of the pyramid are more physical, and needs towards the top become
more psychological and social. In order to move up the pyramid, the levels must be
completed from the bottom up. The needs are as follows:

Physiological
The physiological needs are the needs that are most basic and vital to survival. All other
needs are secondary unless the needs in this category are met. These include the need
for food, water, air, sleep, homeostasis, and sexual reproduction.

Safety
The safety and security needs are needs that are also important for survival, but are
not as crucial as the physiological needs. This level of the model includes needs like
personal security—such as a home and a safe neighborhood—financial security, health,
and some form of safety net to protect against accidents, like insurance.

Love and Belonging

The love and belonging needs, also known as social needs, include a desire to belong,
be loved, feel accepted, and not be lonely. These needs are less basic than the first two
levels, and these needs can be met through friendships, romantic relationships, and
family, as well as by being involved in religious, social, or community groups and
organizations.

Esteem
Everyone has a need to be respected, valued by other people, and have a sense that
they are contributing to the world. Having high self-esteem and the respect of others can
lead to confidence, while low self-esteem and lack of respect from others can lead to
feelings of inferiority. One way people can feel valued and have high self-esteem is by
participating in professional activities, athletic teams, and hobbies, and through their
academic accomplishments.

Self-Actualization
 At the top of Maslow’s model is the need for self-actualization, or the need to realize
one’s full potential. In other words, a person must become everything that they are
capable of becoming. All other levels of Maslow’s model must be completed before one
can reach this level. While the need for self-actualization is broad, it is applied very
specifically. For example, a person could desire to be the best possible painter, or to be
an ideal father.

Different Types of Needs

Maslow identified different varieties of needs, as well as different levels. Deficiency

needs, or D-needs, are needs that arise out of deprivation (such as security needs, social
needs, esteem needs, and physiological needs). These needs are lower-level needs, and
must be satisfied in order to avoid feelings or consequences that are unpleasant. Growth
needs, also known as Being-needs or B-needs, are needs that arise out of a desire to
grow as a human being. Growth needs are not the result of deprivation.

Gordon Williard Allport

Allport’s Trait Theory

In 1936, Harvard psychologist Gordon Allport, who also taught the very first personality
psychology class in the United States, developed his trait theory of personality. Allport
went through the dictionary and searched for every term he felt described a personality
trait. With a list of over 4,500 words, Allport organized these traits into three categories:

1. Cardinal traits: Traits that control and define the entire personality of an individual. As
a result, these types of traits are often synonymous with the individual, and are very
rare. These traits include Christ-like, Narcissistic, and Machiavellian.
2. Central traits: Traits that are common. These include traits like friendliness, kindness,
honesty, etc.
3. Secondary traits: Traits that appear under particular conditions and circumstances.
For example, becoming nervous prior to giving a speech in public.

James F.T Bugental

 James Bugental emphasize a psychotherapeutic method that cultivates presence.
This important yet difficult to define therapeutic method deserves greater clarification due
to its role in effecting therapeutic change. The present study compared Bugental and
Yalom on selected presuppositions that relate to the cultivation of presence in order to
explore their influence on each man’s practice of existential psychotherapy. A
psychobiographical framework illuminated how their personal experiences influenced the
formation of these presuppositions. The present study revealed that the different
presuppositions, which Bugental and Yalom hold about existential psychotherapy,
influence each therapist’s theoretical understanding of the cultivation of presence, which
in turn shape how each practices existential psychotherapy. Although both therapists
concentrate more on process than on content, Bugental usually attends to the
intrapersonal processes of the client whereas Yalom often attends to the interpersonal
processes. The findings of the present study help explain current research related to the
significance of contextual factors in the therapeutic endeavor. The findings also highlight
the importance of clarifying therapeutic presuppositions and assumptions. Finally, the
findings illuminate the benefit of integrating intrapersonal and interpersonal approaches.

