What is “Humanistic and Cognitive Psychology?
Humanistic psychology approaches human behavior from a more theoretical approach and looking as the essence of being human. When I use the term humanistic psychology, I am referring to the fact that we are all human and tend to have similar behavioral patterns regardless of the culture, age, ethnic or religious affiliation. The term cognitive psychology was developed about fifty years ago to refer to that capacity of humans to understand their cognitions or thoughts. The theory is that when we can understand our thoughts, when can make conscious choices differently as we strive to change our otherwise painful behaviors. Basically, I encourage people to begin to accept that there is hope on the horizon, change is something that happens daily whether we want it to or not, and that we can learn to be more proactive in our own behavioral choices as we build trust within our selves to learn to change. A metaphor that I use frequently with patients is that if they have been writing all their
