Humanistic psychotherapy

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The Humanistic Psychotherapy sees itself as an application discipline of humanistic psychology in the sense of applied science of intersubjective exploration and transformation of the patient's experience in its relationship contexts to deal with psychological suffering.

Definitions and forms

Humanistic psychotherapy focuses on psychological growth (in the sense of personal development and differentiation in social contexts) through the activation and development of specifically human resources (potentials) towards a meaningful, self-realizing, authentic life.

Humanistic psychotherapy includes:

One sees the humanistic (experience-oriented) psychotherapy as one of four "clusters" of psychotherapy, which is contrasted with the psychodynamic or depth psychological-clarification-oriented, the problem- and behavior-oriented and the systemic solution-oriented cluster.

Working group for humanistic psychotherapy

In Germany, the AGHPT Humanistic Psychotherapy Working Group was created in connection with the legislation on the Psychotherapists Act , which abolished the previously existing variety of procedures as a paid health insurance benefit . The aim is to stand up for the maintenance and expansion of the variety of procedures and methods in psychotherapy. In 2008, Heinrich Bertram from the Association of Psychological Psychotherapists started an initiative called “Grosser Ratschlag”, which brought together individuals and professional associations to prevent the increasing forgetting or ignoring of humanistic-psychological procedures. to thematize. This resulted in the AGHPT as the new umbrella organization for humanistic psychotherapy.

Image of man

Humanistic psychotherapy is based on a resource-oriented view of man, v. a. in relation to the patient's capacity for creative growth and constructive change, which is anchored in humanistic philosophy.

In humanistic psychotherapy, people are seen holistically in their bio-psycho-social wholeness. In the humanistic view of man, the human being has the resources necessary for liberation from psychological suffering, which can be activated through the creation of the psychotherapeutic relationship and through psychotherapeutic interventions and applied to life problems to be overcome. The human being is seen as a subject in his biological, biographical, social and ecological relationships and conditions, whose experience can be grasped introspectively or intersubjectively (self-empathically or empathically).

The human being is seen in his striving for self-realization, growth, development of resources, of autonomy and authenticity in his social relations. Man's ability to be creative and self-reflective enables him to develop, differentiate and shape his personality and the reality of life over his entire life span.

In humanistic psychotherapy, the focus is on what is specifically human in humans and thus a whole dimension goes beyond the animal, neurochemical drive or reflex determination and also beyond past life-historical influences, in particular: the need for meaning that is intentional, i.e. future-oriented, Consciousness and awareness as well as the abilities of introspection and reflexive thinking, the existential freedom of choice of the human will, which implies personal responsibility for one's own decisions and their consequences, the creativity of humans for creative lifestyle and for the co-creation of social processes, the love that the other person means as a person, the conscious and active, committed standing up for or against, the grappling with or the struggle for something that cannot be reduced to aggression in the biological sense.

Man is seen as embodied. Therefore, psychotherapeutic work with the body (e.g. body experience and / or body expression) is a central aspect of humanistic psychotherapy.

Humanistic Psychotherapy recognizes that there is a variety of subjectively understood as valid and perceived as true realities, so that the world can be experienced and interpreted in many ways, and that there is a variety of world views, value and belief systems, attitudes and There are lifestyles that can empower people to lead satisfying, fulfilling lives. Therefore, the humanistic psychotherapy process is oriented towards the individual characteristics of the patient and varied according to them.

The psychotherapeutic process

In humanistic psychotherapy, the psychotherapeutic process is seen as continued exploration and self-exploration of feeling, thinking, wanting and acting and especially the relationship and attitude patterns of the patient in the here and now against the background of biographical references and future orientations with an attitude of mindfulness especially for Processes, parts and layers that are on the border or beyond awareness, i.e. are unconscious, in a cooperative dialogue with the psychotherapist (or in therapy groups in the polylogue also with the other group participants).

Humanistic psychotherapy sees itself as experimental because it is based on direct experience, experimental because the psychotherapeutic process is seen as the result of cooperative creativity, and existential because issues such as questions about meaning, values ​​and goals play a central role in the therapeutic process take in.

Humanistic psychotherapy emphasizes the relevance of self-motivation, self-work and self-examination of the patient as well as the constructive design of the psychotherapeutic relationship for psychotherapeutic progress. Humanistic psychotherapy understands psychotherapy as a cooperative, emancipatory process in which the patient is given optimal freedom to decide for himself about goals and ways of the psychotherapeutic process. Humanistic psychotherapy sees itself as an intersubjective, interpersonal process in which the therapist's empathetic, professionally delimited and possibly confrontational attitude as well as the therapist-patient relationship that provides support, structure and space for experimentation are fundamental resources for constructive psychotherapeutic progress.

The patient's tendency to update old relationship patterns and attitudes in the psychotherapist-patient relationship is seen and used as an opportunity to make these patterns accessible to experience and understanding and to psychotherapeutic transformation. The humanistic psychotherapist promotes a psychotherapeutic relationship climate that invites the patient and enables them to help shape the psychotherapeutic process according to their inherent growth needs.