Charlotte Buhler
German-born Buhler founded the Vienna Institute of Psychology in 1922 with her
husband, Karl. Her studies of childhood personality and cognitive development expanded
to include the course of human development throughout life. Rather than Jung’s three
stages of life, she proposed four: birth. Buhler found links between adult emotions and
early childhood. Her World Test is a therapeutic device that uses a set of numbered
miniatures to reveal a child’s inner emotional world. After publishing From Birth to Maturity
(1935) and From Childhood to Old Age (1938), she moved to the US. In the 1960s, Bühler
helped to develop humanistic psychology.
Rollo May
In the mid-19th century, philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Frederick
Nietzsche, and Søren Kierkegaard challenged social dogma and demanded that people
expand their ways of thinking to incorporate a fuller understanding of human experience,
in a movement now known as existentialism. The notions of free will, personal
responsibility, and how we interpret our experience were all of interest to the
existentialists, who wanted to ask what it means, fundamentally, for a human to exist.
Psychologist Rollo May’s The Meaning of Anxiety (1950) brought this human-centerd
philosophical approach into psychology for the first time, and May is often referred to as
the father of existential psychology.
An existential approach
May viewed life as a spectrum of human experience, including suffering as a
normal part of life, not as a sign of pathology. It is self-evident that as human beings, we
tend to seek experiences that allow us to be comfortable. We enjoy our familiar
environments, and favor experiences that keep the mental and physical senses in a state
of balance and ease. This tendency, however, leads us to judge and label experiences
as “good” or “bad,” depending only on the levels of pleasure or discomfort they may bring.
May says that in doing so, we do ourselves a disservice, since we are fighting against
processes that lead to immense growth and development if we can accept them as a
natural part of life. May proposes an approach to life that echoes Buddhist thought, where
we accept all forms of experience equally, rather than shunning or denying those we
judge to be uncomfortable or unpleasant. We also need to accept our “negative” feelings,
rather than avoid or repress them. Suffering and sadness are not pathological issues to
be “fixed,” he says; they are natural and essential parts of living a human life, and are
also important because they lead to psychological growth.

Gardner Murphy

Murphy laid out parameters for parapsychological science in an entry for

the Encyclopedia of Psychologyin 1946 that remains relevant today:

The most prominent concern of psychical research today may be said to be (a) the
study of those psychological and physiological conditions under which paranormal
phenomena, spontaneous or experimental, appear; (b) the devising of special
experiments which will give maximum opportunity for these special conditions to manifest
themselves; (c) the resulting development of a consistent repeatable technique; (d) the
discovery by all these means of the laws or principles underlying the phenomena; (e) the
eventual construction of a system of knowledge which will bind these principles together,
so that all of the various types of paranormal phenomena will make a meaningful whole,
internally coherent and in meaningful and intelligible contact with the general laws of
psychology.
Murphy saw psychology and parapsychology as sister fields, and maintained that
each has received – and should continue to receive – major contributions from the
other. For instance, in a presidential address to the SPR given on June 8, 1949, he
explores the questions of

 whether psi is a rare gift found only in a few individuals or a latent ability in all (he
sees the latter as well-supported by lab evidence)
 what psychological traits are conducive to it manifesting (ease of dissociation and
automatism are two he posits)
 whether belief in psi ability affects psi testing results (it does, to the point that
people who disbelieve score worse than chance, using their psi abilities to attempt
to prove they have none, as demonstrated by the ‘sheep and goats’ experiment)
 how much the working atmosphere influences psi test results (significantly, in his
view)
 the importance of interpersonal relationships between agents, percipients and
experimenters in psi testing (he sees it as crucial).

