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August / September 2003

Existential and Humanistic Psychology —Trends and Impact
. . . Charlotte Bühler

(February 1970 AAHP Newsletter)

In unexpected measure, our present time is bringing existential and humanistic thinking to the fore, after a long period of a predominantly materialistic orientation. This movement finds its strongest expression and, as I like to think, its leadership and its foundation, in modern psychology, the youngest of our sciences.

There is no denying that underlying all our scientific endeavors there are always certain directives our minds take in the selection and interpretation of data that we try to assemble. No matter how factual and how objective we are, the enormous complexity of all facts forces us to see them under certain aspects, in their different connections, to order them in certain frames, and this by necessity makes us selective, letting us emphasize one grouping of data as against another.

Thus, while not denying that a philosophical orientation underlies our search for knowledge, as is true of any time, this presentation will not dwell on existentialism and humanism as philosophies, but as they document themselves in our present-day psychology.

This new ideological trend of our present-day psychology and its applications has a long and distinguished history. And while it cannot be the task at present to go into the complex and interesting details of this history, I think it is ofgreat asssistance for the understanding of the concepts of existentialism and humanism to know a few facts about their origins and their usage in the course of time.

The term humanism designated originally an actual movement, with its peak during the 15th century Renaissance in Italy, emphasizing the study of Greek and Roman Classics. This movement was considered “freedom of thought,” because it represented a break with the medieveal scholastic system of thinking that the Chruch philosophers had developed.

While this movement did not lead to any great achievements in philosophy, it opened the door to independent critical thinking. Nicholas V (1447–1455), the first humanistic pope, encouraged humanism over piety or orthodoxy, over morals and religion.

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This new freedom of thought often led, as Bertrand Russell points out, to immoral lives even of some of the popes. It was a kind of paganism, reminding us a little of what now is going on here and there, which then seeped through in the adulation for the antique culture.

The new independence of thought, incidentally, did not necessarily prevent some of the humanists from trying for a reconciliation with the Church, especially when they felt death approaching. And it did not preclude what Bertrand Russell calls plunges into all sorts of antique nonsense, such as experiments in astrology.

If we ask ourselves what exactly relates the Renaissance humanist movement to what we think of at present as humanistically oriented thinking in the social sciences, and especially in psychology, I believe it appears most distinctly in the writing of Erasmus of Rotterdam, the most outstanding representative of the humanists. In his book On Free Will, the great book of that time [1524], we find that same struggle for the establishment and definition of the inner freedom, which also today we psychologists, especially we psychotherapists, try to stand up for. This inner freedom which at that time the thinkers tried to secure for themselves by means of the study of old books, has become to us something which now we try to clarify for ourselves not by way of studies, but experientially.

Paul Oskar Kristeller, one of the best informed writers on this period, emhasizes that the value set, which we now call ?humanistic,? is only incidental to the original humanist movement which called for classical studies. But I wonder whether this call itself was not just instrumental, whether this call itself was not actually the expression of the breakthrough of a new will to have intellectual freedom and to feel free as a living being. Petrarch, often called the father of Humanism, emphasized the dignity of man.?

Certainly, the values of inner freedom and of creativity relate the older to the present humanistic movement.

The movement of what is called existentialism is of much younger origin than humanism. Usually, the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, whose main writings apeared in the 1840s, is considered its originator. Kaufman in his book Existentialism from Dostojevsky to Sartre considers Dostojevsky’s Notes from Underground [1864] –the best overture for existentialism ever written.

One of the characteristics of this movement is that each of its representatives has a viewpoint of his own, and they do not really belong to one school of thought. All that the authors of existentialism— a term that Sartre coined— have in common is their philosophizing about human existence. Most of it was in a very tragic, despairing vein. The essence of it is that man is thrown back on his experience, which is all he can have of reality.

The world, says Kierkegaard, had no part in helping man with the “human condition.” This condition is a needfulness which requires choice and decision. Ethics is not a matter of seeing, but of making a decision. I experience dread, he says, in the dizziness of my freedom, and my choice is made in fear and trembling.

