Humanistic Psychology Flashcards
What is Humanistic Psychology/ Approach?
- Approach to understanding behaviour that emphasises the importance of subjective experience & each persons capacity for self determination
Claims people have free will
What is free will?
- The notion that humans can make choices & their behaviour/ thoughts are not determined by internal biological or external forces
Humans are self-determining; they are active agents who make their own choices
Humans determine their own development
Humans are in control of their own behaviour
What is Self- actualisation & Maslows hierarchy of needs?
- Self- Actualisation:
Desire to grow psychologically & fufill ones full potential
Hierarchy of needs:
Maslow devised a hierarchy of needs, outlining the path it takes to achieve self-actualisation
What are the different stages of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
- Level 1: Physiological needs, including, water, food and shelter
- Level 2: Safety needs, including, security, structure and protection
- Level 3: Social needs, including, friendship, love and intimacy
- Level 4: Esteem needs, including positive self-thoughts, achievement and reputation
- Level 5: Self-actualisation, including self-fulfilment
Although self-actualisation is the ultimate goal not everyone will achieve it for a variety of reasons e.g. unexpected life events, personality factors, socioeconomic factors, illness etc.
Who is Carl Rogers & What did he do?
- Rogers felt that Freud had dealt with the “sick half” of psychology, so the humanistic approach concerned itself with explanations of healthy growth in individuals
- He came up with the 3 types of ‘self’
What does Congruence mean?
- Aim of Rogerian Therapy
- When the self-concept & ideal self are seen to broadly accord or match
What were the 3 types of self?
- Self Image
- Ideal self
- Actual self
Explain congruence by Rogers
- Rogers claimed that personal growth is only achieved when both the concept of self & the ideal self is broadly in line with each other to have congruence with each other
- If the gap between real & ideal self is too wide, the individual will suffer from incongruence & self-actualisation will not be possible as the individual will suffer from negative feelings of self-worth
- Rogers developed client-centered therapy (known as counseling) to reduce the gap between the self-concept and the ideal self
What does conditions of worth mean?
- When a parent places limits or boundaries on their love of their children
e.g. I love you because you got an A* in all of your GCSEs so make sure you repeat this with your A Levels
What did Roger’s claim?
- Rogers claimed that many issues individuals face in adulthood are from childhood & the lack of unconditional positive regard parents
- Conditions of worth are a breeding ground for psychological issues & damage well into adulthood, according to Rogers
- In his role as a therapist, he sought to provide the unconditional positive regard that the client had not received in childhood
Rogers suggested that some parents may use conditions of worth with their child.
Give one strength & one weakness of the influence of counselling on psychology.
Strength:
Can be praised for its emphasis on the positive aspects of the person being treated: this removes blame, guilt & shame from people who seek counselling (which Freudian therapy may not achieve)
Weakness:
Roger’s approach is to some extent vague & imprecise, making it difficult to know how a potential therapist would structure their sessions or access the ideas
Give one strength of Humanistic Psychology.
- It rejects attempts to break up behaviour & experience into smaller components (reductionism)
- Humanisitc psychologists advocate holism, the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person
- This approach may have more validity than the other approaches by considering meaningful human behaviour within it’s real world context
(However reductionist approaches may be more scientific meaning than humanisitc psychology in general is short on emperical evidence to support it’s claims)
Give another strength of Humanistic Psychology.
- Approach is optimistic
- Praised for ‘bringing the person back into psychology’ & promoting a positive image of the human condition.
-Freud saw people as being slaves to their past & claimed that all of us existed between ‘common unhappiness & absolute despair’.
-Humanistic Psychology offers refreshing optimistic alternative; it sees all people as basically good, free to work towards the achievement of their potential & in control of their lives
Give one limitation of Humanistic Psychology.
- It may be culturally biased.
- Many ideas central to humanistic psychology such as indiviudal freedom, autonomy etc would be. much more readily associated w individualist cultures such as the US.
- Collectivist cultures emphasise needs of group, community & interdependence.
- Such cultures may not identify as easily w the ideals & values of humanistic psychology.
Therefore it is possible this approach does not apply universally & is a product of cultural context in which it was developed
