Humanistic Theory

Experiential and Humanistic Theory As a person goes through life and has ups and downs, their ability to handle the stress varies from person to person. At times, a person has difficulties maintaining all the pressures of issues that sometimes feel to manifest into deep sensations of falling. Not knowing where to turn or where to go to get a clear view of what it is that may has them continuing to feel all of the world is against them. Many people rely on friends and family to get that ear to sort out their troubles. Calm down an agitated person, assisting a friend through a death of a family member, or something as simple as avoiding negative thoughts through distracting, these forms of lending a hand can be described as psychotherapy. Anton Meamer discovered the age-old wisdom in the eighteenth century, early nineteenth. Anton realized that when a person or individual suffers a variety of mental anguish or illness, when put in a hypnotic trance, their symptoms disappeared. Many didn’t understand the nature of what Anton was doing and dismissed a lot of his work. Later, Sigmund Freud rediscovered the theory and showed that the presence of caring, being attentive, becoming a trusted listener assisted with their issues or situations. Allowed a person to focus on their experience through revisiting long forgotten traumatic events and assist with symptoms of the trauma. Through observation, psychotherapy became a form of treatment and a new revolutionary form of therapy was born. As the foundation of psychology was being laid out, the development of theories began to be discovered. Understanding behavior and what may cause a person to want to strive in life and become successful in society opened the doors for theorist to develop a humanistic theory. The potential of an individual making a contribution to society and becoming a person who is likeable by peers, family, and friends led two theorist to develop the humanistic theory movement. Abraham

References: Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc. Retrieved January 26, 2013 Kolb, D. A., Boyatzis, R. E., & Mainemelis, C. (2000). Experiential Learning Theory: Previous Research and New Directions. In Perspectives on cognitive, learning, and thinking styles. Retrieved January 26, 2013 McLeod, S. (2012). Humanism. In Simply Psychology. Retrieved January 26, 2013 Severin, F. T. (1973). Discovering man in psychology: A humanistic approach. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved January 26, 2013