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Strengths And Weaknesses Of Humanism

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This essay outlines two of the many perspectives used by psychologists to understand human behaviours, namely Humanism and Psychoanalysis. It gives a detailed discussion on the key factors of the two perspectives and also makes a distinction between such factors. The central ideas of the aforementioned perspectives are also discussed in the essay below together with the methods of discovery used to explore human behaviour. Furthermore, a comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of Humanism and Psychoanalysis are outlined in the paragraphs below.

The idea of Psychoanalysis was first brought about by Dr Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis was inspired by Freud’s interest and influence of Dr Breuer and held high interest in one of Dr Breuer’s patient …show more content…

131). Humanism has mostly to do with process and emphasizes on the Gestalt therapy (Scholl, Ray and Brady Amoon, 2013, pp. 218 and 219), which is an organized whole and views the individual in depth as well as includes different types of principles such as individualism, valuing subjective experiences and respecting the individual (Scholl et al.; 2013, p.218) in order to find deeper meaning and understanding to the individuals situation in order to improve it and create a bond/relationship with the patient. Through this the patient shows signs of improvement with regards to exploring ones self and pushes the patient to reach their full potential and to get in touch with their emotions. This leads to the different principles to actually start applying to the patient which leads to a point of self actualization (Scholl et al.; 2013, p.224). Self actualization could be seen as being a strength in humanism as getting in touch with emotions can be regarded as a difficult task, and by helping the patient understand the concept of controlling emotions or simply getting in touch with them is a strength of Humanism. On the other hand a weakness could possibly be the assumption that “person-centered therapists” are trustworthy since the beginning (Thorne, 2011, p. 134). Similarly many factors of Humanism are based on things people might necessarily not be …show more content…

The central focus of Psychoanalysis has to do with past experiences and sexual orientation and how each affects every decision the patient makes. (Freud, 1910, 180). It also has the “surrogate relation” to which same emotions from past experiences are replaced by a different memory making the patient get rid of pain through suppression of memory. On the other hand Humanism is based on the patient as being a whole and helping the patient succeeded by understanding the self concept and how person centered therapy needs to be match up to the actualizing tendency (Thorne, 2011,

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