Humanistic

• Cultural bias: Nevis (1983) study in China found that belongingness is more fundamental than physiological needs.
• A parent who sets boundaries or limits on their love for their child is storing up psychological problems for that child in the future.
• Many issues we experience in adulthood, such as worthlessness and low self-esteem, are rooted in childhood and can be explained by a lack of unconditional positive regard.
• An effective therapist is able to provide clients with the unconditional positive regard they had failed to receive as children, empathy and genuineness.
• Carl Rogers developed client-centered therapy (CCT) to reduce the gap between the self image and the ideal self (incongruence).
• An assumption of the humanistic approach is that it recognises external and internal influences, but claimed we are not restricted by them as we are active agents who are self-determining.
• Self-Actualisation represents the uppermost level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. All four deficiency needs must be met first before reaching self-actualisation.
• An assumption of the humanistic approach is that human beings are self-determining and have free will.
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory of human motivation.
• A assumption of the humanistic approach is that it rejects scientific models and instead opted for a person-centred approach focused on individual and subjective experiences to create general laws.
• Conditions of self-worth are boundaries/ limits set on love.
• A assumption of the humanistic approach is that if love is given freely, without conditions (unconditional positive regard), then people will develop a healthy sense of self-worth, recognizing their abilities and difficulties.
• The closer our self image and our ideal self are to each other, the greater our feelings of self-esteem and psychological health.
• Rogers felt that Freud had dealt with the “sick half” of psychology, so the humanistic approach concerned itself with explanations of healthy growth in individuals – a positive image of the human condition.
• An assumption of the humanistic approach is that people who receive negative regard, such as criticism and blame, develop low self-esteem.
• Rogers (1951) believed that people have two basic needs: positive regard from other people and feelings of self-worth.
• Congruence is the balance, harmony, agreement between the self image and the ideal self. A person can now self-actualise due to feelings of high self worth.
• Free will is the notion that humans can choose their behaviour and are not determined by internal biological or external forces.
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs emphasised the importance of personal growth.
• Maslow‘s Hierarchy of needs

  1. Physiological needs
  2. Safety needs
  3. Belonging and love needs
  4. Esteem needs
  5. Self-actualisation

  
• An assumption of the humanistic approach is that every person has an innate tendency to achieve their full potential - strive towards self-actualisation.
• Characteristics of self-actualised people includes creativity, acceptance, accurate perception of the world and morality.
• Not everyone will be able to reach their full potential. There will be psychological barriers that prevent some from reaching self-actualisation. 
• The self is the ideas and values about how we characterise ourselves.
• An assumption of the humanistic approach is that humans have a basic need to feel nurtured and valued by significant people in their lives
• The self concept split into 3 parts:

  • self image - how you see yourself right now
  • ideal self - who you want to be
  • self-esteem - how much you like and accept who you are
• Incongruence occurs when the self image and ideal self do not overlap. Roger argued that self-actualisation will not be possible due to feelings of low self worth.
• unconditioned positive regard (unconditional love) is when:

  • parents love and accept their child regardless of their behaviour
  • no conditions that child must meet to be positively viewed
  • leads to high self-esteem + congruence
• Conditional positive regard (conditional love) is when:

  • standards are placed on child by parent that limits their love and acceptance of the child unless they meet the standards (conditions of worth)
  • leads to low self esteem + incongruence
• Features of CCT?

  • Roger referred to those in therapy as 'clients’ rather than 'patients' - viewed the individual as an expert of their own condition
  • Therapy is non-directive - client is encouraged towards discovery of their own solutions within a therapeutic atmosphere that is warm, supportive and non-judgmental
• Rogerian therapy is used to:

  • increase person's feelings of self-worth
  • reduce level of incongruence between self image and ideal self
  • help person become a more fully functioning person
• Maslow stated that a self-actualised people will go through involuntary 'peak experiences' which are characterised by feelings of:

  Ecstacy

  Acceptance

  Fulfilment

  Joy and gratitude
• Research supporting Roger’s theory of the self concept

  Harter et al (1996) discovered teenagers who feel they have to fulfil certain conditions in order to gain their parents approval frequently end up not liking themselves. 

  Higher chance of developing depression.
• Research supporting Maslow’s Hierarchy’s of needs

  • Hagerty (1999) looked at relationship between economic growth and level on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in 88 countries over 34 years. 
  • Countries in early stages of developments were more focus on lower needs (e.g. physiological needs)
  • Countries in the advanced stages of economic development were more focused on self-actualisation.
• A weakness of the humanistic approach is that it includes many untestable and subjective concepts. Due to the vagueness of terms such as ‘self-actualisation’ and ’congruence’, little empirical research has been carried out. Therefore, it’s explanation of behaviour is undermined due to its lack of scientific evidence.
• The humanistic approach also offers practical applications for psychologists working with clients. For example, Rogers developed client centred therapy which aims to increase an individual’s sense of self worth and promote personal growth. These interventions aim to improve wellbeing and enhance personal growth and have proved useful in school counselling.
• Another strength of the humanistic approach is that it focuses on the positive aspects of human nature rather than negative ones. It emphasises the potential for personal growth and change, unlike Freud’s psychoanalytic approach which sees humans as inherently flawed and driven by unconscious desires. By focusing on the positive aspects of human nature, this approach can be seen as empowering individuals to take control of their lives and make changes where necessary.
• A strength of the humanistic approach is that it is a holistic approach that rejects the reductionist approach that other approaches such as the behaviourists’ approach to reduce behaviour to stimulus-response or the cognitive approach to reduce behaviour to mental processes. The humanistic approach instead opts for holism and considers the whole individual by looking at their motivations and emotions behind their behaviour. This enables the approach to have more validity when explaining real-world human behaviour.
• A weakness of the humanistic approach is its cultural bias. This is because the approach is built on theories of case studies and research on Western figures. This limits the approach as it is too ethnocentric and neglects to acknowledge the differences between Western and Eastern cultures. This is because Western cultures are more individualistic, while Eastern cultures are more collectivist. Therefore the cultural bias limits the approach as it means that concepts such as self-actualisation are harder to generalise to non-western cultures as it means something different to them.