Humanistic Approach

Question 1

Humanist psychology view

Answer 1

• we are largely self determining
• we have free will - the ability to make out own significant personal choices
• for this reason Maslow and rogers reject scientific models that try to establish general rules of behaviour. It is open called a person centre approach.

Question 2

Hierarchy of needs

Answer 2

• Maslow believe we are all capable of growing and becoming better - in fact every person has an innate tendency to achieve their full potential
• he acknowledged that we all have needs, some basic, some complicated.
• self actualisation represents the uppermost that a person can achieve.

Question 3

What is self actualisation?

Answer 3

The point at which you idealised self and actual self are the same.
- in order to self actualise you need to complete various different stages or needs.
- people who attain self actualisation are creative and accepting and have peak experiences of extreme inspiration and ecstasy.

Question 4

What is the pyramid of self actualisation?

Answer 4

Physiological needs
Safety and security
Love and belongingness
Self esteem
Self actualisation

Question 5

What is congruence?

Answer 5

The more similar our self concept and our ideal self, the greater out psychological health and state of congruence. Most people experience some incongruence, and use defence mechanisms to feel less threatened

Question 6

What are conditions of worth?

Answer 6

Although other people may help the process of self actualisation, rogers (1959) believed that more often than not they hinder it.
Roger’s claimed that out basic needs, unconditional positive regard from other people and feelings of self worth, develop from childhood interactions with parents.
They are are a perception that acceptance from others depends on meeting there expectations.

Question 7

The influence on counselling psychology

Answer 7

• rogers believed that people creatively solve their own problems and become more authentic (free will)
• the aim of humanistic therapy is to work up the hierarchy of needs addressing each individual aspect of the hierarchy and moving through them to the next to eventually work on achieving self actualisation

Question 8

Influence on coupling psychology (2)

Answer 8

• rogers developed client centred therapy to help people cope with the problems of everyday living
• for rogers, an effective humanistic therapist provides empathy, genuineness and unconditional positive regard facilitating the client in finding self actualisation.
• therapists need to act guides of facilitators and avoid being perspective
• it has been praised as a forward looking and effective approach that focuses on present problems rather than dwelling on the past.

Question 9

What are the strengths of humanistic approach?

Answer 9

• anti reductionist - human psychologists reject any attempt to break up behaviour and experience into smaller components.
  They advocate holistic - the idea that subjective experiences can only be understood b y considering the whole person. It is a person centred approach. It may provide a more complete, valid and meaningful picture of an individuals behaviour and experiences. It does not ignore the complexity of human behaviour, unlike the other approaches in psychology.

Question 10

What are limitations of the humanistic approach?

Answer 10

• limited application in the real world.
  It is true Rogerian therapy has revolutionised counselling techniques and mallows hierarchy of needs has been used to explain n motivation, particularly in the work place. However, compared to other approaches, it has had little impact within psychology as a whole, perhaps because it lacks sound in evidence. As a result, the approach has not been described as comprehensive through but rather as a loose set of abstract concepts.
• culture bias
  Many of the ideas are central to humanistic psychology, such as individual freedom, autonomy and personal growth, would be more readily associated with individualistic cultures in the western cultures like USA. Other cultures may not identity so easily with humanistic ideals, e.g. India is a collectivist culture which emphasises the needs of the group over the individual and interdependence and community. This matters because the approach may not travel well and is a product of the cultural context within which it was developed.