humanistic psychology

• humanistic psychology

  Focuses on the concept of the 'self' and aims to understand + enable self-development.

  Focuses on individual experience and free will
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs

  a hierarchy of psychological needs which motivates our behaviour to achieve the goal of self-actualisation.

  -> physiological (breathing, food, water, sleep)

  -> safety (security of body, employment, resources, morality, family)

  -> love/belonging (friendship, family, sexual intimacy)

  -> esteem (self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect)

  -> self-actualisation (morality, creativity, problem solving, lack of prejudice)
• self-actualisation

  desire for personal growth and to achieve full potential.

  innate tendency

  lower levels of the hierarchy have to be met to reach self-actualisation
• conditions of worth

  expectations an individual believes are put on them by others.

  you believe you have to meet these expectations to receive positive regard.

  unconditional positive regard is essential for development. enables the individual to develop their authentic self.
• congruence

  ideal self -> who you would like to be

  perceived self -> how you see yourself.

  congruence is the consistency between perceived self and ideal self.

  incongruence leads to negative feelings
• client-centered therapy

  aims to provide solutions to problems from within

  stresses that it is the client's life + their decision
• strength - holistic

  holistic rather than reductionist.

  has the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person.

  contrasts biological and cognitive.

  approach may have more validity than alternatives
• counterpoint - holistic

  reductionist approaches may be more scientific

  experiments reduce behaviour to independent and dependent variables which the humanistic approach doesn't do as there are few concepts that can be broken down.
• strength - real world application

  Roger's client-centered therapy has had a major impact on counselling psychology.

  beneficial as it acknowledges that people have free will and the ability to improve themselves. they can develop solutions to current problems.

  in contrast to Freud's psychotherapies which dwell on childhood experience.
• counterpoint - real world application

  Client-centered approach is not suitable for treating serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia or depression.
• limitation - cultural bias

  many ideas central to humanistic psychology (autonomy, individual freedom, personal growth) are more associated with individualist countries.

  Collectivist countries emphasise more the needs to the group and interdependent.

  ideals of humanistic psychology may not be important

  limits the validity as it cannot be applied universally.
• limitation - scientific credibility

  has a lack of empirical evidence and cannot systematically observe and measure the processes it describes.

  self-actualisation cannot be objectively measured

  congruence is up to personal judgement.

  therefore has limited scientific credibility.