PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH OF HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

Because of the demand that psychology be accepted as a scientific discipline, many theorists tended to forget that the subject of their study is the human being, who (unlike the atom or a virus) has self-awareness, freedom of choice, a personal value system, and most of all, a desire to be understood, to gain self-knowledge, and to grow spiritually. It is these neglected aspects of human behaviour that the phenomenologist chooses to emphasise.

For these reasons, phenomenological psychology is often called humanistic psychology.

The phenomenological approach rejects the view that the individual is a passive result of uncontrollable forces. The phenomenologist focuses on the individual’s active, subjective experience, as this approach emphasises the individual’s personal interpretation of the world as a cause of behaviour. The individual is regarded as a free agent with the ability to choose his or her own values, actions and goals. Because this approach is so person-centred, it has perhaps received less attention than experimental research, yet it has had a profound influence on methods of therapy and counselling.