For five decades, the Humanistic Psychology has penetrated very significantly in academic circles, both undergraduate and graduate-level theoretical and practical level. First it was more like protest and alternative classics of the two currents in psychology, psychoanalysis and behaviorism, then presenting a holistic, coherent and logical, the provision of rich and complex human being. This holistic view has been strengthened with a strong epistemological foundation of his approach and the development and structuring of appropriate methodologies and techniques and more specifically sensitive to human, such as freedom, conscience, creativity, values and feelings .
This marked epistemological and methodological approach is at the point of constituting a new psychological paradigm . This is due to the belief that the differences between the different orientations of psychology today spring from strong divergent epistemological and only on this basis can achieve a greater unification of psychology.

The Humanist Movement

The humanist movement is not unique to psychology has manifested itself in all aspects of human thought in all aspects of human interaction: in sociology, anthropology, political science, philosophy and even theology. The greatest problems of our time are now human problems.
In the historical evolution of psychology as a science has been focusing on three approaches or philosophies of psychological science: classical empiricism, logical empiricism and metascience.
The classical empiricism conceived of psychology as a science purely descriptive of the observations of psychological phenomena and consciousness and, perhaps, as a timid formulation of "laws" empirical relationships between these phenomena. This approach prevailed until World War in large sectors of American behaviorism and some psychologists GestaltAlso later.
The logical empiricism prevailed between 1930 and 1960. With it accommodates the "logical thinking" in the broadest sense of the word. Scientific knowledge, according to this view, consists not only in the description of the facts and laws, but also in the formulation of explanatory hypotheses, for which it will use logical constructs or models. It is the "era of the theories."
From WarWorld was emerging and, especially in the next three decades, developed a third level of "abstraction" that goes beyond the previous two, the description and the hypothetical, is the level of the metascience . Although not yet have a name universally accepted, this is a new philosophy or theory of science. His basic thesis holds that scientific theories are part of the whole cultural context, which, consequently, influence in their formulations. Therefore, every scientific theory has its share philosophical or meta.
Also falls within a "comprehensive framework" for reference, the humanistic approach to psychology, ie one that considers the human being itself as a potentially free and creative , whose behavior may depend more on its internal conceptual framework compulsion of internal impulses ( psychoanalysis ) or pressure from outside forces ( Behaviorism ).
The concept of human being who has the Humanistic Psychology is extremely rich and complex . This guidance does not want to exclude from their study none of which, in its approach, it identifies and distinguishes better man, as freedom, creativity, values, love, act with purpose and directed toward a goal, self-fulfillment, the meaning of life, suffering and death itself. Hence a general methodology , appropriate and effective for its study, is largely done. However, this is the great challenge that is presented to the humanistic psychologists: to respect fully the object of study so subtly and skillfully structured, and find, at the same time, the most appropriate procedure to understand.
Thus, the epistemology constitute a critical framework that sits methodology. Both sides are devoted to study the bases of a possible paradigm for psychology , which is both "scientific", ie the result of a study rigorously critical and systematic, and "humanist" is, true to the comprehensive and personal nature of human beings.
The main objective of this second part, the methodology is to give a firm and solid to the following central thesis: the method depends on the subject of science, and if the object of study "human", "animal" and "inorganic" is irreducible to one another, you need different methods, human life has a richness of content that do not capture the mathematical techniques and operational methods and human needs and personality key in understanding the person is the study of the meaning of actions and the intention that encourages, rather than the mere study of external behavior, the ways that seem more suited to a proper understanding of man are the methods that focus on "dialogue": the hermeneutic-dialectic, the phenomenological ethnography, action research on the life history, etc., and in general, qualitative methods because they fulfill a set of virtues and qualities that make them flexible and responsive to the characteristics of each individual.
Therefore, we are not concerned both the nature and validity of knowledge itself, in basic and universal sense, but the nature and validity of certain procedures developed to enhance a part of the knowledge, understanding of man as a person. However, it is up to the same psychology to analyze and unravel the nature of mental processes which underpin the methodology of science.

Author's Bio: 

I am Professor of psychology and has great deal of interest in educating the people about various aspects of psychology. Humanistic Psychology and Psychology Books