humanistic approach

• ao1


  free will - humans self determining and have free will, still infkuenced by internal and external forces but active agents who determine own development, all unique so rejected scientifi method to establish laws instead concerned with study of subjective experience - person centred approach

  • Maslow - hierarchy of needs which motivate our behaviour, physiological needs eg food safety and security, love and belonging, self esteem, self actualisation. primary goal of SA and can only progress when met previous need
• ao1


  self actualisation- innate desire to grow psychologically and fulfill potential, lower level deficiency needs met before growth need of SA, applied throughout life eg babies first focused on physiological needs. regard personal growth as essential to be human, changing to be goal oriented and satisfied, prevented by psychological barriers

  • Roger’s argued for personal growth individuals concept of self must be congruent with ideal self, if too big a gap then incongruent and SA not possible due to negative feelings of self worth from incongruence
• ao1


  client centred therapy reduces gap

  cope with problems of daily life, issues in adulthood eg worthlessness and low self esteem have roots in childhood with lack of unconditional positive regard from parents, they set limits for love or conditions of worth storing up psych issues for child in future

  important modern psychotherapy with application in school/work, clients not patients as experts in own condition , non directive and encourage client to discover own solutions, should provide UPR genuineness and empathy to increase self worth reduce incongruent, best on mild neuroses
• strength 


  holistic

  • rejects attempt to break up behaviour to simple parts (reductionism) eg BA s-r CA machines PD conflicts of personality
  • advocate holism idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering whole person
  • may have more validity by considering meaningful human behaviour within its real world context
• counter limitation 


  reductionist approaches are more scientific

  • ideal of science is the experiment, reduce behaviour to IV and DV
  • issue is that there are few concepts able to be broken down to single variables and measured
  • short on empirical evidence to support claims
• strength 


  positive and optimistic

  • brings the person back into psychology, promoting positive image of human condition
  • freud , humans prisoners of their past, all of us exist between common unhappiness and absolute despair
  • humanists view all as basically good, free. to work towards acheivement of full potential and in control of life
  • offers refreshing and optimistic alternative
• limitation 


  cultural bias

  • central ideas eg indicidual freedom and personal growth much more associated with individualistic countries eg usa
  • collectivist tendencies more need for grohps and interdependenc, in these countries the ideas of the approach eg self actualisation may be less important
  • does not apply universally and is a product of the cultural context it was developed in