Humanistic Approach Flashcards
What is the humanistic approach?
- Focuses on conscious experience rather than behaviour, on personal responsibility and free will rather than determinism, and on discussion of experience rather than use of the scientific / experimental method
- Developed by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow in the 1950s, it focuses on topics meaningful to human beings and the importance of the individual striving towards personal growth and fulfilment
Free Will vs Determinism
- Free will = the idea that humans can make choices and are not determined by biological or external forces. This doesn’t mean that we aren’t affected by external or internal influences, but we are active agents who have the ability to determine our own development.
– humanistic theories emphasise that people will have full conscious control over their own destiny, but we are also subject to biological and societal influences - Determinism = the view that an individual’s behaviour is shaped or controlled by internal or external forces rather than the individual’s will to do something.
Assumptions of the humanistic approach
1) This approach to understanding behaviour emphasises the importance of subjective experiences, feelings and thoughts of a person. Rogers and Maslow reject scientific models that attempt to establish general principles of human behaviour. It is often referred to as a person-centred approach.
2) It focuses on how each person is unique and good.
3) It claims that humans are self-determining and have free will – we have full conscious control and can make choices that are not determined by biological or external forces. This doesn’t mean that we aren’t affected by external or internal influences, but we are active agents who have the ability to determine our own development.
4) Everyone has an innate tendency to fulfil their potential and become what they are capable of. This is known as self-actualisation.
5) The importance of personal growth is emphasised and fulfilment.
How does the approach reject science?
1) Each person can exercise free will – science focuses on determinism.
2) Each person is a rational and conscious being, not dominated by unconscious primitive instincts – science focuses on determinism and reductionism.
3) A person’s subjective experience and understanding of the world is of greater importance to understanding the person than objective reality – science focuses on empiricism and objectivity.
4) Humans should be viewed as a whole and not reduced to component parts – science focuses on reductionism to establish cause and effect.
5) Humans strive towards achieving self-actualisation – science focuses on objective definitions and this would be hard to measure.
6) Each person is unique – science focuses on developing general and universal laws.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - explained
- Every person has an innate tendency to achieve their full potential - to be the best they can possibly be.
- Maslow developed the Hierarchy of Needs
- Self-actualisation represents the uppermost level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
- This means that you have fulfilled your desire to grow psychologically and fulfil one’s full potential – becoming what you are capable of. These people tend to be creative, accepting of others and have an accurate perception of the world around them.
- To work towards self-actualisation, you must first fulfil the needs of the lower levels of the hierarchy and fulfil your potential. We are therefore motivated to achieve progression through the levels.
- Maslow believed individuals experience self-actualisation in the form of peak experiences, which are moments of extreme inspiration and ecstasy during which they felt they could leave behind all fears, doubts and inhibitions
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - stage 1; physiological needs
- Breathing, air, water, food, drink, warmth, sleep, excretion, homeostasis, sex (in reference to reproduction rather than pleasure)
- This is categorised as a basic need
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - stage 2; safety and security needs
- Security of body, employment, resources, morality, health, family property; protection, stability, order, rules, law (shelter etc)
- This is categorised as a basic need
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - stage 3; belonging and love needs
- Family, affection, relationships, work groups, sexual intimacy, formation of community
- This is considered a psychological need
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - stage 4; self-esteem needs
- Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, status,
responsibility, respect of and by others, organising by roles (jobs etc), prestige, feeling of accomplishment - This is considered a psychological need
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - stage 5; self-actualisation needs
- When you have learnt about yourself and feel connected to others
- Maslow suggested that if you are healthy, well and used all of your physical and mental qualities to do your best you could reach “Self-actualisation”
- Personal growth, fulfilment of one’s potential, morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem-solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of fact, accurate perception of reality
- This is considered a self-fulfillment need
- Not everyone will manage to achieve self-actualisation.
- There are important psychological barriers that may prevent a person from reaching their potential.
Carl Rogers
- Personal growth - we develop and change as a person to become fulfilled, satisfied and goal-oriented.
