Humanistic approach
Subdecks (2)
Cards (14)
- Main assumptions
- Every person is unique and there are no general laws to explain human behaviour
- Free will - we control our behaviour
- People should be used holistically - both their past and present taken into account
- Scientific methods aren’t appropriate - science is objective and humans are subjective
- Basic assumptions
- People are essentially good and will grow psychologically if always given positive feedback
- people strive to reach their full potential
- Therapies should be client focused and involve warmth and empathy
- Psychological problems are due to a difference between perceived self and ideal self
- Focus on subjective experience
- Conscious experience is all that counts
- rogers - self actualisation
- self concept - who you think you are, may be pessimistic
- Real self - person you actually are
- Ideal self - who you wish to be
- rogers said to receive self actualisation you must be congruent with your real self and ideal self
- Conditions of worth
- Roger believed that people must be loved unconditionally to reach self actualisation
- If they arent it leads to conditions of worth - low Self esteem
- Counselling psychology
- how Rogers Believed psychotherapy should go
- client centred
- should provide genuineness, empathy and unconditional positive regard in order to increase feelings of self worth
- it transformed psychotherapy - no directive counselling techniques are practised in clinical settings, schools etc.
- Strengths
- Anti reductionist - humanistic psychologists reject any attempt to break up behaviour and experience into smaller components
- Advocate holism - the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person
- Positive approach - humanistic psychologists have been praised for promoting a positive image of the human condition (seeing people in control of their position and having freedom to change)
- Weaknesses
- Relatively few concepts that can be reduced to single variables and measured - short on evidence
- Western culture bias - humanistic ideas identify with individualistic cultures like the US. Collectivist cultures like India emphasise the needs of the group rather than individuals so can’t be applied universally