Humanistic approach

• humanistic approach

  = understanding behaviour that emphasises the importance of subjective experience and each person's capacity for self-determinism.
• free will

  =notion that humans can make choices and are not determined by internal biological or external forces.

  • Humanistic approach claims that human beings are essentially self-determining and have free will.
  • people are still affected by external and internal influences, but are also active agents who can determine their own development.
  • reject more scientific models.
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs

  = 5-levelled hierarchical sequence in which basic physiological needs must be satisfied before higher psychological needs can be achieved.

  • they motivate our behaviour in order to achieve our goal of self-actualisation, a number of deficiency needs must be met first.
  • the next deficiency need is safety and security followed by love and belongingness and then self-esteem.
  • can only progress through the hierarchy once the current need in the sequence has been met.
• self-actualisation

  = desire to grow psychologically and fulfil one's full potential.

  • all lower levels in the hierarchy must be met first.
  • personal growth= concerned with developing and changing a person to become fulfilled, satisfied and goal-orientated.
• self, congruence and conditions of worth

  Rogers argued that for personal growth to be achieved an individual's concept of self (the way they see themselves) must be broadly equivalent to or have congruence with their ideal self. (the person they want to be)

  • if the gap is too big the person will experience a state of incongruence and self-actualisation won't be possible due to negative feeling of self-worth.
• client-centred therapy

  Rogers- to reduce gap between self-concept and ideal self.

  • claimed many of the issues we experience as adults (worthlessness and low self-esteem), have their roots in childhood and can often be explained by a lack of unconditional positive regard from our parents.
  • conditional love from parents- Rogers was able to provide his clients with the unconditional positive regard that they had failed to receive as children.
• Evaluation- not reductionist

  = rejects attempts to break up behaviour and experience into smaller components.

  • behaviourists explain learning in terms of stimulus-response connections. Cognitive approach sees humans as little more than information-processing 'machines'. Biological psychologists reduce behaviour to its basic physiological processes.
  • advocates holism, the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person.
  • this approach may have more validity than its alternatives by considering meaningful human behaviour within its real-world context.
• Evaluation- counterpoint

  However reductionist approaches may be more scientific. This is because the ideal of science is the experiment, and experiments reduce behaviour to independent and dependent variables.

  • There are relatively few concepts that can be broken down to single variables and measured.
  • means that humanistic psychology in general is short on empirical evidence to support its claims.
• Evaluation- positive approach

  strength= optimistic

  • praised for bringing the person back into psychology and promoting a positive image of the human condition.
  • Freud saw humans as slaves to their past and claimed all of us existed somewhere between 'common unhappiness and absolute despair'
  • humanistic psychologists see all people as basically good, free to work towards the achievement of their potential and in control of their lives.
  • suggests humanistic psychology offers a refreshing and optimistic alternative to other approaches.
• Evaluation- western cultural bias

  many of ideas that are central to humanistic psychology (individual freedom, autonomy and personal growth) would be much more readily associated with individualist cultures in the Western world.

  • collectivist cultures such as India emphasise the needs of the group, community and interdependence.
  • so may not identify so easily with the ideals and values of humanistic psychology.
  • so its possible that this approach does not apply universally.