L6 - Humanistic-existential approach 1

• Humanistic-Existential Approaches

  • Free will
  • Conscious thoughts
  • Responsibility
  • Present
  • Phenomenology
• Humanism - Natural potential that we can 'actualise'

  • problems - not being 'true' self
• Existentialism - Human limitations, realities

  Problems: failing to create meaning in life
• Humanism: Abraham Maslow

  • Viewed humanism as a ‘Third Force’ in psychology.
  • 2 types of motivation: deficiency and growth.
  • Described a hierarchy of human needs.

  
• Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987)

  • Born in Illinois, U.S.A.
  • Close-knit family – hard work and conservative religious values.
  • Initial goal: become a minister.
• Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987)

  • 1951: ‘Client-Centered Therapy’.
  • Viewed himself as a scientist – ‘father of psychotherapy research’.
  • Influence far beyond therapy
• Natalie Rogers – Person-centred expressive arts therapy
• View of human nature:

  Freud - Pessimistic view. Sexual drives lead to aggression, selfishness, incest.

  Rogers - Humans basically good. Actualising tendency leads to productive life
• [Actualising tendency]

  Single basic motivating drive.

  Present in all living things.

  ‘Directional tendency towards wholeness, towards actualisation of potentialities’ (Rogers, 1977, p.240).
• [Actualising tendency]

  • Includes maintenance (e.g. getting food, water, reproduction)  as well as growth and fulfilment.

  “…the behaviors of an organism can be counted on to be in the direction of maintaining, enhancing, and reproducing itself. This is the very nature of the process we call life.” (Rogers, 1990, pps 118 – 119).
• [Organismic Valuing]

  Efficient and soundly-based in infancy:

  • Experiences that maintain/enhance (actualise) – preferred.
  • Experiences that do not actualise – rejected.

  Based on the individual’s phenomenal field

  subjective experience/frame of reference.
• •We are experts on ourselves•

  ‘Neither the Bible nor the prophets – neither Freud nor

  research – neither the revelations of God nor man – can take precedence over my own direct experience’
• Awareness: representation of experience.

  Some experiences not accurately symbolised in awareness -> defensive denials/distortions, others are unimportant
• Self/self concept

  • Qualities you percieve yourself to have
  • Values attached to characteristics
  • Relationships percieved between self + others
  • ideal self
  • 'I', 'me', myself

  flexibility of self-concept - shaped by socialisation
• Conditions of worth

  • Need for positive regard.
  • This can be  Unconditional or

       Conditional.

  – valued for who you are, no matter what you do vs.

  – valued for doing what others want you to do.

  • Rely on conditional regard -> introject conditions of worth.

  – Secondary valuing process (lose touch with organismic valuing).

  – Develop conditional positive self-regard.

  
  

  Overlaps with Freudian notion of super-ego
• Experiences can be:

  1. Accurately perceived + assimilated (congruent w/ self-concept)
  2. Ignored (unimportant)
  3. Distorted - defence against conflict (incongruent w/ self-concept)
  4. Denied - defence against conflict (incongruent w/ self-concept)

  
• Goals of therapy - Rodgers person centred

  • Rejects medical model.
  • Not set by therapist:

  – Client responsible for own purpose and goals.

  – Therapist trusts in actualising tendency.

  • Assist clients in growth process , allow them to become increasingly actualised.

  – Get behind the mask’.

  – Openness to experience.

  – Internal locus of evaluation.
• Therapeutic process

  • No specific techniques – it is the therapeutic relationship and therapist’s attitude which is important.
  • Provide conditions required to allow change.
  • Because of actualising tendency, change will be positive.
• [conditions]

  1. Two persons are in psychological contact.
• [conditions]

  2. The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious.
• [conditions]

  3.The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship.
• [conditions]

  4. The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.
• [condtions]

  5.The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client’s internal frame of reference and endeavours to communicate this experience to the client.
• [conditions]

  6.The communication to the client of the therapists empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved.
• [core attitudinal conditions]

  Congruence

  • Genuineness, openness, authenticity.
  • Not playing roles or putting on professional façades.
• [core attitudinal conditions]

  Unconditional Positive Regard

  • Spontaneous prizing of client.
• [core attitudinal conditions]

  Empathy

  Understand client’s feelings & experiences.

  –‘Get in their shoes’.

  –Internal frame of reference.

  –Listening, resonating, discriminating, communicating, checking.
• Evaluation:

  • Actualising tendency – cannot be directly observed.
  • Overly optimistic view of human nature.
  • Vague ‘woolly’ concepts, unsuitable for testing.

  BUT – scientific writings very precise.

          – some testable hypotheses.

  • Less research interest than other approaches in recent years.
  • Issues from a diversity perspective.
  • −Expectations of therapy.
  • −Collectivist cultures? (Cain, 2010).
• Evaluating (positive)

  • Emphasis on research.
  • Importance of Empathy.

  −Watson (2002): research consistently shows that empathy is the key determinant of client progress.

  • Importance of self-concept in guiding behaviour:

  −Strauman (1989), Strauman et al (1991): discrepancy between who you are and who others think you should be – more vulnerable to anxiety, maladaptive eating.

  • Benefits from a diversity perspective:

  −Imposes no ‘correct way of being’.