Subject PSYCHOLOGY Paper No and Title Paper No 5: Personality Theories

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Subject

PSYCHOLOGY

Paper No and Title

Paper No 5: Personality Theories

Module No and Title Module Tag
Module No 19: Introduction to Humanistic-Existential Approach PSY_P5_M19

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Learning Outcomes 2. Introduction
2.1 Humanistic psychology 2.3 Existential psychology
3. Humanistic theories of personality

3.1 Maslow’s theory 3.2 Roger’s theory

4. Existential views on personality
4.1 Swiss School of Dasein analysis
4.1.1 Ludwig Binswanger 4.1.2 Medard Boss
4.2 Viennese School of Logotherapy
4.2.1 Viktor Frankl
4.3 American branch of existentialism
4.3.1 Rollo May
6. Summary

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Paper No 5: Personality Theories MODULE No.19:Introduction to Humanistic –Existential Approach

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1. Learning Outcomes

After studying this module, you shall be able to

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Know the background of humanistic and existential psychology Learn about the factors contributing to the emergence of these schools of psychology Identify the contributions of different humanistic and existential psychologists

2. Introduction

2.1 Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic psychology is a part of the third force movement in contemporary psychology. It emerged as a school of thought in psychology in reaction to the pessimistic views held by behaviorism and psychoanalysis about human nature. The term “humanistic” was first given by

Abraham Maslow “to describe a position that focuses on the creative potentialities inherent in human beings, and that seeks ways to help them realize their highest and most important goals”

(Ryckman, 2007, pg.417). The major theme of all humanistic theories is that all of us have an innate tendency to grow which helps us to move towards the realization of our inner potentialities, given that the environment is conducive. Different theorists have given different names to this innate growth process, such as the drive towards self-actualization, self-realization and selfhood.

The roots of humanistic school of thought can be found in the writings of Maslow, Rogers, Jung, Kohut, Horney and Allport. They emphasized on the uniqueness of individuals and said that every person has a free will that they must exercise to make the choices in their lives. Instead of society controlling them, it is important that they govern their own lives and take responsibility of their own choices. When society tries to coerce individuals into behaving what is considered as appropriate and normal, it can stifle a person’s personal growth and the result is an average law abiding citizen, who obeys the moral diktats of the majority without any question (Ryckman, 2007). They believe that each individual strives for happiness and creativity, and excellence in his/her pursuits. They also believe that it is possible to specify a specific set of values, which are rooted in biology, that would allow people to choose what is right and wrong, instead of relying on the moral standards set by the society.

Humanistic school of thought raised many questions on the tenets of orthodox psychology. Firstly, they challenged mainstream psychology’s views about human beings, especially the assumptions that behaviorism and psychoanalysis made about human nature. They said that traditional psychology presents a very limited and partial view about human functioning, which needs to be revised. Special focus should be given to the formation and development of human personality. As Maslow pointed out, Freud only paid attention to the unconscious forces that shape human personality and ignored the rational, conscious processes. Similarly, Watson and Skinner defined human personality in terms of learning and believed that it is shaped by the external forces; whereas most humanists believe that human personality is innate and remains stable. They also said that psychology should focus on topics like love, affiliation, creativity, spontaneity and personal growth, which have largely been ignored in mainstream psychology. Secondly, they pointed out that in the

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process of treating psychology as a natural science and using methods consistent with the study of physics, chemistry, and biology, psychologists have lost out on the full range of human experience and behavior, which are vital to understand human beings in their true essence. They believed that by adopting this naturalistic approach, we tend to degrade the worth of the individual and his or her inner potential. Rather we should develop a science of psychology which focuses within the individual.