It seems to me that this emphasis on ethics and on choice is what made Heidegger dismiss Kierkegaard as a mere religious writer. Heidegger, strongly influenced by Nietzsche, and Jaspers are founders of existential philosophy, which they conceive of as an interpretation of Being. Both emphasize the limitations of science. Heidegger was concerned with what is called “fundamental ontology”—that is the study of our Being—hoping to penetrate to the essence of Being itself. He tried to analyze man’s existence, the fact that we find ourselves “thrown” into existence. He asked, “Why is there a Being at all and not rather nothing?”

Sartre, in a way the herald of existentialism, brings it back closer to Kierkegaard, in returning to the human condition and the absurdity and tragic fact that we have to make commitments and decisions, without proper knowledge of their consequences for us and for others. Different from the others mentioned before, he considers his writing to be psychology. He discusses despair, decision, dread, and self-deception as based on experience.

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Also he emphasizes choice as the main aspect of human life, but he insists that man’s tragic situation does not rule out ?integrity? of choice in opposition to dependence on ?social utility,? that is just doing what is socially useful. Somewhat like Shakespeare, Sartre says, ?There are situations in which, whatever choice we make, we cannot escape guilt.? This reminds the psychotherapists among us of many situations which we encounter in our patients.

Camus adds to this pessimistic picture in his book The Stranger, the moving description of the individual’s isolation, anticipating in his writings what we find presently in our all too widespread experience of alienated persons.

To summarize: In this short historical survey we saw the existentialists concerned with our human condition, with human existence as such, conceiving of it predominantly in a tragic vein. We find Sartre trying to reconcile himself with our human fate, or better, to stand up to it, with courage and with integrity.

Recent American writers—an outstanding example are those collaborating on a symposium, published under the title “Existential Psychology,” edited by Rollo May—are disturbed by the fact of the existential thinkers’ preoccupation with dread, anguish, despair, and “nausea.” They see this stance as more European than American. Gordon Allport in summarizing comments on the foregoing chapter of this book quotes Maslow as saying that American patients may suffer as deeply and be as distressed by the shallowness of their lives as are European patients, but that the emphasis on resignation, acceptance, even on Paul Tillich’s “Courage to Be” or Viktor Frankl’s acceptance of responsibility and his urging the discovery of a meaning in suffering, seems more European than American.

I would say: yes and no. Yes, the Americans have always had a great deal of optimism about life, and they have always wanted to feel that they can conquer almost any difficulty. And in a way they have proven they were often able to accomplish what seemed almost impossible.

Their more optimistic outlook on human existence places them closer to the humanists than to the existentialists. Herein lay previously one of the most significant differences between the two schools: that men like Erasmus believed in “free will” as a creative power, that he saw the ability to choose as the human’s greatest privilege and potential. On the other hand, men like Kierkegaard and Sartre feel dread and see absurdity in our being forced to make choices when we actually have no knowledge of the reality of our existence.

And here, of course, if I may interject this, is also where the modern psychotherapist makes some of the most crucial experiences with his patient. One of his main questions is: Can he help his neurotic patient to develop in himself the ability to experience an inner freedom of choice, and can he help his patient to experience this as an opening up of potentials rather than as a fearful responsibility, since we never know in advance just what the outcome of our choices will be.

With Maslow, for example, we find, as Allport points out, new weight being given to the healthy person’s experiencing choice, responsibility, futurity as something positive in his life. Maslow, says Allport, sees existentialism as deepening the concepts that define the human condition. In doing this, existentialism “prepares the way (for the first time) for a psychology of mankind.” This is true. And, as I like to add, there is in the Americans the tendency to a greater trust in a constructive purpose in the Universe than the French existentialists express.

Colin Wilson has stated some relevant reasoning in connection with our metaphysical needs. He speaks of the fact that our sense of purpose cannot exist unless we first make the assumption that “there is a standard of values external to everyday human consciousness.”

