Approaches: The Humanistic Approach Flashcards
Assumptions of the Humanistic approach
- each individual is unique
- each individual had free will
- science should not be used to explain behaviour
- humans should be viewed holistically and not reduced to their parts
- a persons subject experience of the world is more important than the objective reality.
Conditions of worth definitions
Constraints an individuals believes are put upon them by significant others that they deem necessary to gain a positive regard
Congruence definition
The match between the perceived self and the ideal self
Self actualization def
Concerns psychological growth, fulfillment and satisfaction in life and its the final staff in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
It’s about recognizing and being motivated to fulfill you own potential
Free will
All other approaches are majorly deterministic, even the cognitive approach (which claims we are free to choose our own thoughts but would still argue that that choice is constrained by the limits of our cognitive system. )
This approach assumes that human beings are self-determining and have free will.
This doesn’t mean that people are not affected by external or internal influences, but we are active agents who have have the ability to determine our own developments
> so they reject scientific models that attempt to establish general principles of human behaviour
> as active agents we are all unique and psychology should concern itself with the study of subjective experience rather than general laws.
this is known as the person-centered approach
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs
(self actualization)
Everyone has the tendency to achieve their FULL POTENTIAL- to become the best they can possibly be.
Self-actualisation represents the uppermost level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
- All four lower levels of the hierarchy (‘deficiency needs’) must be met before the individual can work towards self-actualisation (a ‘growth need’) and fulfil their potential.
Humanistic psychologists regard personal growth as an essential part of what it is to be human. Personal growth is concerned with developing and changing as a person to become fulfilled, satisfied and goal-orientated.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
(The levels)
Level 1: physiological needs
- live supporting, essential element
- it is impossible to ascend any further up the pyramid without these in place.
level 2: safety needs
- the level includes security, protection, a degree of predictability, freedom from persecution
- it would be very difficult to pursue a goal if life was chaotic and subject to change at any moment
level 3: Social needs
- this level acknowledges the importance of having a supportive network, friendship, love, intimacy and a feeling of belonging
- one may be doing well and earning good money in a job but without friends or a sense of community, they are unlikely to feel truly fullfilled.
level 4: Esteem needs
- these include self-image, achievement, Mastery of skill, reputation autonomy
- a persons may be the best violin -layering in the world, but may feel worthless based on a history of Parental disinterest.
level 5: self- actualisation
- these achievement of a person’s full potential, becoming the best version of themselves
- the level includes feelings of self- fulfilment, transcendence, personal growth, being in a ‘flow’ state, the ultimate achievement
- only possible to reach this stage once all of the previous levels have been scaled
- the process of reaching self-actualisation may be continual, as new goals are reached and new ambitions are set
- self- actualisation is the ultimate, aspirational goal, not everyone will achieve it for a variety of reasons
—> like unexpected life events, personality factors and socioeconomic status, illness
The self, congruence and conditions of worth
Carl Rogers
He argued that for personal growth to be achieved, an individual’s concept of self must be broadly equivalent to, or have congruence with their ideal self.
If the gap is too big between the two ‘selves’ the person will experience a state of incongruence and self-actualisation will not be possible due to negative feelings of self worth that arise from incongruence.
to be completely congruent a person must have gone up Maslow’s hierarchy on needs and achieved self-actualisation
Lack of unconditional regard in client centred therapy
- client centred therapy: rogers developed this to help people cope with the problem of everyday living
- Roger’s claimed that many of the issues we experience as adults (worthlessness and low self-esteem, have their roots in childhood ad can often be explained by a lack of unconditional positive regard (or lack of unconditional love from our parents )
- parents who set conditions of worth stores up psychological problems for that child in the future.
- Roger’s saw that his role as an effective therapist is to be able to provide his clients with the unconditional positive regard that they had failed to receive as children.
Conditions of worth definitions
A parent who sets boundaries or limits on their love for their child
Eg. I will only love you if…
Features of client centred therapy
- Therapist does not judge the client, neither openly or silently
- The therapist accepts all traits, behaviour and flaws of the client
- The client must come to view themselves with unconditional positive regard
- Roger’s referred to those in therapy as clients rather than patients as he saw the individual as the expert on their own condition
- Clients are encouraged towards the discovery of their own solutions
For Rogers, an effective therapist should provide the client with three things
- genuineness
- empathy
- and unconditional positive regard
His aim of this therapy is to increase the person’s feelings of self worth, reduce the level of incongruence between the self concept and the ideal self, and hope the person becomes more fully functioning as a person
Positive evaluations of the humanistic approach
-
not reductionist
- humanists reject any attempt to break up behaviour and experience into smaller components
Unlike:
behaviourists : explain human and animal learning in terms of simple stimulus- response connections
freud: describes personality as a conflict between the id, ego and superego
biological psychologists: they reduce behaviour to its basic physiological processes
cognitive sees human beings as a little more that information processing machines.
- in contrast humanistic psychologist advocates holistic (the idea that the subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person)
This approach may have more validity than its alternatives by considering meaningful human bevhaviour within its real-life context. -
positive approach
- Roger’s Client centred approach can be praised for the positive aspects of the person being treated.
- removes blame guild and shame from people who seek counselling
- likely will lead to a good rate of client rejection and a lack of client attrition.
- approach can be viewed as a useful and valuable resource.
- brings the person back into psychology
- promotes a positive image of the human condition.
- optimistic and refreshing
- sees all people as good and free to work towards the achievement of their potential and in control of their lives.
Negative evaluations of the humanistic approach
-
limited application due to unscientific nature
- relatively little real world applications
- Rogerian therapy has revolutionised counselling techniques and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been used to explain motivation, particularly in the workplace
- the approach has limited impact within the discipline of psychology as a whole.
- it lacks sound evidence-based and has been critiqued to be just a loose set of abstract concepts.
- “self- actualisation” and “congruence” are good therapeutic tools but prove to be problematic to test and asses in experimental conditions
- Rogers did attempt to introduce more rigour into his work by developing the Q-sort - an objective measure of progress in therapy. Nevertheless, as would be expected of an approach that describes itself as anti-scientific, humanistic psychology is short on empirical evidence to support its claims. -
cultural bias
- many ideas central to this approach influence individual freedom and personal growth.
- this is much more acceptive in individualist cultures in the Western world.
- but cultures such as India, which emphasis the needs of the group and community and interdependence, may no identify so easily with the ideals and values of humanistic psychology
