Compass Personality Theory and Humanistic Personality Theory

Pioneers in humanistic personality theory include Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Fritz Perls. The uniqueness of humanistic theory lies in its benevolent view of human nature with an emphasis on the positive potential for self-actualizing development that lies within every person.

What is the essence in the life work of these three theorists? A perspective that plays down the unconscious factors in behavior and builds up the self-actualizing tendency of the human organism, suggesting, as Maslow does, that when basic needs such as food and shelter are met, higher order needs such as belonging and a quest for meaning emerge.

Hierarchy of Needs

The idea is that people can be trusted to develop in pro-social ways because the more they come to esteem and love themselves, the more capable they become of esteeming and loving others. The more patient and sensitive they become with themselves, the more patience and sensitivity they express toward others. The path to healthy self-development is not through the internalization of “shoulds, oughts, and musts” from parents or society, but through listening to the ever-changing gestalt of needs, wants, and preferences from within one’s self, thereby attending to one’s “inner perceptual field.”

Humanistic psychology is strong on validating people and not inclined to categorize behavior so as to judge right from wrong or good from evil. The reason why some people are cruel, harmful, or exploitive of others lies in their earlier development, because they were not treated with appropriate respect and trust when growing up. The remedy lies in providing educational or therapeutic influences that offer unconditional positive regard and the prizing of one’s personhood. Once people internalize this empathetic form of relating, they are likely to radiate this response to others, increasing the quality and intimacy of their social relationships. As Carl Rogers said, “The basic nature of the human being, when functioning freely, is constructive and trustworthy.”

Compass personality theory agrees that human beings are endowed with potential for noble and praiseworthy behavior, adding that Christ expresses this human ethic in the Golden Rule: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Mt 7:12).

Yet as the Bible shows and human behavior empirically validates, there exists a profound capacity within human nature and personality to resist, corrupt, and even destroy the possibility for positive outcomes in self and others. 

Compass theory calls this mystery of iniquity by the biblical name of sin, a problem in which human beings manipulate the self and others through personality patterns. These patterns create rigidities present in every person to some degree. Jean Paul Sartre writes of these rigidities that “all human beings are guilty in principle, of self-deception, of inauthenticity, of playing a role or trying to disguise one’s actual personality behind a façade.”  

Manipulative Strategies

Maslow, too, noted, “We must also face squarely the problem of what stands in the way of growth: that is to say, the problems of cessation of growth and evasion of growth, of fixation, regression, and defensiveness, in a word, the attractiveness of psychopathology, or as other people would prefer to say, “the problem of evil.”

When it comes to human growth, Maslow, Rogers, and Perls see self-trust as fundamental to making authentic choices that foster congruence through listening to one’s emotions, sorting out thoughts, and integrating thinking and feeling with an awareness of bodily states. All three theorists believe that religious attitudes can contribute to the process of healthy living:

• Maslow offers a Taoist orientation to reality, a non-invasive, non-interfering way of listening to one’s own needs and relating to others.
• Rogers is sympathetic to the teachings of Lao-Tse, believing that this way of being promotes “agape love” in human encounters by encouraging non-possessive openness and respect for individual differences.
• Perls, though at times distinctly anti-religious, nevertheless asserts that Zen Buddhism provides a laudable orientation to living in the here and now, free from the burden of demands and expectations. 

By the same token, all three theorists espouse a humanistic personality theory precisely because they believe that the highest form of authority lies in one’s own human experience. 

The Kingdom of God is Within You

Compass personality theory shares with humanistic theory an emphasis on the importance of inner experiencing in becoming a person. Jesus taught that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21), indicating God’s intimate concern with a person’s thoughts and feelings, sensation and perception, learning and memory, attitudes and worldview. Christianity encourages an attitude of trust in the present and hope for the future: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:13).

Indeed, it is within a person’s inner perceptual field that the Holy Spirit moves to create self-trust, self-love, and self-development, versus fear of life or idolatrous subjugation to any external facet of creation. From this inner phenomenological field, which compass theory terms the spiritual core, Christ moves in cooperative dialogue with persons, ever-guiding them toward expanding circles of caring involvement with people and culture. Since God enjoys infinite contact with all creation, individuals growing in Christ are called to develop tenderness toward existence that reflects God’s connectedness to all that is. 

This outreach requires a rhythmic reliance upon the structure provided by the Word of God, orthodox creeds and doctrine, sacraments, and the Lord himself, offering a higher authority than an individual’s private perceptual field alone, a rhythm that benefits from developing an interpersonal selfhood in Christ. Within this context, trusting Christ for inner and outer guidance makes one’s personality and human nature relatively trustworthy, since Christ has redeemed human beings and calls them to exercise autonomy in creative dialogue with the Trinity.