A HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON RELIGION/SPIRITUALITY

Abstract

This article offers a critical synthesis of the contributions of Carl G. Jung, Gestalt therapy (Fritz and Laura Perls), and Viktor E. Frankl to understanding religion/spirituality within the horizon of Humanistic Psychology. It is a qualitative study with an exploratory aim, using a bibliographic procedure and pure basic purpose, conducted under a phenomenological attitude that privileges experiential descriptions and conceptual elucidation. In Jung, the highlights are the status of religiosity as a universal expression of the psyche, the concept of the numinous, and the process of individuation, which integrates conscious–unconscious dimensions into a personal holism; this framework legitimizes the presence of the religious in clinical practice as a pathway to meaning and integration. In Gestalt therapy, religion appears as a phenomenon of the organism–environment field that traverses contact, fostering responsibility, freedom, and authorship; grounded in humanistic, phenomenological, and existential premises, the approach rejects reductionisms and understands the sacred as a concrete process permeating meanings. In Frankl, the search for meaning is the primary motivation, grounded in a somatic–psychic–noetic anthropology; religiosity functions as a “symbolic language” that guides choices without reducing itself to confessionalism. The comparative analysis reveals convergences: a non-deterministic view of the person, the centrality of meaning/value, a focus on totality, and the capacity for self-direction. It concludes that integrating religious/spiritual experiences into a humanistic framework is epistemologically consistent and clinically fruitful: it broadens the listening to values, sustains processes of congruence, and strengthens client authorship. Applied qualitative studies (case studies, clinical narratives) are suggested to examine how such experiences operate in therapeutic change across different cultural and institutional contexts.