Outline the humanistic approach
Humanistic psychology focuses on the person as a whole. It believes that all people are inherently good and are driven to achieve their full potential. Unlike other approaches, it looks at peoples feelings rather than just there observable behaviour. Thus we can say it has an idiographic approach where it looks at each individual separately and does not class everyone under the same categories. It assumes peoples behaviour is as a result of their subjective feelings and their self concept (view on themselves). It is a strictly free will approach saying that we all have decisions and choices on how to better ourselves.
Maslow came up with a hierarchy of needs which essentially shows how human needs can be categorised and prioritised from least to most important.
From the bottom up it goes: Needs for survival, safety, love, esteem and after we have reached this point we can then self actualise. Self actualisation is when we are at our fullest potential and have become the best we are capable of being.
People who have self actualised tend to have certain characteristics that include:
-A strong sense of self awareness
-A fully accepting view of themselves and others
-Ability to deal with uncertainty and the unknown
Like Maslow Rogers agreed that people aim to achieve self actualisation and that we are all naturally good however the difference came about how it was that we reach self actualisation. He believed it wasn't as strict as Maslow but rather you simply move up the way to self actualisation depending on their own thoughts about themselves and the way they are treated by others. From this he stated that you would develop in a healthy way unless there are blocks which can range from things such as being raised in a difficult environment.
He said there were two parts to the self, how we see ourself (self concept) and how we would like to be seen (ideal self).
Two factors affect our self concept and this is firstly unconditional positive regard and secondly conditions of worth (approval and praise given as a result of behaving in a certain manner)
If our self concept and ideal self meet then we have reached congruence and become fully functioning however if they are different we will experience incongruence.
Rogers said that many psychological problems could be due to this incongruence and thus he established a therapy known as client centred therapy (CCP) as the name suggests the client is in charge of what is talked about and it is their responsibility to solve their problems, the therapists job is to try and make the client aware of their thoughts doing this by rephrasing their comments.