Although humanistic theories differ widely in concepts, there are some common elements that constitute the major tenets of this school of thought:

1. The experiencing person is of primary interest. Humans are not simply objects of study;

they must be understood in terms of their own subjective view of the world, their perceptions of self and their feelings of self-worth. Immediate, personal, subjective experience is considered as a major determinant of behaviour.
2. Focus is on the present. Although the importance of past experiences is not denied, the focus is on the present. Past influences are important only to the extent that they have

brought the person to the present situation. Past experiences don’t shape the entire adult

lives and the capacity to go on is both real and powerful.
3. Emphasis is on personal growth. People have a need to develop their potentials and capabilities. Once freed from negative situational conditions, the actualizing tendency should actively guide people to choose life-enhancing situations. Thus, growth and selfactualization are the criteria of psychological health, not merely ego control or adjustment to the environment.
4. Personality is viewed as holistic. People are not seen as the sum of discrete traits that each

influence behaviour in different ways. People’s separate acts are explained in terms of

their entire personalities.
5. Emphasis is on personal responsibility. Each of us is largely responsible for what happens to us. Our fate is mostly in our own hands; we are not merely chips driven here and there by dark forces within our personalities.

6. Ultimate value is placed on the innate qualities and dignity of the person. People are

basically good and possess inherent positive qualities. The objective of psychology is to understand, not to predict or control people.
7. Focus is directly on improvement. The goal of psychology is to make life more palatable
– not to dredge up painful memories that are sometimes better left repressed. Emphasis is

on the person’s ability to grow to higher levels of functioning.

2.2 Existential Psychology

The term existentialism has been defined as a philosophical movement which emphasized on how

an individual’s existence is “characterized by a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world” (Solomon, 1974). Soren Kierkegaard is considered as

the first existentialist philosopher, but he did not use the term existentialism. He talked about the basic realities of human existence, or Dasein. Thus, existentialism as a school of thought is concerned with the nature of being.

Existentialism has been interpreted by various psychologists and philosophers in different ways. But there are some common elements that constitute the major tenets of this school of thought:

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1. Existentialists believe that existence take precedence

over essence. The term existence here means ‘to

emerge’ or ‘to become’, while essence refers to a static state (Feist & Feist, 2008). Thus, existence connotes change and development, while essence signifies finality or saturation.
2. Existentialists believe that humans are both subjective and objective and they must lead an authentic and active life to search the truth of their existence (Feist & Feist, 2008). They oppose the split between the subject and the object.
3. Humans are always searching for the meaning of their existence. They are consciously or unconsciously asking questions related to their being like, Who am I? What is the purpose of my life? What does humanity mean to me?
4. Humans are themselves the reason of what they are and what they become. Though they form healthy and productive interpersonal relationships with others, ultimately they are alone. The choices that they make in their lives are solely theirs.
5. Existentialists believe that theories tend to dehumanize individuals and objectify them.
Thus, they are strongly against theories. For them, authentic experiences matter more than the artificial explanations of the human nature.

The major applications of existentialism to personality and psychotherapy have come from the work of the people who have been trained in classical psychoanalysis. One of these individuals was Rollo May, who believed that an individual can be understood in terms of his subjective sense of self. Abnormal behavior arises from the need to protect this sense of subjective self from the outer threats. So, the person may give up on his self-growth in order to protect whatever little being is left.

3.Humanistic theories of personality

3.1 Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow is considered to be one of the important proponents of humanistic psychology. He criticized psychology for its pessimistic and negative outlook about human nature. Most of his findings are based upon his investigations of healthy and creative persons. According to him, all humans are inherently good, capable and creative beings, who have a free will and an urge to grow, develop and unfold their inner potentials. He proposed a theory of hierarchy of needs that includes– physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs and selfactualization needs. These needs are arranged in a hierarchical manner, with self-actualization at the top of the pyramid. Lowest needs are more dominant than higher needs. As the lower needs get fulfilled, they give way to the higher ones. Lower needs arise from a deficit in the person and higher needs arise from the person’s striving for personal growth. He also did extensive study on self-actualizing individuals who have reached their inner potential. Their development proceeds from within rather than from without. They are independent, spontaneous, realistically oriented, empathizing and creative people whose lives are often centered around the mankind.