Humanistic psychotherapy sees a person's current experiences against the background of their biographical past and future prospects, which can be made tangible, understandable and transformable in the here and now of the psychotherapeutic process through a variety of experience-activating techniques. The patient is encouraged to emotionally experience his initially unclear or unconscious inner processes, to integrate them cognitively, to understand them, to make them accessible to symbolization and (if possible) to conceptualization and to communicate them.

The focus of the humanistic psychotherapy process is the patient's immediate experience in the here and now against the background of their biographical and social references. The patient's feelings are seen and used in their function of evaluating reality on the basis of biographical patterns and as the basis of decision-making processes. The humanistic psychotherapist tries to understand what and how the patient experiences and to appropriately communicate to the patient what he has grasped empathically. This helps the patient to gradually understand himself better, to understand the parts and conditions that are initially unclear to him, as well as to deal with his experiences, wishes, needs, attitudes towards life and values.

The psychotherapist's empathy in the sense of a vicarious introspection in the patient with the aim of grasping the patient's experience in an increasingly differentiated and appropriate manner, communicating with him, encouraging the patient to self-empathy and promoting his empathic abilities in his relational context is one basic intention in humanistic psychotherapy. The humanistic psychotherapist strives for an accepting and appreciative attitude, what the patient u. a. the experience of being appreciated and supported as a person.

aims

The psychotherapeutic relationship and the psychotherapeutic techniques and interventions serve to differentiate the patient's self-awareness, to identify, unfold and develop his resources and to promote his resilience and growth abilities. Humanistic psychotherapy serves to free the vitality and creativity of the patient, his resources and his ability to design, structure and delimitation from dysregulated states and to promote his self-regulatory abilities.

Humanistic psychotherapy promotes the understanding and perception as well as the expansion of options for the patient and the awareness of the resulting responsibility for himself, for other people and for his social and ecological environment. It serves the integration of parts split off in a way that sustains suffering, the stabilization and harmonization of the psychological structure and the release of embodied blockages and inhibitions.

Humanistic psychotherapy wants to help the patient to feel his identity, his limits and his sovereignty in his social bonds and to define, protect and expand in order to shape a fulfilled, meaningful life path. The humanistic psychotherapist supports the patient in reflecting the orientation of his life perspective on meaningful values ​​and in his search for personal meaning that can give his life centeredness, clarity, direction and grounding.

criticism

The criticism of humanistic psychotherapy covers several levels: On the one hand, humanistic psychotherapy sees itself as a basic psychotherapeutic orientation over and above a single method. It is therefore not a "therapy" but a basket of different treatment methods. What remains open, however, is what connects the methods gathered in humanistic psychotherapy and what distinguishes them from other psychotherapy methods. A scientific discussion of this question is pending.

Another point of criticism concerns the lack of evidence of the indication-specific effectiveness of the treatment methods in humanistic psychotherapy. This lack of evidence prevented humanistic psychotherapy from being recognized as a scientifically recognized psychotherapy method by the Scientific Advisory Board on Psychotherapy (WBP) in accordance with Section 11 of the Psychotherapists Act.

However, the report of the WBP is also criticized, among other things, more than 40 professors and scientists claim that this report violates fundamental rules of scientific work.

literature

  • David Cain, Julius Seemann (ed.): Humanistic Psychotherapies. Handbook of Research an Practice . 1st edition. American Psychological Association, Washington 2001, ISBN 1-55798-787-4 .
  • Werner Eberwein: Humanistic Psychotherapy. Sources, Theories and Techniques . Thieme, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-13-143921-5 .
  • Helmut Quitmann: Humanistic Psychology: Psychology, Philosophy, Organizational Development . 3. Edition. Hogrefe Verlag, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-8017-0908-2 .
  • Dirk Revenstorf : Psychotherapeutic Procedures III. Humanistic therapies . 2nd Edition. tape 3 . Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 978-3-17-012628-2 .
  • Jürgen Kriz : Basic concepts of psychotherapy. 7th, revised and expanded edition. Beltz Verlag, Weinheim, Basel 2014, Section III Humanistic Psychotherapy , pp. 183–242. ISBN 978-3-621-28097-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Compare Scientific Advisory Board Psychotherapy according to § 11 PsychThG report on the scientific recognition of humanistic psychotherapy Deutsches Ärzteblatt March 9, 2018 p. A11 f.
  2. ↑ Thomas Slunecko: Psychotherapy: An Introduction UTB, 2017 p. 40
  3. ↑ AGHPT - Association of Humanistic Psychotherapy website
  4. ↑ Mark Helle: The conversation psychotherapy according to Carl Rogers conversation psychotherapy and person-centered counseling 3/13 p. 144
  5. ↑ Reinhard Tausch: Ernst G. Wehner, Psychology in Self-Representations . Ed .: Werner Traxel , Ernst G. Wehner Ludwig J. Pongratz. tape 3 . Huber, Bern 1992, p. 291 .
  6. ↑ [1]
  7. ↑ criticism letter to WBP. Retrieved February 14, 2020 .