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Humanistic Psychology THE POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY MOVEMENT
(Sometimes called the "human strengths" movement)
In agreement with humanistic psychology, positivepsychologists argued that psychology has tended to:
Examine individuals suffering from distress
Use those experiences as their foundation for theorizing aboutpeople
End up with theories that emphasize the negative whileoverlooking human strengths
To rectify this, positive psychologists have tried toportray the nature of human strengths and virtues
Their methods are not primarily phenomenological, butare nomothetic and psychometrically based.
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Positive Emotions
The Virtues of Positive Emotions
Psychologists commonly have studied emotionssuch as fear, anxiety, and anger
Have devoted lesser attention to the role ofpositive emotions pride, love, happiness inpersonality development and functioning
There are dozens of theories of depression, buthardly a word, until recently, about happiness.
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Positive Emotions
Barbara Fredricksons broaden-and-build theoryofpositive emotions (Fredrickson, 2001)
Positive emotions broaden thought and actiontendencies by widening the range of
Ideas that come to mind
Actions that individuals pursue Interest leads people to pursue novel activities
Pride motivates one to continue activities
Positive emotions can further build humancompetencies and achievements
In short, positive emotions dont lead to contentmentand idleness, but rather motivate thought and actions.
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Flow: Congruence between skills andactivities
Developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; describes a
feature of conscious experience characterized by: A perceived match between personal skills and environmental
challenge
A high level of focused attention
Involvement in an activity such that time seems to fly by andirrelevant thoughts and distractions do not enter into
consciousness A sense of intrinsic enjoyment in the activity
A temporary loss of self-consciousness such that the self isnot aware of functioning or regulating activity
If skills are much higher than demands: boredom
If skills much lower than demands: frustration/aggression
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Existential Psychology The Darker Side of the Third Force
Most existentialpsychologists/therapists wereinfluenced by Heideggers existential
phenomenology. Europeans: Ludwig Binswanger
(Daseinanalysis), Viktor Frankl
Americans: Rollo May (founder), Irving
Yalom, Ernest Becker Each has distinctive emphasis, but
some common themes.
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Existentialist Themes
Freedom and Responsibility Phenomenologically, we are free.
Because we are free, we areresponsible for our lives (at least forour attitudes toward what befalls us).
Many people deny or relinquish theirfreedom (its my genes, its my
parents, its my environment).
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Existentialist Themes
Thrownness and the search formeaning
Here I am. What now? What does it
all mean? What shall I do? All existential psychologists
emphasize the importance of findinga meaning in life as a primary humanmotivation.
Without meaning, people will evengive up their lives.
http://books.google.com/books?id=K2AvZmco3E0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Viktor+Emil+Frankl&psp=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Victorfrankl.JPG8/14/2019 Existential 2009
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Viktor Frankl
Mans Search for Meaning (1946) Formerly: From Death Camp to Existentialism
In camps from 1942-1945: Both parents,brother, and wife died in camps.
In his books, Frankl describes his insights intohuman nature that grew out of hisobservations of his fellow camp prisoners
(and even the Nazi guards, etc). What did he observe about human
motivation?
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Viktor Frankl In camps, physiological, safety, belongingness, and
self-esteem needs threatened every day.
Many people lost the will to live (suicides common),or became selfish, greedy, & ruthless as Maslowmight have predicted.
Yet many endured, were kind and dignified through
it all, and even gave up many physiological andsafety needs for the sake of others.
In such cases, these actualized people had a deepspiritual and philosophical life, some eternalmeaning was driving them.
The will to meaning: People will sacrifice lower-level needs for the sake of something higher.
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Existential Themes Existential Anxiety
Anxiety produced by the burden offreedom. When we contemplate ourpossibilities and the necessity of choice.
Not a bad thing: existential anxiety canmotivate change.
Existential Guilt
A dull guilty feeling that we havesquandered our freedom, that we havewasted our lives.
Not guilt over a specific action (e.g., cursedmy mother), but over ones wholeexistence.
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Existential Themes
Death
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Existential Themes
Heidegger described human beings (Dasein)as beings-towards-death", in that ourfinitude is a horizon continually before us.