3.2 Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers views human beings as rational beings who are not controlled by their unconscious forces. His approach was based on the concept of phenomenology i.e. understanding the person with reference to his immediate, conscious experience. He believed that human beings show many

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positive characteristics and move, over the course of their life, toward becoming fully functional persons. As children engage in this process, they begin to view their own behaviour as a separate entity. This self-experience develops into a self-concept – which consists of all the ideas, perceptions and values that characterize ‘I’ or ‘me’. The individual evaluates every experience (termed as phenomenal field) in relation to this perceived self and if there is incongruence between the two, he must defend himself/herself against the truth. If the incongruence becomes too great, the defenses may breakdown, resulting in severe anxiety or other forms of emotional disturbance. The well-adjusted person, in contrast, has a self-concept that is consistent with thought, experience and behaviour. Similarly, incongruence between the real self and the ideal self – conception of the kind of person one would like to be – also results in an unhappy, dissatisfied person.

Rogers maintained that people are likely to be fully functioning, congruent people if they are brought up with unconditional positive regard – this means that they feel themselves valued by parents and others even when their feelings, attitudes and behaviours are less than ideal. According to Rogers, this need for positive regard is universal and persistent. If parents offer only conditional positive regard – valuing the child only when he/she behaves, thinks or feels correctly, the child is likely to distort his/her self-concept. Unfortunately, Rogers observed that many children are raised with conditional positive regard. People treated with conditional positive regard begin to suppress or deny their feelings or actions that they believe are unacceptable to those they love. This results in low self-regard, inaccurate perceptions of reality, defensiveness, depression and unhappiness.

4.Existential Theories of Personality

4.1 Swiss School of Dasein Analysis 4.1.1 Ludwig Binswanger

Ludwig Binswanger was the first person to combine the combine the existential and phenomenological ideas. In his 1942 book, Basic Forms and the Realization of Human "Being-inthe-World", he explained that existential analysis is an empirical science that involves an anthropological approach to the individual essential character of being human. Binswanger saw Husserl's concept of lifeworld as a key to understanding the subjective experiences of his patients, considering that "in the mental diseases we face modifications of the fundamental structure and of the structural links of being-in-the-world" (Binswanger, 1942). For Binswanger, a person during mental illness alters his experience of time, space, body sense and social relationships.

Binswanger contributed much to the idea of existence in the school of existential psychology. He believed that human existence was complex in that one has control over how one exists. He pointed out that humans have the choice of existing in whichever way they want. He therefore believed that such an existence "transcends the being," making the being accessible to itself in numerous different outcomes in life based on the existential path one chooses (Binswanger, 1958). In addition to this belief, Binswanger also thought that every person has a unique personality which can be observed only by looking at it holistically.

Binswanger argued that there are three modes of existence that separate humans and non-humans:

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Umwelt: It can apply to both non-human animals and humans. It is the relationship between the organism and its environment. However, according to Binswanger, non-human animals cannot possess the world as humans do. Mitwelt: It refers to the world that we share with other human beings as a result of our interaction with them. This mode of existence mainly applies to humans in terms of their social relationships.

Eigenwelt: It refers to the relationship that a person has with himself. It includes a person’s

subjective experiences. It is the most difficult to grasp because of the ambiguity of its definition.

