Talk:Humanistic psychology - Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Wikipsyguy (talk | contribs) at 02:26, 22 August 2010 (→The development of the field). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 02:26, 22 August 2010 by Wikipsyguy (talk | contribs) (→The development of the field)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Psychology B‑class High‑importance

	Psychology portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Psychology on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PsychologyWikipedia:WikiProject PsychologyTemplate:WikiProject Psychologypsychology
B	This article has been rated as B-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Alternative medicine B‑class

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative medicine, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Alternative medicine related articles on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Alternative medicineWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative medicineTemplate:WikiProject Alternative medicineAlternative medicine
B	This article has been rated as B-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.

Philosophy: Social and political / Continental Start‑class

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Misplaced Pages.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy

Start

This article has been rated as Start-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.

???

This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Associated task forces:
/
	Social and political philosophy
	Continental philosophy

Plagiarized Material?

"The issues underlying the Humanistic Approach, and its differences from other approaches, are discussed more fully in the text, but the sources below provide useful supplementary information. One point worth noting: if you want to fully grasp the nature of the Humanistic Approach, you cannot consider it in abstract terms. Instead, you must consider if and how the ideas connect to your own experience--for that is how humanistic psychologists believe the meaning of behavior is derived." This is copyrighted material taken from: http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/openup/approach/huminist.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clepine (talk • contribs) 20:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the whole "Introduction to the Approach" section which was added in edits by 203.197.252.210 on 22 April 2008 is identical to William E Glassman's text, also on . On the assumption that the Tata user is not the original author, I'm going to delete the section. AllyD (talk) 19:48, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Examples of qualitative research are needed

Humanistic psychologists certainly do not use all the methods described as qualitative. Trontonian 03:47, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I added an article about qualitative psychological research and lnked to it. It's essentially a stub; I tried to be NPOV but it needs some contributions from people who are more involved in the topic than I. Trontonian 03:18, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Re-edit

I have done a re-edit of the article, including the establishment of three main headlines. The article still needs a lot of work; more academic reference material, more elaboration of humanistic theory and epistemology. I hope to look into the matter soon. --Hawol 14:58, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Good work! I may have some time to dedicate to this as well. --Janice Rowe

Optimistic view

Humanistic psychology has been criticized for promoting an optimistic but often vague view of the mind....

A valid point indeed, but a reference would be nice. Also, this problem is discussed by Humanistic Psychologists. See Rowan (2001) Chapter 2: Humanistic Psychology is and is not optimistic.

--Hawol 10:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, humanistic psychology is not distinguished from Freudian psychology by taking an attitude of optimism or pessimism, but rather by its assumption that the distinction between normal and pathological conditions is arbitrary, unnatural, and inaccurate. Whereas Freud focussed on pathopsychology and its treatment, the humanists (definitely not to be confused with atheists!) regard human mental development as a normal process amenable to guidance and improvement. In that sense, it is Freudian psychology which is optimistic in regarding everybody as "normal" except those few afflicted with illness, and humanistic psychology which is pessimistic in its implication that there are things which all people need, but not everybody gets! Unfree (talk) 19:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Holism, Gestalt psychology and Popperian criitique

Also, Gestalt psychologists claim to consider behaviour holistically — "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" — although critics such as Karl Popper have presented arguments against the proposition that entities can be apprehended as wholes.

I have removed the following contribution because of source-critical reasons. I believe both the Gestalt position and the Popperian critique would benefit from the localization of these positions within a published academic work. That is, we need references for these statements.

--Hawol 14:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Recent contribution in need of references

Psychoanalytic critics have argued that because of humanistic psychology's emphasis on wholeness and optimism, it has downplayed the more tragic and painful dimensions of life, such as emotional conflict.

This is a valid criticism, but it would be nice to know who these critics are. Please give references. Other than that I have no objections. --Hawol 13:36, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I am removing this passage until we can establish who these psychoanalytic critics are. --Hawol 14:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Humanism vs quantitative research?

It is not entirely true that humanistic psychology is against quantitative research. Viktor Frankl and Carl Rogers did some. The difference is how they used it and how they conceived it.

I'd venture to say it's entirely false! Who can object to discoveries verified by the scientific method? Nor do they oppose the "first and second forces," though standing apart from them. In fact, they explicitly approve of them. What distinguishes the humanists is that they venture beyond what is known from lab experiments (and what is postulated and published in the case studies of psychoanalysts) into unproven areas amenable only to statistical analysis of the results of their efforts ("quantitative research"), a slow, but potentially rewarding, approach. It's like trying to evaluate a very small college by polling its graduates later on in life -- when the main criterion is whether they feel they've benefited from the experience. Unfree (talk) 23:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Dear Wikitalk, I represent a group of humanistic psychologists, comprising of experts, professionals, and students, and have volunteered to respond to many of your excellent queries on this page. I will endeavor to back all of my edits with solid and cutting-edge references. I will respond to this methodology question in addition to others. Humanistic Edit (talk) 12:37, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Rollo May: positive or not?