Human awareness of death can be a stimulus
for a deep search for meaningand no timeto waste.
But the anxiety created by reflection ondeath can also lead us to throw ourselves into
everydayness and busyness in anattempt to distract ourselves from reflection.
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Beware ofexistentialmeltdown
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Beckers Thesis:
The main thesis of this book is that the ideaof death, the fear of it, haunts the humananimal like nothing else; it is a mainspring ofhuman activity - activity designed largely toavoid the fatality of death, to over come it bydenying in someway that it is the final destinyfor man.
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Assumptions All animals experience fear and anxiety when
immediately threatened by death.
Humans are self-conscious, symbol-using animals whoare capable of being aware of death at every moment.
Such awareness, if constantly present before the mind,would lead to paralyzing anxiety and fear.
This fear is actually an expression of the instinct of self-preservation, which functions as a constant drive tomaintain life and to master the dangers that threaten it.The fear of death must be present behind all our normalfunctioning, in order for the organism to be armed towardself-preservation. But the fear of death cannot be presentconstantly in ones mental functioning, else the organismcould not function.
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How do we avoid paralysis?
We simply repress the fear of death, or usedefenses like intellectualization (understand
it abstractly, but keep the emotions fromsurfacing).
More generally, we adopt world-views (hero-systems, Immortality Projects) that give us
a sense of permanence and elevate our self-esteem. Culture provides a kind of symbolicimmortality.
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Becker and Freud
For Freud, the primary repressionsare sexual and destructive drives.
Culture and civilization are sublimations
of these drives. For Becker, the primary repression is
the fear of death.
Culture and civilization are attempts tocreate something of lasting value,something that transcends our personalmortality.
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How is personality formed in theexistential view?
Broadly, personality is shaped by what we invest withmeaning and pursue as an ultimate end.
Becker: fetishization whatever we elevate to ultimateimportance in creating meaning for our lives. A fetish is a segment of the world which has to bear the full load
of life meaning.
The individual has to protect himself against the world, and hecan do this only as any other animal would: by narrowing downthe world, shutting off experience, developing an obliviousnessboth to the terrors of the world and to his own anxieties.
Character is the restrictive shaping of possibility.
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Most men spare themselves this trouble[of the terrors of death] by keepingtheir minds on the small problems oftheir lives just as their society maps
these problems out for them. Theseare what Kierkegaard called the"immediate" menThey "tranquilizethemselves with the trivial" - and so
they can lead normal lives."
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Sren Kierkegaard
Enten-Eller[Either-Or] (1842)
Each person faces a choice betweenthree broad modes ofexistence:
The aesthetic mode
The ethical mode
The religious mode
erkegaard reflected on what peopleetishized, where they put ultimateportance in their lives
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Aesthetic Mode (Living for Oneself)
Beauty & Health
Wealth, status, and fame
Talent and genius
Crude hedonism (Eat, drink, & be merry;sex, drugs, & rock-n-roll)
Refined Hedonism:
Romanticism: Ironic detachment from life;avoid serious attachments and commitments.
Sophisticated amusements, life asinteresting, charming, poetic.
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Ethical Mode (Living for others)
A life of reason, duty, and socialresponsibility
Firm commitments to
Community and institutions
Political Causes
Social Welfare
Family and Children
Work and the future
Life as serious; actions judged by right orwrong, not amusing vs. dreary.
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Are these satisfactory?
Kierkegaard presented the best of both modes ofexistence. He believed that neither was satisfactory, bothended in despair.
Ethical Mode: Life of duty and social roles can end infeelings of being smothered, trapped, questioning what
might have been. (existential guilt) Aesthetic Mode: Life of detachment and hedonism can end
in emptiness, boredom, lack of selfhood. Pleasures do notlast (satiation); one can grow perverse, needing moreshocks to the nervous sytsem to feel alive. Aestheitic aimsare ultimately outside your freedom and control.
We have looked at neurosis as a problem of character andhave seen that it can be apprehended in two ways: as aproblem of too much narrowness toward the world or toomuch openness. There are those who are too narrowlybuilt-into their world, and there are those who are floating
too freely apart from it.--Becker
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Religious Mode
Commitment to God (The Eternal)
Only religious existing can conquer dread;all worldly activities must be placed in an
eternal perspective. From the religious perspective, one can be
ethical and one can be detached, butthese are relative, not ultimate, values.
Fetishizing anything other than God isidolotry (Thou shalt have no other gods.)
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Terror ManagementTheory
Experimental Existentialism Terror management theory (TMT) of Solomon,
Greenberg, and Pyszczynski examines theconsequences of the combination of two factors: 1. Peoples desire to live (which people share with all
other animals) 2. Peoples awareness of the inevitability of death (an
awareness that is uniquely human)
Social and cultural institutions protect against terror by
furnishing 1) meaning in life and
2) a way to achieve self-esteem (living up to thestandards and values of the culture)
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TMT
TMTs implications:
If cultural beliefs buffer against fear ofdeath, and if people are induced to thinkabout death, then they should display astronger-than-usual need to posses and
to defend their cultural beliefs Over 200 studies have shown that this is
so.
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Terror Management Theory
The Mortality Salience ParadigmTwo groups of participants, randomly assigned to
conditions:
One group is asked to write about what they think willhappen when they die and their feelings about it
This is done to activate, or warm up the concept of death. This is called the Mortality Salience condition
The other group (control group) writes about somethingunrelated (e.g., favorite TV show)
Later, both groups rate their degree of commitment to
various values and belief systems, or Rate their liking or disliking of people who support or
oppose their values or beliefs.
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Terror Management
Those in mortality salience conditions,compared to controls, show more attachmentto their culture and previously held ideas.
More nationalism
More liking for ingroup members; more hostility to outgroupmembers
More donations to charities
Harsher sentences for criminals
Liberals become more liberal, conservatives more conservative
Among young people, more attachment to youth culture
Among religious people, more attachment to religious faith;among non-religious, more attachment to materialism.
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Existential Approaches toTherapy
Much variability among different existentialtherapists.
Most existential therapists are not technique-oriented.Freely draw techniques from other orientations.
Some existential therapists resemble psychoanalysts,
using interpretations, offering insights, pointing outdefenses.
But the insights are based on philosophical viewsabout the nature of human existence.
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Common to ExistentialTherapies
Understand the clients subjective world
Challenged clients to take responsibility forhow they choose to be, decide how theywant to be different, and take actions.
Major themes in therapy sessions areanxiety, freedom, isolation, death, and thesearch for meaning.
Assist client in facing life with courage,hope, and a willingness to find meaning inlife.
Frankls Logotherapy:
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Frankl s Logotherapy:Techniques
A type of existential therapy that focuses onchallenging clients to search for meaning in their lives.
Dereflection: Too much self-attention and ruminationcan intensify anxiety and symptoms. Hyper-self-consciousness can interfere with spontaneous activity. Dereflection is an attempt to move clients focus away from
their fears, obsessions, and troubles to other, external issues.
Paradoxical intention: A therapeutic strategy in whichclients are instructed to engage in and exaggeratebehaviors they seek to change, often to the point oflaughter. By prescribing the symptom, therapists help clients achieve
distance from symptoms.
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Commonalities of Existential andHumanistic Approaches
Both influenced by Husserls phenomenology.
Both view the conscious self as the primarypsychological structure.
Both emphasize the integrity of the person as a
whole (rather than a collection of mechanisms)
Both emphasize the present and the future ratherthan dwelling on the past.
Both emphasize the therapeutic relationship as a
key factor in treatment.
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Differences between Existentialand Humanistic Approaches
Humanistic Existential
Human nature is basically good. Human nature contains thepossibility of good or evil.
Personality depends primarily onthe social environment
(unconditional regard, empathy,genuineness, etc.)
Personality depends upon choicesand commitments freely made by
the person.
The true self must be discovered(finding oneself)
The self must be created(making oneself)
Therapist is entirely non-directive,reflecting back what the clientexpresses.
Therapist can sometimes challengeclients assertions (e.g., aboutwhether they have choices in agiven situation, or whether theirbehavior is a defensive response toexistential anxiety).
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