4.1.2 Medard Boss

According to Boeree (1998), Boss “feels that the idea of people coming to the world with preformed expectations distracts from the more basic existential point that the world is not

something we interpret, but something that reveals itself to the "light" of Dasein.” Boeree (1998) further noted that the analogy of light played an important role in Boss’s theory. Boss viewed

Dasein as a lamination which brought things into light. This idea has a profound effect on how Boss understood things like psychopathology, defenses, therapeutic style, and the interpretation of

dreams. “Defensiveness, for example, is a matter of not illuminating some aspect of life, and

psychopathology is analogous to choosing to live in the darkness” (Boeree, 1998). Medard Boss developed a form of psychotherapy called Daseinanalysis, which united the psychotherapeutic practice of psychoanalysis with the existential-phenomenological philosophy

of Martin Heidegger. Therapy, according to Boss, involved ‘letting things go’, which he called

Gelassenheit. He believed that most of try to hold on to our lives in trying to control it. But this life is too much for us. Instead, we should trust our fates more and go with flow. “Instead of keeping

the light of Dasein tightly focused, we should let it shine more freely” (Boeree, 1998).

Boss concentrated on Heidegger's concept of existentials, the things in life that we all have to deal with. He was interested, for example, in how people see space and time -- not the physical space and time, but human space and time, personal space and time. He was also interested in how we relate to our bodies. He gave the concept of "bodying forth." It means that a person’s openness to the world will be expressed by his bodily openness and his extension of his body out into this world (Boeree, 1998). He also concentrated on humans relate to others. He believed that humans are not just confined to their bodies; rather human existence is a shared existence through which each person tries to illuminate the other by sharing their experiences. A particularly "Bossian" concern

is mood or attunement. As Boeree (1998) noted, “Boss suggests that while we are always

illuminating the world, we sometimes illuminate one thing more than another, or illuminate with different hues”.

4.2 Viennese School of Logotherapy 4.2.1 Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl set forth the system of thought called the Logotherapy. Human need for a purposeful

or a meaningful existence is the core idea in Frankl’s system. Frank argued that this is need is easily

frustrated, and this frustration can sometimes be caused by the very systems of psychology and

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philosophy that have been designed to alleviate the human suffering. For instance, he said that human beings may experience despair and meaninglessness if they are taught that they are nothing more than a product of conditioning or that their mind is only governed by the play of unconscious forces. Though he recognized that some human problems can stem from maladaptive conditioning of behavior or frustration of instinctual drives such as sex, he still argued that most human problems are caused by

the individual’s inability to find meaning in his or her life. Thus, in addition to psychogenic

neuroses (those that result from the frustration of basic drives), there are what Frankl calls noogenic neuroses, which refers to the neuroses that result from existential distress and a failure to find a worth in life.

Frankl devised a therapeutic intervention system to treat the noogenic neuroses, which he called the Logotherapy. The term ‘logos’ is a Greek word, which means reason or a controlling principle (Viney, 2009). Thus, Logotherapy seeks to assist the individual in discerning his or her logos or reason for existence. It assumes that humans have the capacity to work at a metalevel which transcends the day-to-day events of life. For instance, during his time at a Nazi concentration camp, Frankl observed that some people could somehow find meaning in their suffering and those who found this meaning were more likely to be the survivors. Thus, when we find ourselves in worst possible circumstances, there is an arena in which we have to make the choice about how we see the situation (Frankl, 1985). We can take a stance towards our suffering, or looking it in a larger context, or we can find some positive and meaningful goal that it may serve.

Frankl believed that humans have a capacity for what he called paradoxical intention. This refers to the ability to do the very opposite of what we are most likely to do. For example, people who have an irrational fear, like the fear of dog, may consciously do the very thing that they fear (by going near the dog and trying to show him some affection). Upon several repetitions, the fear may subside. Frankl believed that the capacity for a defiant or even heroic stance is hidden in all of us. It is a unique feature of humans.

In Logotherapy, the practitioner works on the meaning orientation by helping the client to search for alternative perspectives. The purpose of the Logotherapy is to help clients find the range of possible meanings of their suffering relevant to their situation. Frankl rejected the idea that there is one universal meaning orientation relevant to the clients. Rather, all individuals must authentically look for possible meaning in their situation. Thus, he rejected imitations, secondhand interpretations and rationalizations in the favor of a truly genuine quest.