At this point, I'm fairly sure, my good experiences with therapists in the past, have been experiences with those who follow a humanist bent, but looking around this area, I am finding very little in terms of schools that teach that school of psychology. And that sort of disappoints me. Now, sure, there's the "Big Two" of Psychology "camps", there's the Behaviorists (spelt this way as it is a very Americanized school of Psychology), and they do a lot of good work, but it seems rather shallow to me. I mean, it's basically "Oh, so you are afraid of heights, so here's a specific plan to solve that", and then the patient goes away and they never see... oh wait, the patient is back months later with something else (I've heard of this happening to people elsewhere). Then there's the Psychoanalysts, they are focused on patient dreams, and unconscious behaviours, sometimes called "Freudians", or "Jungians", but again here, everyone is a patient and has problems to be "fixed", I would presume the patients are with the therapists for years, sometimes decades. Then comes the Humanists, I like the idea, looking at the whole person, but there's an underlying layer, they truly believe that all people are essentially striving to live a good life. That I can agree with, sounds a little far-fetched for those who know me, true, but the more I learn about this third group the more I like the essentials of what they are saying.
Now, like any group, there are their "fringe" people, they gained a lot of traction in the 60's, so a lot of places tie them in hand-in-hand with the so-called "hippy movement", so I originally discounted them as "those touchy-feely-hippy types, but now I have more understanding of what their beliefs are, I don't see it that way anymore. What I see is a lot of connections between what the basic fundamental ideas are of humanist psychology, and those of a world-centered view, but there is no reason why someone who is a humanist needs to be the tie-died touchy-feely type. They are compatible, not directly connected. Therefore, someone like me can be a humanist, but not be one of the other types. It's an interesting idea to me.
Now, again, I'm still new to the possible methods of dealing with things, so, I'll be trying to get as good an understanding of the other types as possible, who knows, it's possible I'll change my mind in the future
Nothing is set in stone, I'm still a living, breathing, human being.
