Humanistic Approach

• Humanistic Assumptions


  Humans have free will and are self-determining beings

  Holism - studies whole unique person

  We have an innate need to self-actualise

  Subjective experience of individual is more important than objectivity

  Reject science
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

  Physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, self-esteem needs, self actualisation
• Deficiency Needs


  Required for growth

  Physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, self-esteem needs
• Growth Needs


  Self-actualisation - achieved through intellectual and creative behaviours, and the desire to grow as a person
• Physiological Needs


  For survival: food, water, air, sleep, warmth, and sex (for reproduction)
• Safety Needs


  Security, health, employment and property
• Love and Belonging Needs


  Community, intimacy, relationships with friends/family
• Self-Esteem Needs


  Respect, status, recognition, and generally a role within society
• Self-Actualisation


  The realisation or fulfillment of an individual's potential

  An innate need for humans
• Maslow


  A psychologist who created the hierarchy of needs
• The Self


  Our personal identity
• Percieved/Real Self


  How you see yourself
• Ideal Self


  The person you would like to be
• Congruence


  Consistency between the real self and ideal self
• Unconditional Positive Regard


  Complete acceptance and support of a person without conditions of worth
• Conditions of Worth


  Constraints an individual believes are put upon them by others that they deem necessary to gain positive regard
• Client-Centred Therapists provide genuineness, empathy, and unconditional positive regard
• The goal of client-centred therapy is to boost self-worth and reduce incongruence between the real and ideal self
• Roger


  A humanist psychologist who developed client-centred therapy
• Evaluation: Humanist Approach



  Holistic - allowing complete understanding of complex individual Optimistic - promote positive self-image, view everyone as capable of self-actualisation Subjective - difficult to test and therefore falsify; unscientific

  Cultural bias - emphasis on independence is very Western, cannot be applied to all