1.9. The Humanistic Approach Flashcards
What are the main assumptions?
- Every person is unique
- We have free will -> we are in control of our behaviour
- People should be viewed holistically -> past and present should be taken into account
- A scientific method to study human behaviour is not appropriate
Order of the hierarchy of needs
- Physiological needs
- Need for safety
- Need for love and belonging
- Need for esteem
- Self actualisation
If physiological needs are NOT met:
You will begin to crave food, water
If physiological needs are met:
No cravings
Higher needs will present themselves
If need for safety is NOT met:
You will become anxious and display fight or flight behaviour
If need for safety is met:
You will experience physical security.
Your safety needs decrease
If need for love and belonging is NOT met:
You will become lonely, withdrawal and rejected and will show hostility towards ‘outgroups’.
If need for love and belonging is met:
You will demonstrate mutual love, trust and freedom.
High needs will present themselves to encourage you to progress.
If need for esteem is NOT met:
- You will become fearful of criticism, failure and risks.
- Inferior, helpless and feel frustration towards those who withhold respect.
- Envious, bitter and arrogant with signs of attention seeking or withdrawal.
If need for esteem is met:
You will feel confident and content.
Show self belief and respect and will be prepared to step outside of your comfort zone.
Higher needs begin to present themselves to encourage you to progress.
If self actualisation is NOT met:
You will view life as meaningless and become restless and bored with tendency to avoid growth and development.
if self actualisation is met:
You will feel a desire to develop.
Feel creative, positive and energetic.
A desire to contribute, live curiously and independently.
Develop an identity.
Who constructed the hierarchy of needs?
Maslow
What is self actualisation?
- Represents the uppermost level of the hierarchy
- An ultimate feeling of well-being and satisfaction, a feeling of completeness
- We all have an innate drive to self actualise
What is there a positive correlation between in self actualisation?
An individual’s level of self actualisation and their psychological health.
What did Rogers say you must be in order to achieve self actualisation?
Congruent
What is meant by congruence?
- The ideal self and the real self are the same/ similar
- This then allows a person to have high feelings of self worth
What must a person have to achieve congruence?
Positive self regard
What is incongruence?
When the gap between a person’s self concept and ideal self is too big
What are conditions of worth?
- Caused by conditional love
- ‘I will only love you if…’ cana lead to a sense of worthlessness and low self esteem
- Unconditional positive regard is needed for positive mental health and ability to self actualise
What should an effective therapist provide in client centred therapy?
- Genuineness
- Empathy
- Unconditional Positive Regard
What is the aim of client centred therapy
To increase feelings of self worth and reduce incongruence between self concept and ideal self.
What did Rogers’ work transform?
- Psychotherapy
- No directive counselling techniques are practised, not only in clinical settings, but throughout education, health and social care sectors.
Strength: holistic
- The humanistic approach is anti-reductionist
- Rejects any attempt to break up behaviour and experience into smaller components
- They advocate holism -> the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person
- This approach may have more validity that its alternatives by considering meaningful human behaviour within its real world context
- However, humanistic psychology has relatively few concepts that can be reduced to single variables and measured which means it’s short on empirical evidence.
