humanistic

• Humanistic psychology was developed By maslow and Rogers in the 1950s. Humanistic psychology is concerned with topics that are meaningful to humans. Unlike most other approaches, these theories emphasis that people have full conscious control over their own destiny. So they believe they have free will. Maslow was interested in what goes right with people and so he created the hierarchy of needs.
• . It is usually represented as a triangle. The most basic needs are at the bottom (physiological) and then most advanced needs at the top. Each level must be fulfilled before a person can move up to a higher need. Maslow found that those who achieve the level of self-actualisation share certain characteristics. They are creative and accepting of people and have an accurate perception of the world.
• Rogers claimed that we have two basic needs which are positive regard from other people and a feeling of self worth. Feelings of self worth develop in childhood formed from the interaction with their parents. Rogers believes this was important for our community psychological health. There is also the idea of congruence.
• Congruence is achieved when our ideal self and how we observe ourselves to be is similar. If there is a difference, the individual experiences a state of incongruence. Most people do experience a degree of incongruence however defence mechanisms are used to feel less threatened by how they really are. Rogers believes that other people hinder the process of self- actualisation. 
• Research with adolescents have shown support for roger’s conditions of worth.

  Individuals who experience conditional positive regard are likely to display more ‘false self-behaviour’ such as doing things to meet other expectations even when they clash with their own values. Harter et al also found that teenagers who feel that they must fulfil certain conditions to gain their parents approval frequently end up not liking themselves.

  Adolescents who do create this ‘false self’ become more likely to develop depression and a tendency to lose touch with their true self.
• An issue with this approach is that evaluating it is difficult as the evidence used to support it, fails to establish a relationship between the variables. Rogers was an advocate for non experimental research methods, arguing that the requirements for experimental method make it impossible to verify the results of counselling. Most psychologists would argue that without experimental evidence the evaluation of theories becomes very difficult.  Although some studies have shown personal growth as a result of humanistic counselling, they do not show the therapy caused the changes.
• A criticism of the humanistic approach is that it is oversimplistic and an unrealistic view of human nature. Critics argue that humans aren’t as inherently good and growth orientated as humanistic theorists suggest, the approach doesn’t recognise peoples capacity for self-destructive behaviour. The view that personality development is directed only by an innate potential growth is seen as an oversimplification. This suggests that encouraging people to focus on their own self development rather than on situational forces may not be realistic in modern society.
• There are cultural differences in the hierarchy of needs.

  Maslow, in a later development, did acknowledge that for some, needs may be in a different order or absent For example, a study in China found that belonginess needs were seen as more fundamental that psychological needs and self actualisation was defined more in terms of contributions to the community rather than individually.

  Consistent with this view, many studies have confirmed that Europeans and Americans focus more on personal identity in self-concept whereas Chinese and Japanese define it more in social relationships.