He gives advice for productive collaboration between the two fields:

I would suggest the experiment of looking upon personality as the same subject
matter whether it happens to be studied by psychologists or by psychical researchers;
that we regard the paranormal as emerging from lawful and ultimately intelligible factors
operative within normal personalities; that we regard psychical research and general
psychology as interpenetrating and at times fusing, and always sharing outlooks and
methods; and finally, since all psychological phenomena are to some degree
individualized, that we make the most of all of those methods by which individuality may
be studied with a view of trying to understand individual paranormal gifts…
Murphy believed that the existence of telepathy and clairvoyance had been amply
established by spontaneous cases and laboratory evidence. He wrestled with the
 question of survival, impressed by some of the best evidence - he could not deny certain
apparitional and mediumistic records showed a strong and consistent intent to
communicate on the part of the dead - but was never fully convinced that it might not be
explained in terms of psi in living minds. He chose to explain Ian Stevenson’s cases of
the reincarnation type in terms of the ‘psychons’ theory proposed by British psychical
researcher Whately Carington.

Murphy was steadfast in his insistence that mainstream psychology, and science
in general, should pay appropriate attention to rigorous parapsychological science instead
of dismissing it. ‘How far can any science get,’ he asked, ‘by laying down rules as to what
can and what cannot happen? ... The scientific challenge to create a kind of field theory
sufficiently open to provide a place for the main parapsychological findings still stands’.20

Henry Alexander Murry Jr.

MURRAY’S THEORY OF PSYCHOGENIC NEEDS

In 1938, Henry Murray came up with his theory of psychogenic needs. This theory
describes personality as being the result of basic needs that are found mostly at the
unconscious level. The two most basic types of needs are:

1. Primary needs: Biological needs like food, water, and oxygen.

2. Secondary needs: Psychological needs including the need to achieve, be nurtured, or
be independent.

Furthermore, Murray and his colleagues identified twenty-seven needs that he claimed
all people had (though each person has different levels of each need). The needs are:

 Abasement: The need to accept punishment and surrender

 Achievement: The need to succeed and be able to overcome obstacles
 Acquisition or Conservance: The need to attain possessions
 Affiliation: The need to make friendships and relations
 Aggression: The need to harm others
 Autonomy: The need to remain strong and resist others
 Blame avoidance: The need to obey rules and avoid blame
 Construction: The need to create and build
 Contrariance: The need to be unique
 Counteraction: The need to defend one’s honor
 Defendance: The need to justify one’s actions
 Deference: The need to serve or follow someone who is one’s superior
 Dominance or Power: The need to lead other people and control
 Exhibition: The need to draw attention
 Exposition: The need to educate and give information
 Harm avoidance: The need to avoid pain
 Infavoidance: The need to hide weaknesses and avoid shame or failure
 Nurturance: The need to protect those that are helpless
 Order: The need to organize, arrange, and be particular
 Play: The need to have fun, relax, and relieve tension or stress
 Recognition: The need to gain social status and approval by displaying one’s
achievements
 Rejection: The need to reject others
 Sentience: The need to enjoy sensuous experiences
 Sex or Erotic: The need to create and enjoy an erotic relationship
 Similance: The need to empathize with others
 Succorance: The need to obtain sympathy or protection
 Understanding or Cognizance: The need to ask questions, seek knowledge, analyze,
and experience

Murray believed that each individual need was important, but that needs could also be
interrelated, could support other needs, or could be in conflict with various other needs.
According to Murray, the way these needs are displayed in our behavior is, in part, due
to environmental factors, which Murray referred to as “presses.”

THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST

Murray’s Thematic Apperception Test attempts to tap into the patient’s unconscious,
evaluate patterns of thought, and reveal personality and emotional responses by showing
a person various ambiguous, but provocative, pictures and having them tell a story about
what they see in the picture. The basic outline of the test is as follows:

1. Have the participant look at the following picture for a few moments.
2. Based on the picture, instruct the participant to narrate a story and include:

• What led to the event you see in this picture?

• What is happening at this exact moment?

• What are the characters in the picture thinking and feeling?

• What is the outcome of this story?

The actual test involves thirty-one pictures that feature men, women, children, figures
of ambiguous gender, nonhuman figures, and one completely blank image.
The stories are recorded and then analyzed for underlying attitudes, needs, and
patterns of reaction. Two commonly used formal scoring methods include the Defense
Mechanisms Manual (otherwise known as DMM), which assesses denial, projection, and
identification; and the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (otherwise known as
SCORS), which analyzes different dimensions of the psyche in its environment.

