Research On Buhler's Humanistic Psychology Theory

Humanistic psychology is one of mainly west psychology thoughts which results in wide influence in academic and social areas. As a unique pioneer in Humanistic psychology thought, Buhler is the developmental psychologist who represents Europe humanism tradition. She wanted to understand the course of human life as a whole in way of development, and she created her own unique humanistic psychology theory system. Her major contributions lie in the areas of life-span development and humanistic psychology. There is a viable and perspicacious humanistic theoretical framework for interpreting child and adolescent development and life-span development within her writings. Also, she brought the developmental psychology into humanistic psychology and enlarged the scope of the humanistic psychology. In western countries Buhler's thoughts have received high praise and produced wide influence. But in china few psychologist has introduced and analyzed her theory to provide more helpful experiences and instructions for the study of the psychology history, developmental psychologist, Clinical Psychology etc.Buhler thought that psychology was the science which studying human life. She objected to the reductive behavioral interpretation of human action as determined by environmental contingencies, also opposed a psychoanalysis explaining human psychology based on disease, but emphasized that psychology should study the person as a whole, healthy person, healthy mentality and healthy development. She saw humans as"open"organisms. For her, the ultimate aim of healthy humans is self-actualization, and she used her own term self-fulfillment. And on psychology method, she advocated the naturalism methodology, emphasized case study and biography study. In her opinion, statistical, biographical and developmental approaches could help to deal with life history materials, they provided a method for the study of human life course.In the frame of development, Buhler constructed her theories which were the four basic tendencies of human lifespan development, the development of self, the development of child and adolescent psychology, and the goal structural of human life. The four basic tendencies which were need satisfactions, self-limiting adaptation, creative expansion, and upholding of internal order related to the steps of life-span development. They developed along the road of self-actualization and form the general structure of the human developmental course of life. The theory of self development repressed the development of self in the different steps of life-span, and in this course, self as the core system of personality can integrates, directs, and actualizes the four basic tendencies. The two theories built the foundation of child and adolescent psychology, and the goal structural of human life. Buhler understood the mentality of children development according to the development of self and the four basic tendencies, provided a viable and perspicacious humanistic theoretical framework for interpreting child and adolescent development and life-span development. Her theory of the goal structural of human life comprised human life in the horizontal dimension of its total duration as well as the vertical dimension of the various layers of depth. And this theory made the course of human life as a whole theorization and systematization on the aspect of goal.As a famous clinical psychologist, Buhler thought it is important to apply her own humanistic psychology ideas to practice. She devoted most of her life to the clinical psychological studies and presented many unique viewpoints. She regarded the psychotherapy as an educational course to a great extent, and the relationship between psychotherapist and patient was similar to the relationship between teacher and student, and it was necessary to share values with patient and help them clarify their own valuable system. She also thought the psychotherapist should concern the patient's past, present and future in the course of psychotherapy. Her ideals about psychotherapy enriched connotation of humanistic psychotherapy tremendously.On the other hand, there are some faults on Buhler's theory. As far as she saw, self came from human's genetic setup. She regarded transmissibility as her theory starting point, and ignored social nature of human, so she has failed to get away from the constrict of living things determinism fundamentally. And there are faults on the concepts of her theory. At the same time her theory is short of the support on strict significance studies.