Humanistic therapies emphasize personal growth, self-understanding, and the fulfillment of human potential. Rooted in the belief that individuals inherently strive toward self-actualization, these approaches encourage clients to explore their feelings and experiences in a supportive, nonjudgmental environment. Humanistic therapies differ from psychodynamic approaches by focusing on conscious experiences, present circumstances, and the potential for self-improvement rather than past conflicts...

Extrasensory perception, or ESP, suggests the ability to perceive events beyond the conventional senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Parapsychologists, who research ESP and related psychic phenomena, categorize ESP into three main types: precognition, telepathy, and clairvoyance.
Precognition involves foreseeing future events, such as predicting an accident before it happens. An example of precognition could be someone dreaming about a specific event, like a car crash, which then occurs...

Gestalt psychology, founded by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler, emphasizes the importance of understanding perception as an organized whole. Developed as a counter to Wilhelm Wundt's structuralism, this approach posits that our perceptions are more than just the sum of sensory parts; they are comprehensive wholes where the relationships between parts define the perception. The principle "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" encapsulates this view,...

Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and former follower of Freud, eventually broke away from Freud's ideas to create his framework, analytical psychology. This approach emphasizes achieving a balance between the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mind and reconciling various experiences within an individual's personality. Jung believed that this process, which typically unfolds in the latter part of life, involves an ongoing journey of recognizing and incorporating unconscious...

Humanistic psychology emerged in the mid-20th century as a response to the deterministic and pessimistic nature of behaviorism and psychoanalysis. While behaviorism focused on observable behaviors influenced by the environment and psychoanalysis delved into unconscious motivations, both theories suggested that human actions lacked free will. In contrast, humanistic psychology offers a perspective that emphasizes the innate potential for goodness and growth within every individual.
This approach...

Structuralism, an early psychological theory developed by Wilhelm Wundt and his student Edward Bradford Titchener, sought to dissect the human mind into its most fundamental components. Wundt's groundbreaking work in his laboratory set the stage for Titchener to define structuralism's goal as cataloging the "atoms" of the mind—sensations, images, and feelings—akin to how chemists identify elements of matter.
Titchener's approach to structuralism was unique. He...