BPS Core Textbooks Series

Developed in collaboration with the British Psychological Society

Chapter 24 – Hidden Treasures: Humanistic Psychotherapy and the Dialectic of Meaning

Chapter Summary

This chapter explores the rich and sometimes contradictory traditions of humanistic and existential counselling psychology. Emerging in the mid-twentieth century as a hopeful response to widespread alienation and the perceived dehumanisation of mainstream psychology, these approaches emphasised personal meaning, authenticity, emotional honesty, and the therapeutic relationship. Central to the chapter is the use of hermeneutics, the art and theory of interpretation, as a critical thinking tool. The traditions are read through a binary relationship: a hermeneutics of trust, which embraces their emancipatory and ethical potential, and a hermeneutics of suspicion, which interrogates how these same ideas may align with broader socio-political shifts, such as individualisation. Through the work of key figures, students are invited to consider how concepts such as self-actualisation, personal growth, and meaning-making have shaped both therapy and culture. Yet these ideals are not immune to critique. What appears liberating may, in some contexts, reinforce pressure to perform psychological well-being in ways that are aligned with political agendas.

Chapter 24 – Quiz

  • Chapter 24 – Flashcards

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  • Chapter 24 – Key Readings

    Amouroux, R., Gerber, L., & Aronov, M. (2022). Putting psychotherapy in its place: The regionalization of behaviour therapy in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, 1960s–1990s. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 58(1), 5–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.22142 

    De Vos, J. (2013). Psychologization and the subject of late modernity. Palgrave Macmillan. 

    Felder, A. J., & Robbins, B. D. (2011). A cultural-existential approach to therapy: Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment and its implications for practice. Theory & Psychology, 21(3), 355-376. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354310397570  

    Han, S. (2014). The illusion of autonomy: Locating humanism in existential-psychoanalytic social theory. History of the Human Sciences, 28(1), 66-83. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695114551655  

    Harrist, S., & Richardson, F. C. (2012). Levinas and hermeneutics on ethics and the Other. Theory & Psychology, 22(3), 342-358. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354310389647 

    Hîncu, A. (2022). Social science and Marxist humanism beyond collectivism in Socialist Romania. History of the Human Sciences, 35(2), 77-100. https://doi.org/10.1177/09526951211069491 

    Loewenthal, D. (2015). Critical psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and counselling: Implications for practice. Palgrave Macmillan. 

    Malone, K. R. (2007). The Subject as drop-out: cultural accountability and the ethics of psychoanalysis and humanistic psychology. Theory & Psychology, 17(3), 449-471. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354307077291 

    Marks, S. (2017). Psychotherapy in historical perspective. History of the Human Sciences, 30(2), 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695117703243 

    Mather, R. (2008). Hegel, Dostoyevsky and Carl Rogers: Between humanism and spirit. History of the Human Sciences, 21(1), 33-48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695107086151 

    Rennie, D. L. (2000). Grounded theory methodology as methodical hermeneutics: Reconciling realism and relativism. Theory & Psychology, 10(4), 481-502. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354300104003 

    Rowan, J. (2001). Ordinary ecstasy: The dialectics of humanistic psychology (Third edition). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315787794 

    Totton, N. (2010). The problem with humanistic therapies. Karnac.  Wharne, S. (2020). How is distress understood in existential philosophies and can phenomenological therapeutic practices be “evidence-based”? Theory & Psychology, 31(2), 273-289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354320964586

  • Chapter 24 – Reflective Questions

    1. How do humanistic and existential therapies differ from earlier forms of psychotherapy, such as behaviourism or psychoanalysis? 
    2. In what ways might the concepts of ‘self-actualisation’ or ‘personal growth’ be seen as politically and culturally situated? 
    3. What is the significance of using ‘hermeneutics’—especially the dialectic between trust and suspicion—as a critical thinking tool in this chapter? 
    4. How did therapists such as Violet Oaklander and Lydia James Myers expand the reach and inclusivity of humanistic psychology? 
    5. Can therapy be both a site of liberation and a form of social adaptation? How should we hold these tensions as future psychologists? 

  • Chapter 24 – Weblinks

    There is no weblinks for this chapter.