Psychological Astrology - The horoscope from the aspect of social psychology

 

Psychological Astrology - Astrological Aspects and Mental Conflicts

 

Psychological Astrology - Astrological Aspects and Defense Mechanisms of Ego

 

Psychological Astrology - Houses and Human Psychosynthesis

 

The Horoscope from Humanistic Psychology's perspective

If Social Psychology gives emphasis to the roles and the restrictions that they create, Humanistic Psychology has the purpose of highlighting those forces that make the human special and separate him from the mass. This psychology does not have to do, so much, with the creation of social or psychodynamic models, as with the promotion of the potential each one of us contains inside towards the direction of our personal development.

This Psychology today we call Person Oriented Psychology, but formerly was called Humanistic Psychology.

Humanistic Psychology, which is considered to have been born, in essence, by Carl Rodgers, draws, its origins, among others, from Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. Adler, along with Freud and Jung, was one of the three major exponents of the Psychoanalysis' movement in the early 20th century. But, while, Freud and Jung consider human to be, in essence, captive of his personal or collective subconscious, Adler was the first who strongly disagreed, considering that the Ego, namely the conscious mind of human, is the one that takes the decisions in every person’s life. In a few words, while the founders of Psychoanalysis (Freud) and of Analytical Psychology (Jung) were thinking that human was basically not free, Adler believed in human’s freedom of taking decisions, despite the obstacles of the subconscious. 

Based on the Adler’s point of view about the importance of Ego, many psychotherapy schools appeared, which tried not to dissolve the Ego as Psychoanalysis did, in order for the Unconscious to appear, but on the contrary, to strengthen it, providing it with world understanding tools and skills of communication. And, in general, increasing, we could say, human’s knowledge in order for him to take as many decisions as possible freely, and knowing the consequences. The commitment to the free human who decides knowing the possible outcomes, but also taking on the responsibility for whatever choice of his, is also an important point emphasized by Humanistic Psychology.

The difference between Humanistic Psychology and previous psychological schools was that it added one more factor to the psychological outlook of the human being. While until then, various schools (psychoanalysis, behaviorism, etc.) were trying to explain human psychology based on mechanistic models and internal conflicts, Humanistic Psychology made the point that mechanistic models, various kinds of categorization and typologies did not serve psychotherapy, because, in reality, they were not trying to get into every human’s place and see how he conceives things, but they were trying to fit human into category boxes, forcing him to comply with rules and norms and thus indirectly subjugating him to the established Social System.

On the contrary, Humanistic Psychology considered the Subjective Experience is the most important factor to view a human Person. For Humanistic Psychology it does not matter, if what each of us feels at a certain moment is real. As long as we feel it, it is completely real to us and that is enough. In Astrology, the application of this principle drives us to adopt a position of refraining from interpreting the Person’s chart according to the norms and beliefs of Astrologers who do the interpretation, but instead letting the person evaluate his chart on his own while we are trying to get into his place and understand him.

Accepting, though, the view that the Subjective Experience is what matters, Humanistic Psychology made an additional leap towards comprising both Holistic Philosophy and Metaphysics. It started examining anything that was a part of the Subjective Human Experience and not just the generally and “scientifically” acceptable phenomena. Thus it started to examine the so called metaphysic experiences as well as it tried to view the person holistically, meaning that it could not exclude a big part of human experience, like metaphysical experience, just because they did not comply with the restrictions of physical science.

One branch of Humanistic Psychology, the so called Existential Psychology, started examining the Existential Anxieties of people whereas humanistic psychologists began to experiment with alternative therapies, astrology and divination and in general with all practices that seemed to have an effect on the Subjective Experience of the Human, regardless whether they have been scientifically proven or not. Of course, this had a dire consequence after a point, the fact that Humanistic Psychology was to be disputed for its scientific invalidity, but, the step towards examining the Human Subject as a Whole, had already been made.

The question of human freedom

The purpose of Humanistic Psychology according to Carl Rodgers was no longer to focus on the problems of people, but on their opportunities. Life has a purpose, a meaning, which is learning, evolution, awareness. The person’s mental health, which for Psychoanalysis was based on solving internal conflicts and for Jung on the union with the Other and the avoidance of alienation, for Humanistic Psychology was based on the unification of human experience in order for the person to find meaning in what is happening, to feel that he is able to cope with everything, that life is in his hands, that he is the one who makes the decisions and that he, finally, is free.

This freedom of the human, which comes from raising his awareness, his skills, his abilities, his confidence to interact with the world, is the biggest gain of Humanistic Psychology, a gain that among others affected the Educational System and helped it escape producing technicians and laborers with specialized knowledge and become a system that is supplying human with tools to interact with the world in a better way and become more free.

In Astrology, this consideration is translated to an interpretation of the chart, not as a set of problems and predeterminations, but as a set of opportunities of evolution. So for example hard astrological aspects are not considered to create problems, but give opportunities to become better and more skillful, planets without dignities do not suggest a lack of ability, but the need to substitute something that is missing with something that the person can achieve. The entire view of the astrological chart, transits, or progressive systems changes in order to display how the human personality evolves, the changes it goes through, the challenges and the lessons it has to learn and not just the facts that are about to happen in a somewhat unavoidable way.

Destiny and Freedom

Integrated to the studies of Humanistic Psychology, though, is also Metaphysics. And that, because human, according to the Humanistic approach, does not deny the presence of forces which seem to determine Destiny. Humanistic approach considers however, that as much human needs the Divine Powers, so do they need him to accomplish the Divine Plan (if one is assumed to exist). Human from the Humanistic perspective, does not consider the flow of spiritual energy to come from above to the earth only, but he considers emanating spiritual energy himself towards the world as well, and furthermore that the Divine Plan (if any) is always up to him, as he is the one who is going to put the final details or produce the final outcomes of any situations.

The Divine Plan, in other words, does not define predefined events that must happen, but Principles that have to be respected and Balances and Analogies that need to be maintained. If these are respected, the final way of living his life is up to the man himself.

Lastly, Humanistic Psychology, we have to say, is revolutionary to some degree. It refuses to formulate personality theories like other psychological approaches, refuses to categorize people and to contribute that way to their compliance to the Establishment. It symbolizes the transition from the human who complies with laws to the human who transcends them and unleashes, literally, a burst of creativity to the world. Mental Cure for Humanistic Psychology is not the restoration of the individual to a “Functional” state but his encouragement in order to become as unpredictable as possible. 

Because then, he would be really creative, when he puts his own ideas into realization, and not those of whom he imitates or he is obliged by others to follow.

Therefore a Humanistic Astrologer has as a purpose to help his client to see how His own chart works and not the charts of others in general. A Humanistic Astrologer is not interested in what Mars in Aries means in general, but what Mars in Aries in that very specific chart might mean and even more, he is obliged to help his client interpret that Mars by himself and assess his own challenges instead of using general interpretations that might apply to others.

Of course, the nature of Astrology, as we inherited it from our ancestors, does not fit perfectly to this model, as it contains a great deal of typologies and general interpretations, which categorize the experience. So, it is a challenge for us astrologers to apply the principles of Astrology Consulting to clients, despite this, at least apparent, contradiction and if necessary to review some astrological principles, provided it serves the development of diversity, creativity and of people’s originality, because at the times we live, this is what humanity needs more in order to progress and not the return to the old good tested solutions.