Psychologische Ästhetik und Humanistische Psychologie: Zu den Konzepten Authentizität, Kongruenz und Empathie

Abstract

Psychological Aesthetics and Humanistic Psychology: On the Concepts Authenticity, Congruence and Empathy. ‘Authenticity’, ‘congruence’, and ‘empathy’ are not only core concepts of Humanistic Psychology, but have a particular meaning in aesthetics as well. In this article the question is put whether there is a common field of meaning. In aesthetics, the term ‘authenticity’ was rather inconsistently defined: Beside the widely used interpretation as ‘actual authorship’, an interpretation in the sense of ‘credibility’ or ‘sincerity’ (comparable with the use of the term in Humanistic Psychology) is also common. While in the tradition of Rogers ‘authenticity’ and ‘congruence’ have been conceived as objective human qualities, from the point of view of Psychological Aesthetics it is rather interesting, how they can be perceived on a pre-rational level in a social or therapeutic context. It might be possible that the concept of ‘empathy’, which played an important role in the “Einfuehlungstheorie’ of Psychological Aesthetics at the early the 20th century, influenced the concept of ‘empathy’ in Humanistic Psychology through Charlotte Buehler, who published several articles on aesthetic topics as a young scientist.