The humanistic approach

• Humanistic psychology

  • An approach to understanding behaviour which emphasises the importance of subjective experience and each person's capacity fro self-determination
• Define free will

  • The belief that humans can make choices that are not determined by internal biology or external forces
• All other approaches so far have been purely deterministic in nature
• Describe humanistic psychology in terms of free will

  • Suggests that us humans are essentially self-determining
  • It argues that we are still affected by external and influences BUT we are also active agents who can determine our own development
• Humanistic psychologists

  • Carl Rogers - counselling psychology
  • Abraham Maslow - hierarchy of needs
• Humanistic psychologists reject scientific models that attempt to establish general principles of human behaviour.
• Humanistic psychologists believe we are all, unique and active agents of out lives. For this reason psychology should concern itself with the study of subjective experience rather that general laws
• The humanistic approach concerns itself with focusing on a person-centred approach.
• Abraham Maslow

  • One of the founders of humanistic psychology
  • His main interests were what motivates people
  • Through that he developed his hierarchy of needs
• Levels on the hierarchy of needs - bottom to top

  1. Psychological needs
  2. Safety and security
  3. Love and belonging
  4. Self-esteem
  5. Self-actualisation

  
• Deficiency needs 


  The needs that Maslow felt needs to be met before self-actualisation was possible

  • Psychological needs
  • Safety and security needs
  • Love and belonging needs
  • Self-esteem
• Growth needs 


  The needs at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs

  • Self-actualisation
• Define self-actualisation

  • The desire to grow psychologically and fulfil ones full potential of becoming what you're capable of.
• Personal growth according Carl Rodgers

  • It could only be achieved when an individuals concept of the self must be broadly equivalent or be in complete congruence with their ideal self
• What happens if too big a gap exist between out two selves?

  • The person is in a sate of incongruence
  • And due to this self-actualisation is will not be possible
  • Due to the negative feelings of self-worth that come with being in a state of incongruence
• How can the gap between the selves be reduced?

  • Rodgers developed client-centred therapy - counselling
  • To help people with the stress of everyday living and reduce a sate of incongruence
• Describe how negative adult feelings develop?

  • Rodgers argued that our negative adult feelings like low-self worth and self esteem have their roots in childhood
  • Due to lack of unconditional positive regard from our parents
  • A parents who's love is dependent on conditions of worth only enables for psychological problems (like a state of incongruence) to occur in their childs future
• Rodgers saw his role as an effective therapist to as being able to his clients with unconditional positive regard which they had failed to receive as children
• Not a reductionist approach - A03

  P - One important strength of the humanistic approach is that it doesn't break up components of our behaviour

  E - Behaviourists explain behaviour as stimuli-response connections. Cognitive explain human behaviour in theoretical models and biological reduce behaviour to psychological processes.

  A - In contrast, humanist psychologists advocate for holism. They look to subjective experiences and try to understand the whole person

  L - This suggests that as an approach humanistic psychology may have more validity as it considers meaningful human behaviour.
• Limitations to a holistic approach - AO3 


  P - The other reductionist approaches may be more scientific

  E - Science is concerned with experiments which reduce behaviour to an IV and DV

  A - One of the main issues with humanistic psychology is that relatively few of it's central concepts like self-actualisation and conditions of worth can not be broken down to single variable and measures

  L - This suggests that humanistic psychology is short of empirical data and scientific evidence to support its claims