Recommended
Principles and Practices For The Provision of Humanistic Psychosocial
Services: Alternative To Mandated Practice and Treatment Guidelines
Task
Force for the Development of Practice Recommendations For The
Provision of Humanistic Psychosocial Services 1
The following
document is a statement of recommended principles for the provision
of humanistic psychological services, particularly psychotherapy,
although the principles elucidated apply to the provision of other
psychological services as well. It was prepared under the directive
of the Executive Board of the Division of Humanistic Psychology,
by a task force appointed by the Executive Board for that purpose.
The members of this Task Force are: Arthur C. Bohart, Chair (California
State University, Dominguez Hills and Saybrook Graduate School);
Maureen M. O'Hara, Co-Chair, (Saybrook Graduate School and past
president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology); Larry
M. Leitner (Miami University, Ohio and past president of Division
32); Fred Wertz (Fordham University and editor Journal of
Phenomenological Psychology); E. Mark Stern (Iona College,
editor, The Psychotherapy Patient and past president
of Division 32); Kirk Schneider (Saybrook Graduate School); Ilene
Serlin (Union Street Health Associates, San Francisco, and past
president of Division 32); Robert Elliott (University of Toledo
and past president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research);
and Tom Greening (Saybrook Graduate School and editor, Journal
of Humanistic Psychology). Robert Elliott, University of
Toledo, and President-Elect of the Society for Psychotherapy Research,
has recently joined the Task Force, but did not play a role in
the development of these recommendations.
An initial
draft of the major portion of this document was approved by the
Board of Division 32 and subsequently published in The Humanistic
Psychologist, 25(1), Spring, 1997, as “Guidelines for
the Provision of Humanistic Psychosocial Services." This
was done to solicit feedback from Division 32 members. The additional
draft section on Training and Ethics was published in The Humanistic
Psychologist, 25(3), Autumn, 1997, also to solicit feedback.
The final version was approved by the Division 32 Board in 1999.
The document was then submitted to the American Psychological
Association to undergo its guidelines review process. Initial
steps of this process were successfully completed, including review
by APA’s Legal Counsel and submission to all APA divisions
for feedback. Ultimately, however, because of APA’s specific
definitions of what constitutes guidelines, it was decided by
the Division 32 Board in 2001 to reconstrue the document as “Recommended
Principles and Practices For The Provision of Humanistic Psychosocial
Services: Alternative To Mandated Practice and Treatment Guidelines.”
Minor changes in wording were mandated due to this alteration,
and have now been completed, along with minor updating of research
citations.
1)
The "Recommended Practices and Principles For The Provision
of Humanistic Psychosocial Services: Alternative To Mandated Practice
and Treatment Guidelines" is a statement of policy of American
Psychological Association Division 32, Humanistic Psychology.
In promulgating these recommendations, the Division is not speaking
for the American Psychological Association or for any other division
or unit of the American Psychological Association.
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Preamble
In order to
better provide services to people, The Division of Humanistic
Psychology of the American Psychological Association has prepared
the following recommendations concerning the principles and practices
of humanistic psychosocial services. This is necessary in a day
when accountability of service-providers is a major issue, and
when some attempts to provide guidelines for the provision of
therapeutic services have threatened to restrict consumers' freedom
of choice. Under these conditions, it is important that humanistic
psychologists articulate the principles under which they operate
for the responsible and helpful provision of services.
Humanistic
psychologists form their own community of practice and hold their
own distinctive views of human nature, of science, of research
methodology, and of psychotherapy. Humanistic psychotherapy deals
with psychological dysfunction in the broad context of clients'
engagements in life and ways of being in the world. Humanistic
psychologists are oriented towards promoting the psychological
development and growth of individuals, families, and communities
through the support of their own creative and self-initiated efforts.
Psychological development includes the development of greater
capacities for self-understanding, understanding of others, and
understanding of relationships; clarification and development
of values and life goals; development of a greater capacity for
deep experiencing; the strengthening of relational bonds; the
promotion of an environment of mutual care and empathy; development
of a greater sense of personal freedom and choice while respecting
rights and needs of others as well as the limits imposed by reality;
and the strengthening of individual, relational, and group agency.
Humanistic interests are likely to include phenomena such as the
aspirations of whole persons, their goals, their desires, their
fears, their potential for growth, their higher selves, and qualities
such as empathy, congruence, authenticity, presence, and intimacy.
Discontinuities in life and in experience, tragedy, and pain,
are taken seriously as often reflecting basic issues concerning
the nature of the self, the nature of existence, and the nature
of one's engagement in the world, rather than being seen as pathogens
to be eliminated. Since humanists hold issues of human value as
fundamental, the provision of humanistic services is unavoidably
an issue of human value.
Humanistic
practices are holistic and are based in a view of the therapeutic
process as a dialogical activity, which occurs through person-to-person
conversations and through intersubjective symbolic activities.
Humanistic services begin from the assumption of a client whose
choice to seek therapy is personal. This entails a view of the
client as an agent, who must be engaged in the creation and development
of all therapeutic processes, not only as a matter of theoretical
truth and clinical efficacy, but also of ethical integrity and
coherence. Therefore humanists reject the model of the practitioner
as the expert who decides for the patient what the appropriate
treatment is. Humanistic practitioners recognize that their job
is to place their expertise at the service of their clients and
to establish a collaborative dialogical relationship with them.
The joint project of client and psychotherapist is to work towards
individualized goals that are framed in the clients' world view
and understandings of their own aspirations rather than on normative
diagnostic categories. Humanists believe that the methods used
in providing services must reflect the basic value of promoting
the agency and empowerment of individuals and groups.
Humanists,
in agreement with many feminists, family-systems theorists, and
ethno-cultural therapists, believe that relational phenomena are
fundamental and not reducible to the sum of individualities. Humanists
recognize both the particular and integral aspects of consciousness,
and that human beings are both unique and yet live in larger relational
contexts which have their own emergent properties and integrity.
Therefore, when humans enter into relationships with other humans
to provide help and assistance, they of necessity become part
of larger relational entities which must be treated as having
their own properties that go beyond the sum of the parts. Such
a position makes any therapeutic stance based in a view in which
an individual or institution makes unilateral decisions about
the life of another person both impractical and unethical. In
this document we will elaborate on these basic ideas and present
a humanistic model of praxis, science, research methodology, diagnosis,
and ethics, for the purpose of providing guidelines for the provision
of humanistic services.
It is important
to recognize that this document constitutes an alternative to
practice and treatment “guidelines.” The term “guidelines”
refers to pronouncements that support or recommend, but do not
mandate, specific approaches or actions. This document, as with
guidelines, is intended to provide recommendations of principles
for practice that are aspirational in intent. However, in contrast
to guidelines, which typically focus on or recommend specific
approaches or actions, these recommendations focus on the use
of guiding principles, consistent with humanistic philosophy and
practice. This document is intended to facilitate and assist the
provision of services, but it is not intended to be mandatory,
exhaustive, or definitive and may not be applicable to every situation.
It should not be construed as definitive and is not intended to
take precedence over the judgment of psychologists.
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