humanistic

• The humanistic approach emphasizes the importance of subjective experience and each persons capacity for self-determination.
• The approach claims that human being are essentially self-determining and have free will. Free will is the notion that humans can make their own choices and are not determined by biological or external forces.
• self-actualisation is the desire to grow psychologically and fulfil ones potential of what they are capable of being. It is seen at the top of Maslows hierarchy of needs.
• Maslow said in order to achieve our primary goal of self actualisation, a number of other deficiency needs must first be met. The hierarchy layout is:

  1. Self actualisation
  2. Self esteem
  3. Love and belonging
  4. Safety and Security needs
  5. Physiological needs
• Congruence is when a persons self-concept and ideal self are seen to broadly match or accord with one another. Rogers argued that for personal growth to be achieved an individuals self concepts must have congruence with their ideal self. If too big of a gap exists between the two selves of a person they may experience a state of incongruence and therefore self-actualisation may not be possible for them due to arisen negative self-worth feelings.
• to help with congruence and coping with the problems of every-day life, rogers developed client-centered therapy. he claimed that many of the roots of issues we experience in adulthood stem from childhood and often can be explained by lack of unconditional love from parents. the role of the therapist is to provide them with said unconditional positive regard that they failed to receive as a child
• a strength of the approach is that, unlike others, it is non reductionist and rejects any attempt to break up behaviour and experiences into smaller components. the advocation of holism gives the humanistic approach more validity than its alternatives when looking at behaviour in real world context
• although the approach can be applied to the workplace through the uses of Maslows hierarchy, the humanistic approach actually has little real-world application and limited impact on psychology as a whole. this may be due to the fact that it is lacking in sound evidence base and has been described as a loose set of abstract concepts.