Humanistic and Existential Personalities

Humanistic and Existential Personalities Theories According to the CIA World Factbook, there are approximately 6.8 billion people living here on the Earth. That makes for a lot of interpersonal relationships and individual personalities in this world that we live in. So is it any wonder why we spend so much time in analyzing how all these people interact with each other and what factors influenced each of these 6.8 billion people? Two different and varying theories attempt to do just that; the humanistic theory and the existential theory. In the following sections, these two theories are to be used to put forth the following: 1) an analysis of how these two theories affect individual personalities and 2) explain how these two theories influence interpersonal relationships. Analyze how Humanistic and Existential Theories affect Individual Personalities Personality comes from within a person and starts when he or she is born. Socializing with children and teaching them to be a good people no matter what the situation is will make a difference on how those children or people may shape up to be. Whenever giving praise or saying thanks can make a person believe he or she is wanted and know there is a reason to live. The humanistic theories focus on the individual and no one else. According to Ellis (1994) “One's past history is an all-important determiner of one's present behavior and because something once strongly affected one's life, it should indefinitely have a similar effect. There is invariably a right, precise and perfect solution to human problems and it is awful if this perfect solution is not found.” Ellis knew that if a person has been around negative things all of his of her life that individual will have trouble developing a bright future because of being taught that bad things may be the only way to go. Existential theories focus on a person’s potential in life. Life is about choices and responsibilities so being able to make the right

References: Ellis, A. (1994). Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy, NY: Birch Lane Press http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/interpersonal+relationships Feist, J., & Feist, G. (2009). Theories of personality (7th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/