Frederick S Perls

GESTALT THERAPY

Drawing upon the work of early Gestalt perceptual psychology, as well as several other
influences such as the work of Sigmund Freud, Karen Horney, and even the theatre,
husband and wife Frederick and Laura Perls created Gestalt therapy in the 1940s.
Much like Gestalt psychology focused on the whole, Gestalt therapy focuses on the
whole being of a person through items such as behavior, speech, posture, and how an
individual encounters the world.
Whereas early Gestalt psychology focused on foreground and background in the figure-
ground theory, Gestalt therapy uses the idea of foreground and background to help an
individual become self-aware. It helps them identify who they are in a background of
situations and emotions that remain unresolved.
COMMON GESTALT THERAPY TECHNIQUES

A common technique used in Gestalt therapy is that of role-playing. This helps an

individual work out a resolution to an otherwise unfinished situation or problem. The most
common role-playing technique used is the “empty chair technique,” where a person will
talk to an empty chair as if someone were sitting in it. This technique not only allows one
to vent, but also helps a person find new ways to solve their problems.
Gestalt therapy also places great emphasis on dream analysis, believing that dreams
can bring out the psychology of an individual as well as any trauma from the individual’s
past. A technique commonly used in Gestalt therapy is to have an individual write their
dreams down for two weeks, choose one that feels particularly important or significant,
and actually act it out. This allows a person to reconnect with parts of their experience
that have since been disowned.
Another common technique used in Gestalt therapy is hitting a sofa with soft bats or
padded sticks to release feelings of anger. By visualizing what you are angry about and
hitting it with the bats or sticks, you can release unproductive anger and move on to
focusing on your true self.
Lastly, one of the most famous Gestalt therapy techniques is also one of the simplest.
Because the idea behind Gestalt therapy is to become self-aware, one must first increase
their awareness. This can be done by saying “I am aware that … ” and defining oneself
in that way. You can say, “I am aware that I am sitting at my desk,” “I am aware that I feel
sad right now,” and so on. This technique helps keep a person in the present, separates
feelings from interpretations and judgments, and helps produce a clearer vision of how
that person understands himself or herself to be.
Kirk J. Schneider
Dr. Schneider developed the existential–integrative (EI) model of therapy drawing
in part on the inspiration of Rollo May and James Bugental (Schneider & May, 1995;
Schneider, 1998, 2003). EI therapy is one way to understand and coordinate a variety of
intervention modes—such as the pharmacological, the behavioral, the cognitive, and the
analytic—within an overarching ontological or experiential context.
EI was developed in part to augment the restrictive focus on medical, cognitive–
behavioral, or ego-based approaches in mainstream therapy training programs. It was
also conceived to counterbalance the sometimes monolithic focus of existential–
experiential practitioners and their students, and to reflect the manner in which many
existential–experiential facilitators actually practice.
EI therapy is facilitated by sensitive and timely efforts to "meet" clients "where they
live." Hence, in the case of a particularly fragile client, a supportive modality may be in
order; in the case of a client who is persistently intellectualizing, cognitive or dynamically
oriented approaches may be appropriate. Each therapeutic intervention can be helpful in
its own right; however, depending on clients' desires and capacities for change that which
Dr. Schneider terms "experiential" contact may be called for. Experiential contact is
frequently, although not necessarily, the culminating level within the EI model.
Depending on a client's desire and capacity for change, the EI therapist makes
available an experiential or "being" level of contact. This level stresses four overlapping
and intertwining dimensions:
 The immediate
 The kinesthetic
 The affective
 The profound or cosmic
These dimensions form the ground or horizon, within which each of the
aforementioned intervention modes operate, and they are the context for at least one
more clinically significant set of structures. These are, according to phenomenological
research, the capacities to constrict, expand, and center one's energies and experiences
(Schneider, 1999; Schneider & May, 1995, p. 139). Expansion is the perception of
bursting forth and extending psychophysiologically (e.g., cognitively, affectively, and
kinesthetically); whereas constriction is the perception of drawing back and confining
psychophysiologically. Centering, finally, is the capacity to be aware of and direct one's
constrictive or expansive potentialities.
Experiential liberation fosters the capacity to choose (or center oneself) within the
constrictive and expansive limits of living. Experiential liberation, in other words, is a
"reoccupation" project—mindfully assisting clients to reoccupy (embody, revisit) the
denied parts of themselves. The result of this reoccupation, ideally, is that clients are able
to maximally access themselves, and to respond to (rather than merely react against) the
sides of themselves that are estranged. Rollo May (Schneider & May, 1995, p. 171) called
this responsiveness "intentionality," which is one's whole-bodied orientation toward a
given direction or value. (This approach it should be noted, is quite distinct from—
although can clearly complement—today's prescriptive models of therapy).
Louis Hoffman
Louis Hoffman, PhD, is a faculty member and director of the Existential,
Humanistic, and Transpersonal Psychology Specialization at Saybrook University in
Oakland, California. He is also co-director of the Socially Engaged Spirituality certificate
at Saybrook as well as teaching in the Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrative Health
Specializtaion, Creativity Studies Specialization, and Transformative Social Change
Degree Program. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society
for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32 of the American Psychological Association), APA
Division 52 (International Psychology), APA Division 10 (Society for the Psychology of
Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts) and the Society for the Psychology of Religion and
Spirituality (APA Division 36). Areas of interest include existential and humanistic
psychology and psychotherapy, the history and philosophy of psychology, multicultural
and diversity issues, international psychology, and spiritual/religious issues in
psychology. He is a past-president of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, current
president of the Rocky Mountain Humanistic Counseling and Psychological Association
(RMHCPA), and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Humanistic
Psychology, The Humanistic Psychologist, and Janus Head. Additionally, Dr. Hoffman
serves as the co-editor-in-chief of the University Professors Press.

