1.9. The Humanistic Approach

Question 1

What are the main assumptions?

Answer 1

• 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

Question 2

Order of the hierarchy of needs

Answer 2

• Physiological needs
• Need for safety
• Need for love and belonging
• Need for esteem
• Self actualisation

Question 3

If physiological needs are NOT met:

Answer 3

You will begin to crave food, water

Question 4

If physiological needs are met:

Answer 4

No cravings
Higher needs will present themselves

Question 5

If need for safety is NOT met:

Answer 5

You will become anxious and display fight or flight behaviour

Question 6

If need for safety is met:

Answer 6

You will experience physical security.
Your safety needs decrease

Question 7

If need for love and belonging is NOT met:

Answer 7

You will become lonely, withdrawal and rejected and will show hostility towards ‘outgroups’.

Question 8

If need for love and belonging is met:

Answer 8

You will demonstrate mutual love, trust and freedom.
High needs will present themselves to encourage you to progress.

Question 9

If need for esteem is NOT met:

Answer 9

• 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.

Question 10

If need for esteem is met:

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

If self actualisation is NOT met:

Answer 11

You will view life as meaningless and become restless and bored with tendency to avoid growth and development.

Question 12

if self actualisation is met:

Answer 12

You will feel a desire to develop.
Feel creative, positive and energetic.
A desire to contribute, live curiously and independently.
Develop an identity.

Question 13

Who constructed the hierarchy of needs?

Answer 13

Maslow

Question 14

What is self actualisation?

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

What is there a positive correlation between in self actualisation?

Answer 15

An individual’s level of self actualisation and their psychological health.

Question 16

What did Rogers say you must be in order to achieve self actualisation?

Answer 16

Congruent

Question 17

What is meant by congruence?

Answer 17

• The ideal self and the real self are the same/ similar
• This then allows a person to have high feelings of self worth

Question 18

What must a person have to achieve congruence?

Answer 18

Positive self regard

Question 19

What is incongruence?

Answer 19

When the gap between a person’s self concept and ideal self is too big

Question 20

What are conditions of worth?

Answer 20

• 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

Question 21

What should an effective therapist provide in client centred therapy?

Answer 21

• Genuineness
• Empathy
• Unconditional Positive Regard

Question 22

What is the aim of client centred therapy

Answer 22

To increase feelings of self worth and reduce incongruence between self concept and ideal self.

Question 23

What did Rogers’ work transform?

Answer 23

• Psychotherapy
• No directive counselling techniques are practised, not only in clinical settings, but throughout education, health and social care sectors.

Question 24

Strength: holistic

Answer 24

• 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.

Question 25

Strength: positive approach

Answer 25

• Humanistic psychologists have been praised for promoting a positive image of the human condition -> seeing people as in control of their lives and having freedom to change
• Freud saw human beings as slaves to their past and claimed all of us existed somewhere between ‘common unhappiness and absolute despair’
• Therefore, humanistic psychology offers a refreshing and optimistic alternative

Question 26

Weakness: may have a western culture bias

Answer 26

• Many humanistic ideas would be associated with individualistic cultures in the west such as the US
• Collectivist cultures such as India, which emphasis the needs of the group may not identify with the ideals and values of humanistic psychology.
• Therefore, it’s possible that the approach doesn’t apply universally and is a product of the cultural context within which it was developed.