This special section highlights the renewal of humanism in psychotherapy. For the purposes of this special section, humanism is defined as a philosophical perspective whose subject matter is the whole human being. In psychotherapy, humanism places special emphasis on the personal, interpersonal, and contextual dimensions of therapy and on clients' reflections on their relationship with self, others, and the larger psychosocial world. The contributors to this special section-Bruce Wampold, David Elkins, Steven Hayes, Robert Stolorow, Jurgen Kriz, Lillian Comas-Diaz, and the authors of this introduction-are each leaders in their respective therapeutic specialties: research and training, cognitive-behavioral therapy, psychoanalytic therapy, European therapy, and multicultural therapy. In the manner of a "roundtable," each contributor was asked to provide a short article on the renewal of humanism in his or her respective specialty followed by brief comments on the initial round of articles. The conclusion of these reflections is that the renewal of humanism is a viable and growing phenomenon among the leading specialty areas of psychotherapy. The corollary conclusion is that although many theoretical and practical questions remain, humanism is (1) a foundational element of therapeutic effectiveness; (2) a pivotal (and needed) dimension of therapeutic training; and (3) a critical contributor to societal well-being.
All psychotherapies try to approach what is essential for alleviating patient suffering. In humanistic psychotherapies such as person-centered, Gestalt, and existential therapy, the focus is typically centered on the person, the essence of the human being. The person, however, as that which is free in human beings, cannot be fixed or measured. This raises a difficult question: How do we gain systematic access to this “person” when they cannot be grasped concretely? Drawing on Existential Analysis, the authors describe a phenomenological approach as possibly the most suitable method for this therapeutic task, because it is pervaded by an attitude of allowing the other to be free and a respect for the uniqueness of the person. In this approach, what is essential is drawn from the depth of the person, simultaneously involving the depth of the therapist, while bracketing foreign interpretations and theories. This article describes this method for accessing personal depth in psychotherapy via an existential-phenomenological perspective.
In Europe, humanistic psychotherapy is becoming increasingly widespread. Not only are the explicitly "humanistic" psychotherapies being robustly used, they are increasingly being integrated into approaches not traditionally viewed as humanistic. One can therefore observe a progression in the personalization of methodology within European modes of practice. In the past several decades, humanistic psychology has inspired the expanding use of existential-phenomenological modes of practice. This theoretical base, coupled with recent trends in person-centered systems theory, points toward an invigorating future for humanistic forms of practice in Europe, despite the political trends toward psychotherapeutic practice in Germany.
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