Week 5: Humanistic Psychology Flashcards
The problems in therapy pre-humanistic (3)
In the 1950s and 1960s many psychologists believed that human experiences could not be adequately understood by natural sciences or reducing humans to labels or diagnoses
At this time, behavioural psychology was resulting in a significant focus on observable traits, which humanistic theorists found to be reductionistic and limiting in understanding the diversity of human experiences
Focusing only on behaviour did not address the complexity of inner experiences
What humanistic therapy focused on (5)
Humanistic therapies began to focus on: being client-centred, experiential, existential, and gestalt. Also focus on emotions.
There are 4 main assumptions about this theoretical framework: (humanistic)
1: Importance of Phenomenology
2: Belief in Growth*
3: Self-Reflective Agents
4: Relationship
Humanistic leading figures (4)
Leading figures are Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, Clark Moustakas
1: Importance of Phenomenology (3)
Phenomenology is understanding conscious experience first-hand, rather than third-person observation (which characterizes the modern, scientific approach)
It is one of the most central principles of this theoretical framework
It is the attempt to understand people’s subjective worldviews, feelings, perceptions, and values*
2: Belief in Growth* (3)
Human experience is characterized by ongoing change and growth
Example: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, specifically the belief that humans can strive for self-actualization
Self-actualizing is a central principle within humanistic theories and Rogers believed this was a biological imperative
4 aspects of Self-actualising
1) self-awareness
2) self-realisation (fulfillment of one’s full poterntial)
3) autonomy
4) self-regulation (manage one’s own emotions)
3: Self-Reflective Agents (3)
Humans make use of symbols and language and can therefore reflect on their experiences
The self-reflective process allows humans to grow and change
Feelings and desires indicated what is most important and allow people to understand their needs and interactions with others
4: Relationship (3)
Treat everyone with respect and caring; everyone is unique and values
Therapists try to understand the subjective worldview of the other without judgement
Purpose is to develop an authentic egalitarian relationship
Overview of Person-Centred Therapy/ Client-Centred Therapy (Patterson & Joseph, 2007) in terms of research (4)
A central element to Rogers’ theory is that humans have an inherent tendency for optimal functioning which includes growth and development*
Mainstream in psychological frameworks in the 1950s and 1960s.
Research involved phenomenological methods and qualitative research
Perhaps a limitation in a discipline that favours knowledge derived from quantitative research
Person-Centred: the actualizing tendency
Humans, along with all living organisms, have a natural motivational drive
Person-Centred, a person’s process and self-concept overview (3)
In favourable environments, a person’s self-concept actualizes, consistent with their organismic valuing process*
Rogers believed that people’s attitudes and behaviours were consistent with internal value directions
However, in unfavourable conditions, the actualization of the self-concept was not in congruence with (external) organismic experience, and this created conflict
self actualistion and conflicts (2)
While self-actualization can refer to the process of growth an individual experiences, with the goal of optimal functioning, self-actualization can be at odds with the actualizing tendency, thus creating conflict in the person
An individual’s actualizing tendency can often be undermined or blocked by unfavourable environmental conditions*
Conditions of worth
People are only worthwhile and loveable if they think, act and feel in the a specific way to meet the needs of others (order to gain the love and worth from others)
organismic valuing process
innate ability to know what’s important to them
What are the effects of conditions of worth?
Rogers referred to such unfavourable circumstances as conditions of worth
These develop when children learn that positive regard is conditional upon a certain way of being/doing and these become internalized, and begin to influence the organismic valuing process*
When conditions of worth become internalized… (2)
individuals then have the tendency to evaluate their experiences from an external source (i.e., others) rather than by their own internal values
“As the individual becomes estranged from his or her organismic needs, there is a loss of trust in the person’s own internal judgments, and an increasing tendency to defer to the external judgment of others” (p. 122)
overview of the process in person-centred (diagram) (7)
1 Self-Actualization (optimal functioning)
2 Actualizing Tendency
- innate drive
- Holistic development
(achieve, spirit, emo, physical, creative)
3 Childhood
4 OVP
5 Self-Concept
6 Conditions of Worth
- Secure vs. insecure/disorganised attachment
7 Perspective
(looking to others (outer self)/ me (real/self)
Conflict between Actualising Tendency and Self-Actualisation
Therapeutic Change (6 steps)
- Two persons are in psychological contact.
- The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious.
- The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship.
- The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.
- The therapist experiences empathic understanding of the client’s internal frame of reference and endeavours to communicate this experience to the client.
- The communication to the client of the therapist’s empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved.
~ Carl Rogers, (1957)
Psychopathology vs. psychotherapy (2+2)
Psychopathology:
Conditions of worth
Failure to learn from experience
Psychotherapy:
The therapist must trust the client
The therapist must establish a certain type of relationship with the client
Person-centred: When conditions (therapeutic change) are met, results in… (Neukrug, 2018) (7)
- Increased openness to experience
- Greater ability to be more objective and have more realistic perceptions
- Improved psychological adjustment
- More congruence, increased self-regard, movement from an external to internal locus of control
- More acceptance of others
- Having better problem solving skills
- Having more accurate perception of others
Congruence
“Congruence refers to the clinician’s ability to be genuine and authentic, well-integrated and aware of themselves and how they are perceived by others. People who are congruent transmit messages that are clear and coherent; their inner and outer selves are consistent.”
Seligman and Reichenberg (2010, p. 152)
Unconditional Positive Regard (7)
- Caring about
- Respecting
- Accepting people for who they are without placing any requirements on them to act, feel or think in certain ways to please their clinicians
- Valuing the client as a separate person whose thoughts, feelings, beliefs and entire being are openly accepted without conditions
- Individuals experience conditions of worth, to receive this, so they may discount their own experiences
- Behaving in ways that please others leads to anxiety, losing touch with oneself, feeling alienated from oneself.
- Thus, UPR is crucial to the success of therapy.
Empathy (3)
- Empathy requires a therapist to have his/her own sense of separateness so as not to get lost in the client’s perceptual world.
- Empathy is a process, an attitude
- “To enter another’s world without being influenced by one’s views and values.”
~ Carl Rogers, (1975)
Being Person-Centred (2)
Person-centred therapy is in part, characterized by one’s attitude.
Active listening is about developing proper skills.
Existential Psychotherapy Watson, Goldman, & Greenberg (2011)
Existential theory emerged in the 1940s
As a response to the biological and mechanistic view that was conveyed in psychoanalytic psychology, existentialists wanted to understand the individual’s “way of being in the world” (rather than doing; making meaning of one’s experiences was central)*
People’s capacity for loving relationships is the highest form of human existence
Existential Psychotherapy: Leading figures are (5)
Paul Tillich, Rollo May, James Bugental, Viktor Frankl, Irvin Yalom
Central Features of Existential Psychotherapy (8)
The goal of therapy is to live a more authentic life*
Within existentialism, this can be done either by accepting struggle without self-delusion or by developing purpose and finding meaning
Life changes occur within the client’s own subjective experience, not by what others tell them they ought to be doing
Becoming genuinely aware of one’s own inner process, attitudes, emotions, thoughts, and intentions characterized the interpersonal exchange between client and therapist
Informed by European philosophers, existential psychotherapists believed that it was essential to attend intently to the client’s experiences and bracket* their own assumptions
This requires holistic listening
Practitioners focus on the clients’ emotions, cognitions, and embodied aspects of the clients’ experience in order to develop an accurate understanding of the client’s inner world
There is a greater focus on current “here and now” experiences, and less emphasis on the client’s past
