PSYC 2130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Anatta, Umwelt
10 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
Experience, existence, and the meaning of life: humanistic and positive psychology. Psychology the object of its scrutiny is also the one doing the scrutinizing. Humanistic psychology acknowledges and addresses the ways in which the field of psychology is unique. Psychology needs to address this unique phenomenon of awareness rather than brushing it under the rug. Self awareness brings to the fore many uniquely human phenomena that do not arise when the object of study is a rock, molecule, or another animal phenomena include willpower, reflective thinking, imagination, introspection, creativity, happiness, free will etc. Self awareness makes all these phenomena possible, and the rest of psychology ignores them. Humanistic psychology seeks to understand awareness, free will, happiness and the unique aspects of the human mind that give life meaning. The central insight of humanistic psychology is that ones conscious experience of the world, a persons phenomenology, is psychologically more important than the world itself.
