12 - The Humanistic Approach (Focus On The Self) Flashcards
What are the two basic needs we have?
Positive regard from other people
Feelings of self-worth (i.e. how much we value ourselves).
Feelings of self-worth develop in childhood as a result of the child’s interactions with parents. Further interactions with significant others (friends, spouses etc.) also have an influence.
What is congruence and incongruence?
Congruence : when there is a similarity between a persons’ perceived self (how they view themselves) and their ideal self (how they would like to me)
Incongruence : when there is not.
The closer to the self is to the ideal self, the higher our feelings of self-worth.
How do people deal with in-congruency?
Because most people prefer to see themselves in ways that are consistent with their ideal self, they may use defence mechanisms in order to feel less threatened by inconsistencies between how they would like to be and how they really are.
Define conditional and unconditional positive regard
unconditional positive regard - love and acceptance given by other people is unconditional as they are accepted for who they are or what they do
conditional positive regard - when they are accepted only if they do what others want them to do (conditions of worth).
Define conditions of worth
When people experience conditional positive regard they develop conditions of worth.
These are conditions that they perceive others (e.g. parents or a spouse) put upon them, and which they believe have to be put in place if they are to be accepted by others.
An individual may only experience a sense of self- acceptance if they meet the expectations that others have set as conditions of acceptance.
What did Rogers believe about how mental disorders should be treated?
He believed :
an individual’s psychological problems were a direct result of the conditional positive regard they receive from other people.
with counselling, people would be able to solve their own problems in constructive ways and move towards being a more functioning person.
Instead of acting in a directive way, humanistic psychologists, regard themselves as guides to help people understand themselves and find ways to enable their potential for self- actualisation.
Therapists provide empathy and unconditional positive regard, expressing their acceptance and understanding. They are therefore able to provide a supportive environment to help dissolve the client’s conditions of worth. These results in the client moving towards being more true to their self (i.e. able to behave in a way that is true to the person they are, rather than who someone else wants them to be).
How do humanistic psychologists behave when treating patients ?
Instead of acting in a directive way they regard themselves as guides to help people understand themselves and find ways to enable their potential for self- actualisation.
Therapists provide empathy and unconditional positive regard, expressing their acceptance and understanding. They provide supportive environment to help dissolve client’s conditions of worth.
These results in the client moving towards being more true to their self (i.e. able to behave in a way that is true to the person they are, rather than who someone else wants them to be).
What are the advantages to the humanistic approach?
It was discovered that teenagers who feel that they have to fulfil certain expectations in order to gain their parents approval (e.g. they have conditional positive regard rather than unconditional positive regard) end up not liking themselves. Those who pretend to be the kind of person his or her parents would love are more likely to develop depression.
What are the negatives to the humanistic approach?
Evaluating it scientifically is difficult because most of the evidence used to support this approach fails to establish a causal relationship between variables. Some studies have shown that people experience personal growth after counselling, but they do not show that counselling caused this.
It contains a lot of ideas that are abstract and difficult to test, such as ‘self-actualisation’ and ‘congruence’. This means the approach has limited application.
It presents an overly idealised and unrealistic view of human nature. People are not as inherently good or growth orientated as this approach suggests. It ignores peoples’ capacity for pessimism and self-destruction. ( Reductionist ?)
The view that personality is directed only by the innate potential for personal growth is oversimplified as is the humanistic assumption that all problems arise from blocked self-actualisation. Encouraging people to focus on their own self- development rather than on situational forces may be neither realistic nor appropriate in modern society.
In some cultures the hierarchy of needs is in a different order, and some needs are absent all together. In China belongingness is seen as more fundamental than some physiological needs, and self-actualisation is defined more in terms of contribution to the community than individual development.
