Humanistic Approach Flashcards
What is meant by the term ‘free will’?
This is the ability to make significant personal choices within biological/societal constraints
What does congruence mean?
When a persons ideal self matches their life experiences and achievements (rare). The more closely these two are matched the higher our self esteem and self worth
What is the Hierarchy of needs?
Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs, and that some needs take precedence over others.These needs have been put into a hierarchy of needs that a person must fulfil one at a time
What is a deficiency need?
The first four levels are often referred to as deficiency needs. These deficiency needs must be met before the individual can work towards self actualization (‘growth needs’).
What is self actualisation?
This is a persons motivation to reach his/hers full potential,a persons basic needs must be met before this is achieve.
What is meant by ‘focus on self’?
The self refers to the ideas and values that characterise ‘I’ and ‘me’ and includes perception of ‘what I am’ and ‘what I can do’ Rodgers claimed these developed from childhood
What is meant by ‘conditions of worth’?
This is a perception that acceptance from others depends on meeting their expectations
For Roger’s what did an effective Humanistic therapist provide?
Provides empathy, genuineness and unconditional positive regard, facilitating the client in finding self-actualisation
What did rodgers develop in order to reduce the congruence gap?
Client-centred therapy to help people cope with the problems of everyday living.
What does free will enable us to do?
Allows us to have choice over how we act behave
what is meant by incongruence?
When theres no match between a persons idea self and actual experiences
what is the aim of counselling?
To move away from the view that the client is sick or faulty and towards the attitude the client is capable of overcoming their own issues
What are the strengths of the humanistic approach?
- Encourages therapists to help clients grow and evolve as people rather than treating them like they have an illness
- By using qualitative data the approach can provide insights into a clients condition in ways more clinical approaches can’t
- Gives the client the responsibility as they are the ones who have endured the experiences
What are the limitations of the humanistic approach?
- Been accused of being unscientific as it covers concepts that aren’t possible to quantify e.g self actualisation
- The qualitative data lacks reliability and also suffers from demand characteristics
- doesn’t take into account role of biology such as the abnormal behaviour being due to genes not self actualisation
