humanistic psychology
an approach to psychology that flourished between the 1940s and the early 1970s and that is most visible today as a family of widely used approaches to psychotherapy and counseling. It derives largely from ideas associated with existentialism and phenomenology and focuses on individuals’ capacity to make their own choices, create their own style of life, and actualize themselves in their own way. Its approach is holistic, and its emphasis is on the development of human potential through experiential means rather than the analysis of the unconscious or the modification of behavior. Leading figures associated with this approach include Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May. Also called humanistic theory. See also fulfillment model; human-potential movement.