Personally I think one can drive the arguments for a constructive purpose in the Universe even further and even with quite scientific considerations involving physics.

But while all this is true, I can never believe that the present widespread and intense interest in these new philosophies would have developed if people were just more eager than in previous times to find a new way to better self-understanding, to self-realization, to a more fulfilling life, and to more scientifically founded beliefs.

I find, particularly in our present youth, more anxiety, even more despair, than was noticeable in the American youth ever before.

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At the house where I live, there are all these parties, says Betty, and I am meeting all these people, and it is fun, yes; but I wish I would meet somebody who would understand me and help me in my loneliness. This is a new tenor, as compared with the time when fun was all everybody was looking for. There is a previously unknown introversion, an expression of unhappiness to which I could add many others, some of which are very profound.

How do we explain this turn of events, this strong and widespread expression of disconsolate feelings?

There are quite a number of reasons which led to this development. Beginning with World War II, representing civilization’s letdown to all those who had expected the 20th century was through with wars, and Hitler’s society, out of which Karen Horney and Erich Fromm came to America, saying “How can we trust society?”—there developed doubts in the moral progress of mankind, dread of the atom bomb, and fear of mankind’s self-destruction, described so realistically in Nevil Shute’s On the Beach. Then came Vietnam, another war, another generation of youths sacrificed; then the experience of the Negros’ uprising and the flagrant racial strife in America; then the shocking revelations about the great amount of poverty in this rich country. All this makes our youth doubt the wisdom of the older generation and authorities, doubt traditional values and morality, feel hypocrisy in what the older generation claims to be their values. And on top of all that came religious doubts about scientific discoveries, doubts in Church dogmas and preachings, and the deeply disturbing question, Is there a purpose to the Universe? To this some writers answered, there is not, and “God is dead.”

All this stirred up young people’s feelings and also thoughtful adults’ questioning: What is the meaning of anything? Who are we, who am I? What is the right way to live? Far beyond adolescence, these questions bother people, causing confusion and arousing them to completely new thinking.

The reactions to the experiences of all these problems are different. I believe one can distinguish several different groups, among which we shall find different kinds and degrees of affinity with the humanist movement.

There are firstly those in whom traditions are too deeply ingrained to shake them off. These conservative people and groups go on, or, if they waver, return to their inherited and established convictions and ways of thinking and living. They support conservative views in politics, education, religion, and other areas of life. And they are of course the ones with whom many of the young generation experience the “generation gap.” Some of these people actually close themselves to any appreciation of the problems that have arisen.

The opposite of this conservative group are the rebellious ones. Here we find quite a number of different factions. There are those whose rebellion is mostly negative, in that they don’t know really what new values they want to pursue in place of the old ones. They just reject society and its establishments the way they are. They condemn hypocrisy and prejudices of the establishments and the older generation which tolerates or even defends these ways of functioning. Feeling helpless in their opposition against the existing powers and feeling alienated from all those who fit themselves into the establishments, this faction of the rebellious group chooses to withdraw and to segregate themselves in often semiprimitive existences of their own. These are the ones we know as hippies.

This group of alienated youth suffers from the vagueness of their direction, from ideological confusion. When asked what exactly they wanted and were looking for, one may get the answer that I got as a response from a 17-year-old, highly intelligent girl with a cultured home background who had left her home and family: “I am not exactly sure what I am looking for, but one day we will know.”

While this faction of the rebellious group is more or less confused in their outlook and rather passive in their attitude to society, another faction of the rebellious youth is aggressive and fights for reforms about which they have more or less definite ideas and convictions. These may be political in the more specific sense of the word, or they may have to do with freedom and human rights in a more general sense. And in this latter version, they come, even though in unrealistic programs, closer to the humanistic philosophy than the other previously mentioned groups.

