Theory Construction Human Nature What is the nature of human beings? What is the nature of human beings? What makes them act the way they do? What makes them act the way they do? What goes wrong? (How do you explain dysfunction?) What goes wrong? (How do you explain dysfunction?) What motivates a person to change? What motivates a person to change?

View of Human Nature Are people basically “good”? Or are their natures essentially “evil”? Or is it something in between?

Free Will Vs. Determinism  Do people have free will?  How does choice arrive in behavior?

View of Human Nature How is behavior determined? Is Human behavior determined by: –Genetics (or material cause)? –Environment (external/efficient cause)? –Innate Patterns of behavior? –Movement toward some purpose?

Determinism Hard Determinism: The universe is like clocks, what occurs in the world or in behavior is precisely what must have occurred. Soft Determinism: A belief that things could have gone otherwise than they did.

Soft Determinism Unconscious Process/Family constellation In Freud, there is lack of In Freud, there is lack of psychic freedom in the Unconscious mind, but with conscious insight, conscious insight, we can correct our (propensity toward) (propensity toward) undesired behavior. undesired behavior. In Jung, not only do In Jung, not only do humans have messages humans have messages sent to consciousness by way of dream symbols, but we have archetypal themes as well. In Adler, once the person is made conscious of the is made conscious of the unconscious strategies unconscious strategies underway to achieve life goals, adaptations and goals, adaptations and changes can be made. changes can be made.

Human Experience according to Kant ( ) Noumena: What something is in itself, independent of our sensations of it. Phenomena: Our sensory knowledge of things or actions in the external world. The human mind, through its categories of understanding, frames-in the meaning of the noumenal world for us.

The phenomenological method (Kant) Studying our very existence as conscious, meaning-creating beings. Human beings can reflexively study their own mind as a process. “If humans have machine properties, then unlike other machines in nature, they can turn back on themselves and observe their own parts and processes at work.” Transcendental: Describes when we go beyond the usual flow of our thoughts and see things as they happen from the vantage point of an observer outside this flow (of our thoughts).