Humanistic psychology

• Humanistic psychology 


  An approach to understanding behaviour that emphasises the importance of subjective experience and each persons capacity for self-determination
• Maslow‘s Hierarchy of needs

  Motivational theory

  • basic psychological needs must be satisfied before higher psychological needs can be achieved
  • motivation required to achieve certain needs

  
• free will 


  • ability to chose how to behave without being influenced by external forces
  • in charge of how we develop and progress through life
  • restrictions on free will due to social rules, morals, laws etc.
  • choices made driven by the need to self-actualise
• Self-actualisation 


  The desire to grow psychologically and fulfil ones full potential - becoming what you are capable of
• The Self - Rogers


  • achievement of personal growth depends on a persons own self-concept/ real-self
  • also hold an ideal-self = person we wish to be
  • healthy individuals see a similarity between real-self and ideal-self which leads to positive regard
  • if no similarity can lead to negative feelings of self-worth and ideal-self
  • the greater the difference, the more likely the person is to suffer
• importance of achieving congruence (similarity)

  • important part of achieving congruence and reaching full potential is if the person has unconditional positive regard from others
  • if they feel valued and respected for who they are without reservation
  • rogers felt it was rare for a complete state of congruence to exist
• conditions of worth 


  • believed that if become self-actualised or not is rooted in childhood experiences
  • important that children receive unconditional positive regard from significant others
  • children often experience conditional regard - think only be loved and valued if meet certain conditions of worth
  • problem with conditional regard is inhibits personal growth + prevents self-actualisation
• influence on counselling psychology 


  • developed client-centred therapy
  • Roger’s belief that psychological problems were direct result of conditions of worth and conditional positive regard received from others
  • aim to increase feelings of self-worth & reduce incongruence between real-self and ideal-self
  • client leads the therapy session and see themselves as facilitators
  • important elements:
  • genuineness = therapist needs to share feelings in genuine way
  • empathy = must understand clients feelings and thoughts
  • unconditional positive regard = must allow client to express true emotions
• Strength - not reductionist

  • it rejects attempts to break up behaviour and experience into smaller components
  • It advocates for holism, the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person
  • Means the approach has more validity than alternatives as it considers meaningful human behaviour within real-world context
• limitation - reductionist is more scientific

  • reductionist approaches may be more scientific
  • ideal of science is experiment, and they reduce behaviour to independent and dependent variables
  • issue with humanistic psychology is there are few concepts that can be broken down into variables and measured
  • means humanistic psychology is short on empirical evidence
• limitation - cultural bias

  • many ideas that are central to humanistic psychology e.g individual freedom, autonomy and personal growth are much more associated with individualist countries
  • Countries with collectivist tendencies emphasise more the needs of the group and interdependence
  • Therefore in such countries, ideals of humanistic psychology might not be as important
• strength - positive approach

  • praised for bringing person back into psychology and promoting positive image on human condition
  • humanistic psychologists see all people as basically good, free to work towards the achievement of their potential and in control of their lives
  • suggests humanistic psychology offers a refreshing and optimistic alternative to other approaches