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In a dubious relationship to humanistic thinking, I personally find another group of protesters whose participants are not only youths but belong to all age groups, including professionals. This group of protester heralds freedom from the bondage of traditional taboos under the aspect of creativity and genuineness of feeling being brought into life. This group recommends and practices sexual freedom, it fosters stronger emphasis on physical closeness and physical sensations, bodily enjoyment, and bodily self-expresssion. The same group also encourages and participates in the use of drugs, through which they feel that perceptual awareness and sensitivity are enhanced and the feeling of life is heightened.

I need not emphasize how controversial the discussion of these new freedoms is. On the whole, the general public is, I think, rather unhappy about these [hedonistic] movements. Especially those middle class parents whose teenage child-ren are lost, sometimes irrevocably, on their LSD trips or who go to pot, literally speaking, with their marijuana, hashish, and the like.

A strong and gripping expression of the sadness of this is given in the play Hair, which notwithstanding its interesting and exciting music, is a very sad play. It is sad when among this whole crowd who proclaim love, love as their credo, we see Jeanie, the pregnant girl, who needs loving care more than anybody, amble around the place like a lost soul without anybody paying attention, and when we hear the crowd exhorting Sheila, the star, who really loves Mr. Berger, not to be hung-up on Mr. Berger, but to let anyone love her, and we hear sarcastic railing at anything anyone might have wanted to believe in.

The various psychological authorities take very different stands with respect to these rebellious groups. Some see it all as the fault of parents, American parents, and American society who have not given today’s youth the emotional equipment for engaging in relational and constructive protest. This now seems to me a fantastic oversimplification in viewing a cultural crisis which is shaking up the whole of Western civilization.

Because this is what it seems to be to me. A crisis which started in pre-First World War Europe, with European youths such as the German Wandervogel and Pfadfinders who fought the hypocrisy of the older generation, the shallow pleasures of what was here in the States the “Gay Nineties,” youths who criticized the “saberrattling” Kaiser, who wrote poems and diaries full of Weltschmerz and longing for a better world, and out of whose rank and file came Marx and Marxists, still on the go with, say Herbert Marcuse, and came that youth whose meditating was expressed by Hermann Hesse, whom only now the Americans have discovered and adopted. But the European youths of those times were not strong enough, not many enough, to do very much. They grew up, and either they adapted themselves to their society and even to Hitler, or else their rebellion kept smouldering.

At present, where the revolt is out in the open and brought to bear on society by activists, we see so many facets of it that it is hard and perhaps impossible to get an objective overview.

Among psychologists there is a new and generally accepted position that they are co-responsible for the welfare of communities and that they are trying to help with free services to the [economically and educationally] underprivileged. Head Start, one of the most successful educational movements, is under psychological leadership.

But the opinions among psychologists are intensely divided with respect to the evaluation and handling of the various expressions of rebellion. Why can’t we know where we are going?

Why can’t we be sure where the way will lead? The youths who discuss with elders these questions, I consider a third, constructive group. As against the rigidly conservative and the differently acting out of rebellious groups, these constructive young people, while seeing the necessity for improvements in our personal and social lives, try to work out new solutions with the help of trusted older people. They want help in finding deeper and more valid beliefs and values, they want assistance in freeing their creativity to bring out their best potentials; they are the carriers of humanist psychology into its future.

And what makes it so bad for the older generation, for us who presumably are the leaders or, better, the guides, is that we cannot tell them anything for sure. This is what made the position of the last generation’s parents so difficult, that they were so insecure regarding their position, their views, their techniques, their roles in their children’s lives. Psychoanalysis [and global depression and global wars] had made them completely insecure regarding the influence they exerted. I think Dr. Spock’s tremendous success derives to a great extent from the fact that he tells parents not to worry excessively.

But now it is not only the parents: now it is every thinking person who must reevaluate his concepts of his existence as a human and his orientation in directing himself—himself and others who ask his help and advice. And here is where we have the central problem of our time and culture. Who can tell whom what?