- Rogers argued that certain circumstances had to be true for personal growth to be achieved
- These circumstances include the key terms of the self, congruence and conditions of worth.
Carl Rogers and the idea of the self, congruence and conditions of worth
- Rogers argued that in order to achieve personal growth, and individual’s concept of the self (the way they see themselves) must be broadly equivalent too, or have congruence with, their ideal self (the person they want to be)
- If too big a gap exists 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 the incongruence - the better the congruence, the better the self worth
- Therefore, congruence is the comparability / fit / match / consistency between the perceived self (how you see yourself) and the ideal self - the closer they are, the lesser the feelings of self-worthlessness and the greater our psychological health
- In order to reduce the gap between the self-concept and the ideal self, an individual can develop a more healthy view of themselves or have a more achievable and realistic ideal self
- Feelings of self-worth develop in adulthood and through further interactions with significant others
Roger’s client-centered therapy
- Rogers developed client-centered therapy to help people cope with such problems of everyday living, claiming that many of the issues we experience as adults, such as worthlessness and low self-esteem, have their roots in childhood and can sometimes be explained by a lack of unconditional positive regard (or lack of unconditional love) from our parents
- A parent who sets boundaries or limits on love for their child (conditions of worth) by claiming ‘I will only love you if…’ is storing up psychological problems for that child in the future, and therefore conditions of worth is the withholding of positive regard/love/affection/esteem
- Rogers saw one of his roles as an effective therapist as being able to provide his clients with the unconditional positive regard that they failed to receive as children; additionally, they should provide the client with genuineness and empathy
- Rogers referred to those in therapy as clients rather than patients as he saw the individual as an expert of their own condition, and thus therapy is non-directive, and the client is encouraged towards the discovery of their own solutions within a therapeutic atmosphere that is warm, supportive and non-judgemental
- Client-centered therapy has been praised as a forward-looking and effective approach that focuses on present problems rather than dwelling on the past, but much like psychoanalysis it is best applied to the treatment of ‘mild’ psychological conditions such as anxiety and low self worth
Conditions of worth - Rogers
- The love and acceptance given by others may be unconditional (unconditional positive regard) when a person is accepted for who they are or what they do, or acceptance will be conditional which is when they are accepted only if they do what others want them to do
- When people experience conditional positive regard they develop conditions of worth, and these are the conditions that they perceive others to put on them and which they believe need to be in place if they are to be accepted by others
- For example, a person may apply to study at university to please their parents, not because he or she wants to; failure to meet these conditions of worth, claimed Rogers, results in incongruence and distress
- Rogers claimed that an individual’s psychological problems were a direct result of their conditions of worth and the conditional positive regard they receive from themselves
- He believed that counselling allowed people to solve their own problems in constructive ways, and move towards becoming a more fully functioning person
- Therapists provide empathy and unconditional positive regard, expressing their acceptance and understanding, regardless of the feelings and attitudes the client expresses
- This results in the client moving towards being more authentic and more true to self, rather than who others want them to be
Evaluating the humanistic approach - Real-world application and weaknesses
1) Unlike some of the other approaches, humanistic psychology has relatively little real-world application - Rogerian therapy has revolutionised counselling techniques, and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been used to explain motivation particularly in the workplace - however, it remains the case that the approach has had limited impact within the discipline of psychology as a whole
- This may in part be due to the lack of a sound evidence-base and also due to the fact that the approach has been described as a loose set of rather abstract concepts, rather than a comprehensive theory (real world application)
2) Humanistic psychology includes a number of vague ideas that are abstract and difficult to test, with concepts such as self-actualisation and congruence being useful therapeutic tools but would prove problematic to assess under experimental conditions. Humanistic psychology is therefore short of empirical evidence to support its claims
- It is therefore not a particularly scientific approach, limiting the validity of theories and the falsifiability of the approach
- Therefore the approach is a less credible and scientific approach than many of the other approaches because the evidence to support it fails to establish cause and effect which is a fundamental requirement of scientific psychology.
