Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY 
Consider the following therapy session excerpt: 
Alice: I was thinking about this business of standards. I somehow developed a 
sort of a knack, I guess, of—well—habit—of trying to make people feel at 
ease around me, or to make things go along smoothly. . . . 
Therapist: In other words, what you did was always in the direction of trying 
to keep things smooth and to make other people feel better and to smooth 
the situation. 
Alice: Yes. I think that’s what it was. Now the reason why I did it probably 
was—I mean, not that I was a good little Samaritan going around making 
other people happy, but that was probably the role that felt easiest for me 
to play. . . . 
Therapist: You feel that for a long time you’ve been playing the role of kind of 
smoothing out the frictions or differences or what not. . . . 
humanistic therapy
Therapy in which 
the underlying rationale is that people 
have control of their behavior, can 
make choices about their lives, and are 
essentially responsible for solving their 
own problems.
Key Concepts 
What are the humanistic 
approaches to treatment?
What is interpersonal therapy?
How does group therapy 
diff er from individual types of 
therapy?
How effective is psycho-
therapy, and which kind of 
psychotherapy works best 
in a given situation?
M O D U L E 5 0 
Psychotherapy: Humanistic, 
Interpersonal, and Group 
Approaches to Treatment
Humanistic therapy focuses on 
self-responsibility.
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