humanistic

• Individuals are unique and should be treated as such. Humanistic psychologists are against trying to make generalisations about people.
• We have free will- the ability to choose and be in control of our own destiny. However, the approach does acknowledge that the law and morals can make it more difficult to exercise our free will.
• We should take a holistic view of a person, understanding that all areas and times of their lives are interlinked and important. This means they acknowledge the complexity of behaviours that are shown.
• Scientific methods are not suitable for studying human beings. Human experiences are subjective (unique, full of feelings) so trying to be unbiased is not suitable.
• free will

  This is the idea that humans can make choices and are not determined by biological or external forces

  This does not mean that people are not affected by external/internal influences but we are active agents who have the ability to determine our own development.

  Humanistic psychologists believe we have free will because as humans we feel like we have free will and have made our decisions. This is sometimes referred to as having “intuitive appeal”.
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

  Self actualisation: Peak state of existence, when an individual achieves their full potential; ultimate feelings of well being and satisfaction; humanists believe that we have an innate drive to strive towards this.
• In order to move into the next stage of the hierarchy, all the needs below have to be met E.g. you can’t have self esteem if you don’t feel

  love/belonging; you can’t self-actualise if you don’t have self esteem.
• Carl Rogers: 3 ‘selves’.

  Ideal self - Self you feel you are, affected by self esteem; people may have a distorted view of themselves.

  Real self - Self you wish you were, may be working towards becoming; ‘I wish I was more…’

  Self concept - Person you actually are. Difficult to demonstrate because each person will

  perceive themselves differently. Makes it difficult to know.
• Humanistic psychology believes people are essentially self-determining and therefore have free will

  They believe that, because everyone is unique, psychology should be concerned with subjective

  experiences, not general laws.
• Maslow, a humanistic psychologist, argued that we have a hierarchy of needs. The lowest level of these, those concerned with our basic biological needs, are known as deficiency needs. After that we need to satisfy safety and security needs followed by love and belonging and then self esteem.
• We have an innate tendency to try to fulfil our potential by trying to satisfy the needs progressively up the hierarchy. If we do this to the greatest extent possible, we have achieved self actualisation
• Rogers argued that, in order to achieve personal growth there must be congruence between our

  self-concept (the way we see ourselves) and the ideal self (what we want to be).

  According to Rogers, one of the reasons why people have problems in later life is the lack of

  unconditional positive regard in childhood, leading to feelings of worthlessness.
• Self actualisation: Peak state of existence, when an individual achieves their full potential; ultimate feelings of well being and satisfaction; humanists believe that we have an innate drive to strive towards this.
•  The most basic needs are biological – food, water, clothing, shelter, sleep; then come safety needs, which include resources, employment, family, and health; next is the need for love and belonging, from friends, family, etc. After that comes the need for esteem, both self-esteem and respect from others. 
• According to Maslow, once these ‘deficiency needs’ have been met, people can turn their attention to self-actualisation, which includes, spirituality, creativity and acceptance of the world as it is.
• The evidence for the existence of the hierarchy of needs is empirically thin, as would be expected from an approach that disputes the validity of empirical research. Some of the concepts within the hierarchy of needs (e.g. self-actualisation) are difficult to operationalise and therefore very difficult to test empirically.
• Furthermore, as humanistic psychologists are typically against nomothetic methods of investigation, providing any research support for these abstract concepts becomes difficult if not impossible. Consequently, psychologists are unable to provide any research support for the existence of the hierarchy of needs and other aspects of humanistic psychology making such theories/concepts questionable.
• Rogers was primarily interested in just two basic needs: the need for self-worth and the need for unconditional positive regard from other people. Both emerge from good relationships with supportive parents in childhood, and later with friends and partners. For Rogers, unhappiness and dissatisfaction were the outcomes of a psychological gap between self-concept (the way you think you are) and ideal self (the way you would like to be).
• According to Rogers, when these concepts are congruent, people are healthy; when they are not congruent, it is necessary to use defence mechanisms to provide protection against feeling bad.
• However, some critics argue that the humanistic approach offers an unrealistic view of human nature. Critics point to the more sinister aspects of human behaviour and argue that humanism focuses on ‘growth-orientated’ behaviour while ignoring individual capacity for self-destruction. Consequently, such critics argue that a focus on self-development ignores situational forces that may provide a more realistic explanation of everyday human behaviour.
• The humanistic approach is a holistic approach where every person is seen as unique and treated individually. This approach believes in the significance of free will and could be argued to be growth-orientated. Humanistic psychology believes people are essentially self-determining and therefore have free will. This is the idea that humans can make choices that are not determined by external forces but we actively have the ability to determine our own development.

  They believe that because everyone is unique, psychology should be concerned with subjective experiences, not general laws.
• One strength of the humanistic approach is that it has led to the development of client centred therapy, Research has shown that this type of therapy is effective. However, it is not successful for all individuals and it may not be especially effective in treating serious mental health disorders. This might be why client centred therapies are used much less in clinical psychology. This is a strength of humanistic psychology as counselling therapies are useful for some, though it does have limitations.
• A limitation of the humanistic approach is that it is not scientific. It does not try to compare individuals and make theories about behaviour, but instead recognises the uniqueness of the individual. Whilst this approach considers the subjective experience of a person and acknowledges the role of free will, its hard to test. Concepts such as self actualisation are also difficult to test objectively, as it looks different from person to person. This means that we cannot support the ideas/assumptions with experimental evidence.
• A criticism of Maslow's theory of motivation is that it is culture specific. It may be that it only applies to individualistic cultures, where there is a focus on the needs of yourself. Concepts such as self actualisation are therefore more important. However, self actualisation may be less relevant in collectivist cultures, where there is a focus on the needs of the group. As self actualisation is an important idea in humanistic psychology, this is a limitation; the humanistic approach may not be able to explain the behaviour of individuals in a collectivist society