The humanistic approach

• What is free will?

  Emphasises that people have free will and personal responsibility.
• What is Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

  His hierarchy of need emphasises the importance of personal growth.

  • It is represented as pyramid, where the most physiological needs are at the bottom and the most advanced needs at the top.
  • Each level must be fulfilled before a person can move up to a higher need.

  
• What is self-actualisation?


  Drive to realise one's true potential

  • Top of Maslow's hierarchy
  • Experience in the form of peak experiences
• What are the 2 types of the concept of self?

  • Ideal self: Who you want to be
  • Actual self: Who you already are
• What does focus of self mean?


  Refers to how we perceive ourselves as a person
• What are the 2 basic needs that Maslow claimed?


  • Positive regard from others
  • Feelings of self-worth (what we think about ourselves)
• When are feelings of self-worth developed?

  Feelings of self-worth develop in childhood and are formed as a result of the child’s interaction with parents. Further interactions with others (e.g., spouses and friends) also influence our feelings of worth.

  • Rodger argued how we think about ourselves and our feelings of worth determine our psychological health.

  -> The closer our self-concept and ideal self the greater our feelings of self-worth and the greater our feelings of psychological health.
• What does congruence mean?

  Similarity between a person's ideal self and how they perceive themselves to be in real life.
• What does incongruence mean?

  Difference between the self and the ideal self
• What does conditions of worth mean?

  Conditions imposed on an individual's behaviour that are considered necessary to earn positive regard from others.
• What is the influence on counselling psychology?

  Importance of unconditional positive regard for dissolving conditions of worth.

  • Therapist is seen as the facilitator to help people understand themselves and to find ways to enable their potential for personal growth
• What is a strength of the humanistic approach?

  Practical application

  • It has majority influence on psychological counselling.
  • Roger believed that an individual’s psychological problems were a direct result of their conditions of worth and the conditional positive regard they receive from others.
  • By understanding this, it has led to the development of client-centred therapy, where the therapist regards themselves as the facilitate, to help people understand themselves and to enable the potential for self-actualisation.
• Continued info about practical application being a strength on the humanistic approach:

  • Therapists provide unconditional positive regard to provide a supportive environment, which helps to dissolve conditions of worth.
  • This results in the client behaving in a way that is true to themselves rather than how others want them to be.
• What is another strength of the humanistic approach?

  Links to the economic development

  • Research suggests that Maslow’s hierarchy may have relevance on a much larger scale than individual growth.
  • Hagerty looked at the relationship between economic growth and measures of Maslow’s levels in 88 countries over a 34-year period. Countries in the early stages of economic development were characterised by lower-level needs (e.g., physiological needs such as access to food and safety needs).
• Continued info about the links to the economic development being a strength of the humanistic approach:

  • As would be predicted by Maslow’s model, it was only in the advanced stages of economic development that self-actualisation became important (e.g., using levels of educational enrolment as a measure of people’s desire to better themselves).
• What is a limitation of the humanistic approach?

  Culturally biased

  • For example, many of the ideas that are central to humanistic psychology, such as personal growth, would be more readily associated with individualist cultures.
  • Whereas collectivist cultures emphasise needs of groups and so may not identify with the ideas and values of humanistic psychology.
  • Therefore, the humanistic approach has limited explanatory power outside Western cultures.
• What is another limitation of the humanistic approach?

  Unrealistic

  • Critics argue people are not inherently good and growth oriented as humanistic theorists suggest and the approach does not adequately recognise people’s capacity for self-destructive behaviour.
  • The view that personality development is directed only by an innate potential for growth is seen as an oversimplification, as in the humanistic assumption that all problems arise from blocked self-actualisation.
• Continued info about unrealistic being a limitation of the humanistic approach:

  • This suggests that encouraging people to focus on their owns elf-development rather than on situational forces may be neither realistic or appropriate in modern society.