Humanistic and Existential Theories

In this paper am going to focus and analyze how these specified theories influence or affect interpersonal relationships and individual’s personality. In addition, this paper will also cover the real theorists who came up with these theories. Humanistic Approach The humanistic approach was introduced in the US in the late ‘40s. The founding father of this theory was Abraham Maslow but it is also closely related to Carl Rodgers. The existential and humanistic theories are clearly different from others since they include the significance of an individual subjective experience as well as focus on positive growth which is different other therapeutic styles. Comparison between Humanistic and Existential Theories The humanistic theory is a concept of psychology that claims that the humans frequently try and strive to reach the greatest they can be while the existential theory is a concept that is searched by individuals so as to achieve the importance of their existence through the free will and responsibility of each individual, both existential and humanistic theories ensure that the humans make their own choices as well as lead their own lives.

Furthermore, these two theories also bring about the concept of positivity to the lives of the humans and both are based on the subject view and the personal individual experience. Both the humanistic and existential psychology view people as a whole and complete, despite this similarity between these two theories, their views on humankind are totally different (Schneider, 2016). The existential theory argues that the choices made by specific individuals are the determinants of how good or evil the individuals will be or what they are capable of while the humanistic theory argues that humans are perfect and that the causes of evil in the society are brought about by the pressures from the society. The existentialists think that life is hard and they think that things such as pain, loneliness, heartbreaks, guilt, love, affection and anxiety are inventible things.

Humanism terms an individual who takes steps of self-actualization and is fully functioning as an open-minded and a trustworthy individual. Such individuals with time they actually become acceptable, independent, appreciative, democratic and have perceptions that are accurate to the reality. All in all personalities from different individuals are either described as existential or humanistic (Sincero, 2016). Clearly, these theories focus on the positive side rather than the negative sides of human nature. Humans generally search for the meaning of life or strive to be the best they can. He had two concepts which included the non-being in the world and the being in the world. He argued that people who were detached from the world felt alienated. People detached or isolated from the world experienced Mitwelt which is always determined by the other people interactions.