Humanist Approach

Question 1

What are the key focuses and beliefs of the humanistic approach?

Answer 1

• Personal responsibility
• Free Will
• An individual striving for personal growth and development
• Looks at the person as a whole (holistic)
• Believes studying humans scientifically is dehumanising.
• Believes we need insight into people’s perceptions and subjective experiences of the world.

Question 2

What do the different approaches think determines our behaviour?

Answer 2

Behaviourist - environmental determinism
Cognitive - soft determinism
Biological - biological determinism
Psychodynamic - psychic determinism
Humanism - self-determinism

Question 3

What research methods does the humanistic approach use?

Answer 3

1) Unstructured interview
2) Participant observation (researcher takes part in what the participants are studying in order to understand their perspective)
3) Diaries, letters and biographical material

Question 4

What did Maslow develop in the humanist approach?

Answer 4

The hierarchy of needs - in order to achieve true happiness, certain needs must be met in a particular order

Question 5

What is self-actualisation?

Answer 5

Fulfilling one’s full potential

Question 6

What are the levels of the hierarchy of needs?

Answer 6

Physiological needs, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualisation

Question 7

What were the two needs that Rogers claimed that people have?

Answer 7

• Unconditional positive regard from other people
• A feeling of self worth (develops in childhood as a result of parental interactions)

Question 8

What is incongruence?

Answer 8

Where the perceived self is highly different from the ideal self.

Question 9

What is congruence?

Answer 9

Where the perceived self and ideal self are seen to broadly match.

Question 10

What did Rogers argue?

Answer 10

• For personal growth to be achieved, an individual’s concept of the perceived self must have congruence with their ideal self.
• If a person experiences incongruence, self-actualisation cannot be reached due to negative feelings of self-worth and can result in mental illness.

Question 11

What is conditions of worth?

Answer 11

When someone sets boundaries to their love - their love has to be ‘earned’.

Question 12

What can be done to increase congruence?

Answer 12

Person centred therapy (which is non-directive - client is encouraged towards the discovery of their own solutions in a non-judgemental atmosphere) - aims to increase a person’s feelings of self worth.

Question 13

An effective therapist should provide the client with what 3 things in person centred therapy?

Answer 13

Genuineness, Empathy and Unconditional positive regard

Question 14

Evaluate person-centred therapy

Answer 14

+ Encourages clients to think about themselves more positively and empower them to make positive changes in their life.
+ Brilliant at helping anxiety and depression.
+ Has transformed psychotherapy and introduced a variety of counselling techniques in health, industry and educational settings.
- Has limited applications - can’t treat many serious disorders such as psychoses or anything linked to biological factors

Question 15

Evaluate the humanist approach

Answer 15

+ Positive approach (compared to psychodynamic which is negative)
+ Not reductionist - takes a holistic approach
- Limited practical applications / + practical app
- Cultural bias (e.g. collectivist cultures such as India may not identify so easily with these ideals and values)
- Unfalsifiable - however the Q-sort can be used to measure progress in therapy objectively