Beginning in 2007, Dr. Hoffman has traveled to China 1-2 times a year, frequently
bringing students along with him. These trips focus on existential psychology and the
psychology of religion. With Mark Yang and Xuefu Wang, he began the International
Conference on Existential Psychology, which began in 2010 and has been held every
other year in China since the first conference. Additionally, he co-founded the Zhi Mian
International Institute of Existential-Humanistic Psychology. The mission of the Zhi Mian
Institute’s mission is to facilitate culturally sensitive training in existential psychology in
Asia, including identifying and dialoguing with indigenous existential psychologies in Asia.
Paul T.P Wong
Meaning therapy (MT; Wong, 2010, 2016) is also known as meaning-centered
counseling and therapy (MCCT). It is based on Frankl’s logotherapy, but is extended to
integrate with cognitive-behavioral therapy and positive psychotherapy. Thus, it is a
pluralistic approach to counseling and therapy that focuses on the fundamental human
needs for meaning and relationship. It is a comprehensive way to address all aspects of
meaning in life concerns in a supportive therapeutic relationship (Vos et al., in press).
The motto for meaning therapy is, “Meaning is all we have; relationship is all we
need.” Meaning therapy assumes that when these two essential human needs are met,
individuals are more likely to cope better with their predicaments and live a more
rewarding life. When there is deficiency in these two areas, people will more likely
experience difficulties in life.
Meaning therapy favors a psycho-educational approach that recognizes the vital
role of meaning and purpose in healing, recovery, and well-being (Wong, 2012). It
appeals to the client’s sense of responsibility to make full use of their freedom to pursue
what really matters and what constitutes a rewarding future. Within this conceptual
framework, the therapist provides a safe and trusting environment that facilitates
collaborative effort and shared decision making in terms of preferred interventions, plans,
and goals. Both the assessment and intervention in meaning therapy makes full use of
empirically validated instruments and findings (Wong, 1998, 2015).
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