"Although much of Humanistic psychology tends to have a positive outlook on life and human nature, as reflected in the works of May and Maslow, the discipline is not exclusively optimistic. It also includes such thinkers as Schneider, May, and Bugental, who are not particularly optimistic (Rowan, 2001)."

This part seems self-contradictory... Where do we place May? /skagedal 17:18, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. The other theorist with a positive bent should of course be Rogers, not May. The mistake has been corrected. --Hawol 11:02, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The handbook of humanistic psychology. Reference not cited in text

Schneider, K.J., Bugental, J.F.T., & Pierson, J.F. (Eds.) (2002). The handbook of humanistic psychology: Leading edges in theory, research, and practice. Sage. ISBN: 0761927824

This reference is highly relevant to the article but I have removed since it is not featured in the article text. For the sake of clarity, and order, I believe that a reference should be featured in the actual body of the text before it gets listed under references. --Hawol 11:19, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok. My fault -- I mistook the references for a bibliography.

I disagree with you, Hawol, about whether references ought to be "featured" in order to be useful and appropriate for inclusion. I can understand a desire to demand relevance to the topic, and perhaps mention, citation, or even discussion, within the body, but to require each reference to be given the prominence and treatment implied by "featured" would make articles excessively verbose, and references unnecessarily few. They take up less space than discussion and provide valuable resources for people who are inclined to investigate further. Unfree (talk) 20:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Sources/References

I notice that some of the references being used are secondary sources (e.g. Rowan). While not problematic, why not use primary sources first and supplement with secondary? Just asking...

It's a relevant question indeed. It would have been preferable to build the text around primary sources, as you suggest. The reason why I have chosen secondary sources is because these sources often give a good introduction to the field. One can get a good overview of the field from these sources, but they are no substitute for primary sources, I agree. They were mainly chosen for the sake of getting the article up and running. --Hawol 19:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Recent edit

I have removed Rowan as a reference for now and I have plans to subsitute the material from the Rowan book with more primary source material. Also, the criticisms of Roy Wallis and Leonard Geller are taken from Rowans book. I hope to re-introduce these criticism as soon as I can establish the primary sources which they are taken from. --Hawol 09:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

W. Reich

I think Wilhem Reich should be mentioned as a predecessor, he believed in an essentially 'good' core to the human psyche, opposed to Freud, and his work has influenced a number of humanistic psychologists. Stroll 09:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Stroll. I believe your ref is correct. I will see if I can make the concept clearer here. I also have some more to add. Some criticism, and some details about development. Savoylettuce 05:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The spelling should be Wilhelm, despite the typo on AHP's website! Unfree (talk) 22:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

First Force?

I could have sworn that Psychoanalysis was considered to be First Force (though i heard it called "Wave) and Behaviorism was Second Force. According to this page, its the reverse.

Nope. See the association's whatis page. Unfree (talk) 22:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The development of the field

This section is in serious need of editing by someone who knows the history. It's pretty poorly written and goes into the wrong details. The long list of names in the first paragraph is of no use, because none of them are tied to theoretical frameworks. No need for so much on the history of behaviorism. Simply explain how humanistic psychology is a response to behaviorist psychology. I'd do the editing myself but my knowledge of the history is all from Misplaced Pages to begin with. Dwinetsk 20:45, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

One reason so many names are associated with humanistic psychology is that unlike earlier schools of psychology, it began not so much as the following of a founder and his theories, but as the result of many individuals and small groups suddenly finding each other, and that despite the diversity of their ideas, they shared similar hopes and objections. It was their coming together over a common disappointment in behaviorism and psychoanalysis which led to a theoretical framework, rather than the other way around. Unfree (talk) 22:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The history section had material directly sourced from the Association of Humanistic Psychology website, so I went ahead and paraphrased and cited the original source.Wikipsyguy (talk) 02:26, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Petition for external links

Would somebody who knows how to do it please provide "external links" to the AHP's website (http://www.ahpweb.org) and its "whatis" page (http://www.ahpweb.org/aboutahp/whatis.html)? Unfree (talk) 19:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I have provided links to the Society for Humanistic Psychology's main page.Humanistic Edit (talk) 13:19, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

And your edits were promptly reverted by a bot because you included a blogspot link. For future reference, blogs aren't usually allowable as external links. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 13:23, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Humanistic Psychology IS...

This article presents a lot of historical background on the field. However, it does not directly address the objective of Humanistic Psychology in the opening lines. It's nearly impossible to understand the article without some idea of what HP is trying to achieve. Consider, for example, the Positive Psychology or Emotional Intelligence articles. The first line indicates the objective or mission statement. This article desperately needs one.

Categories: