Humanistic and Existential Personality Theories

Both Humanistic and Existential personality theories provide an understanding of human existence, personality and responsibilities. We will describe in the following paragraphs each, their strengths and limitations, their definitions, and their major contributors.
Theories
Regarding psychology, the humanists believe one of the most important things to study are humans. Humanistic theories were formed as a rebuttal to psychoanalysis. Humanists believe that we have free will and can decide what we want to do and that we are always striving for excellence and to be the best that we can be. Humanistic and existential theories primarily focus on the dynamics of one’s discovery and journey of self-actualization. Two major contributors were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, who both believed and took an approach to understanding the evaluation of one’s physical, mental and social condition and positive aspect of one’s personality. (Feist, Feist & Roberts, 2013) In fact, Rogers based his personality theory on the ideas of humanism and called it the person-centered theory. Feist, Feist, and Roberts state that “Rogers postulated two assumptions, one being the formative tendency and the other the actualizing tendency” (p.313). The need to satisfy our hunger, accept one’s self and to express deep emotions are examples of the single motive of actualization which involves the whole person. (2013) The self-concept is one’s view of self as one wishes to be and self-actualization develops after people evolve a self-system. Another of Roger’s beliefs is when we achieve congruence we will be a fully functioning person. However, incongruence develops when ourselves and our perceived selves do not match which is a result of a lack in positive self-regard. We tend to think that we are one way all the time, but an outside observer