humanistic approach

• assumption indidivuals have free will over all of their behaviour, people may be influenced by internal or external forces but we have a choice over how to behave.
• ideology of humanistic approach- studying subjective experience of individuals is better than making general laws about them
• Humans have a primary goal of self-actualisation, to achieve their full potential, Maslow argued humans must work up a hierarchy of needs to achieve this, including physiological safety, love and esteem and then finally self-actualisation.
• Psychological therapy should focus on ‘the self’: the ideas and values that individuals have

  about themselves. This focus on ‘the self’ should assess at the amount of consistency between

  the perceived self and the ideal self. Rogers argues that if these two match than an individual

  has achieved a state of congruence and will be psychologically healthy. If they do not match an

  individual should seek help from a counselling therapist.

  • “I don’t think I am good looking or intelligent, I wish I was both.”
• Who developed client-centred therapy?

  Rogers
• What is the main goal of client-centred therapy?

  To improve congruence
• What does "conditions of worth" mean?

  Love given only if conditions are met
• How can counselling help a client achieve congruence?

  By providing unconditional positive regard
• What is unconditional positive regard?

  Acceptance and support regardless of actions
• How does a therapist provide unconditional positive regard?

  • Accepts the client without judgment
  • Supports the client in all situations
  • Helps the client feel valued and understood
• What issues is the therapist helping the client work through?

  Esteem issues
• Humanistic psychology takes a holistic approach to dealing with

  abnormal behaviour. It looks the whole individual, rather than trying to

  explain their behaviour in terms of single components. This makes a

  valuable contribution to understanding human behaviour as it looks at

  a range of subjective experiences and emotions that would have been

  overlooked when taking a reductionist approach.
• The approach has real world application. It has lead to the successful

  development of effective counselling therapies that help clients find

  their own solutions to problems. This improves the mental health of

  patients and has benefits to the economy.
• The approach lacks scientific credibility. This is because congruence

  and free will are difficult to study objectively as they cannot be

  operationalised or quantified. This means the approach is weak

  because it cannot be tested under controlled conditions.
• Humanistic psychology takes an idiographic approach to studying

  human behaviour. Therefore, it is impossible to produce general laws

  of behaviour that can be applied to all human beings. This means the

  approach may not have universal application.
• holistic approach- humanists criticise other approaches which offer a reductionist approach eg biological and genetics, humans consider a variety of factors that go into each of the other approaches, eg the social learning theory through observed rewards, cognitive priming for cognitive psychologists, or unconscious drives (psychodynamics)
• humanistic psychology is considered unscientific due to its reliance on non-experimental qualitative methods. This leads to a lack of empirical evidence for many of its claims. Concepts related to humanistic psychology such as self-actualisation, are criticised for their vague definitions and lack of operationalisation, meaning they are not objectively measured
• acronym for maslow hierarchy of needs- ELSP- top to bottom- esteem, love, safety, physiological
• humanistic psychology rejects the scientific approach and believes that a persons subjective experience and understanding of the world is more important than gathering rigid objective data
• humanistic psychologists assume a more holistic view, where each person is unique and humans should be viewed as a whole and not reduced to components
• physiological needs- breathing, food, water, sex, sleep
• safety- security of body, of employment, of resources, of morality
• love/belonging- friendship/family, sexual intimacy