It is at this point that humanistic psychology comes in and meets in a fortunate way these problems of our time and particularly our youth. There are these new aspects that humanistic psychology developed.

First and most important, in humanistic psychology the pursuit of values is considered an inherent need of the human individual. This pursuit receives its directives from the Self, which I personally consider a central core system, present in nuclear form from the beginnings of an individual’s life. In this theory, there is a decisive difference from psychoanalysis in that psychoanalysis considered the pursuit of values a secondary goal, that is to say a goal pursued under the pressure of society, only when the individual’s drives could not be satisfied. This is one of the important differences of interpretation of human motivation to which I referred in the beginning of this paper.

Humanistic psychologists concur in the conviction of the primary nature of the pursuit of values. That means they assume that the individual’s own innermost self can find that the pursuit of certain values furthers the development of his own potentialities, that is the fulfillment of his own innermost needs. These differ with different individuals, due to individual inclinations as well as potentialities. In the discovery of his potentialities an individual may need help. And here is where the humanistic psychotherapist comes into the picture.

Psychotherapy is a modern procedure which in our time has been spreading and expanding tremendously. People ask why this is happening. The answer results from all I said in the foregoing, from the facts of the general experience of desperation and uncertainties about beliefs and values, which makes people look for help and guidance. The increased awareness of self that psychoanalysis helped to develop made people more conscious of the hazards of truthful self-understanding and of appropriate self-direction.

The new turn of events is that therapists as well as their patients have found that what people need is assistance in directing themselves to healthy and appropriate goals in life. Thus it is not only neurosis we are working with, but even more the problem of adequate standards of life. Some of us feel we need a new image of man.

In all this, the role of the modern psychotherapist has changed completely from what it used to be in psychoanalysis. The modern psychotherapist is not an unquestionable authority who sits in an ivory tower. Instead he sits with his patient and may even occasionally hold his hand. He has a person-toperson relationship with his patient and shows himself as he is. Recent research regarding the most benefecial factors in psychotherapy helping to its success showed that the appropriateness of the therapist’s personality, his being convincing as a person, belong to the most decisive ones.

Let me end this on a hopeful note, hopeful for mankind at whose moral progress I usually look somewhat skeptically.

The main humanistic value that we find most generally acknowledged in our time is the pursuit of and the working toward better human relationships. This is what the constructive groups are doing, whom I mentioned briefly before. It is one of the main values on which to work in new ways; there is a widespread determination of many.

For some, this goes together with modernized metaphysical thinking about a hopefully constructive purpose in the Universe and the role of man’s existence in it. For others, it is more a sociopolitical reform they are working on.

But there are many young as well as older people whose reaction against hypocrisy is that they want to truly help to better people’s lot and to help people understand and to tolerate each other. This is what the Florida college student Elizabeth Crosby meant when she said Our attitudes are more an emphasis on relationships.

And this is what I found movingly expressed by the laborer Yefrim Poduyev in Alexander Solzhenitzyn’s novel The Cancer Ward. Poduyev, this simple man who did much hard labor and much whoring during all his life, Poduyev who never had been ill for a single day but now finds himself sick in this terrible cancer ward and is confused about life and about everything, Poduyev who had never read a book and now in the cancer ward, having nothing else to do, picks up by chance this little volume where he finds an article headed by the question What do people live by? What do people live by he asks himself and the other patients in the ward. By rations, by wages, by their trade, they tell him. These were the thoughts he himself had also had. But no, he reads in the book, no: People live by love, says Leo Tolstoi.

This article has been assembled by the Editors [Norma Lyman and Carol Guion] from two talks given by Charlotte Bühler. We consider this an unusually clear and informative statement of what humanistic psychology is all about. We accept full responsibility for any distortions or significant omissions from the original statements and we regret the necessity of eliminating and abbreviating so much valuable material. Charlotte Bühler is one of the principal founders of the Association and one of the pioneering and significant leaders in the development of the humanistic approach to psychology.