This video we're going to be talking about humanism which really began to rise as a field in the 1950s. And I love talking about humanism, you'll see in a second but it's just really nice to think about. So, humanism is a perspective of psychology that emphasizes the inherent goodness of people as well as free will and the potential for personal growth. Historically during this time, behaviorism was kind of dying out, social psych was kind of rising up, but a lot of psychological research tended to be very focused on the more negative aspects of the human experience which is completely understandable. Those are really important things for us to learn about.

However, some psychologists wanted to focus on the more positive concepts. You know, things like personal growth, human potential, as well as the ability to strive for self-improvement. And when you think about it a lot of these skills are very unique to humans. You don't really find other animals in the animal kingdom who are capable of these. And so these are also really important topics to be researching.

The ability to visualize the best version of yourself and then take steps to actually become that person. It's a very uniquely human skill. So the main research question in humanism is how do individuals achieve personal growth and realize their fullest potential? We have 2 important founders of the field. First up is Abraham Maslow.

And you may have heard of Maslow before, his research kind of entered pop culture and has kind of stayed there, but he created his very famous hierarchy of needs. So this hierarchy kind of looks like a pyramid. We're going to learn about it a bit later in the course. But the idea behind it is that you have physical needs and safety needs at the bottom, and then once those are met, people will begin to strive for social needs and psychological needs. And then the final tier of the hierarchy, the very tip of the pyramid, is self-actualization which is the realization of one's fullest potential.

Now, Maslow did make other contributions to the field but this is the one he tends to be the most well-known for. Next up we have Carl Rogers. And Carl Rogers was a clinical psychologist and he developed a technique called client-centered therapy. And he pioneered therapeutic techniques including active listening, which is basically just showing your client that you really are listening to them and hearing them. You know, your posture might be forward.

You look interested. You might be parroting what they're saying back to you. So, you know, I'm hearing that that event made you feel really upset. You know, just things like that to really affirm that you are hearing what they're saying. He also pioneered the technique of unconditional positive regard, and this is now a very well-researched concept not only for therapy but just in general.

This is basically accepting and valuing a person without any condition or judgment attached to that. And he also pioneered the use of empathy in therapy. Now, he did not invent empathy by any means, but he was one of the first people who really intentionally used it in therapeutic settings. Keep in mind therapy looked very different back then than it does today, of course.

So I know I have a lot of, like, bolded and keywords here. Don't worry about those quite yet. All I want you to know at this level is that humanism is a field focused on things like personal growth and, you know, achieving our fullest potential, and that Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are kind of the guys associated with humanism. Alright. So that is our little intro to humanism, and I'll see you guys in our next video.

Bye bye.