Humanistic Approach

• Free will

  • claims humans are self determining (have free will)
  • still effected by external/internal influences but act ad agents who can determine their own free will
  • rejects models that try establish general principles of human behaviour
  • believes psychology should study subjective experience rather than general laws
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs

  A) self-actualisation

  B) safety needs

  C) physiological needs

  D) love and belonging

  E) esteem needs

  F) growth needs

  G) deficiency needs

  
• Self-actualisation

  • humanistic psychologists regard self growth an essential part of being human
  • important psychological barriers prevent person from reaching their full potential
• The self, congruence and conditions of worth.

  • Roberts argued if a persons idea of their ideal self didn't concord with their actual self they will experience a state of incongruence preventing them from reaching self-actualisation
  • developed client-centred therapies to help with everyday tasks like worthlessness
  • aims to provide clients the unconditional positive regard they failed to receive children
• strengths

  1. rejects reductionism - advocates holism, idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person. suggesting humanistic approach may have more validity than others however -> reductionist approaches are more scientific, behaviour can be reduced tom independent/ dependant variables. in humanistic psychology very few concepts can be broken down meaning humanistic psychology is short on empirical evidence to support its aims
• Strengths 2

  • approach is optimistic - praised for bringing person back into psychology, promoting positive images of self, unlike Freud, suggests humanistic psychology offers refreshing/optimistic alternative to other approaches
• Limitations

  1. cultural bias - many ideas may be associated with individualist countries (US), wouldn't work well in collectivist countries that advocate the needs of a group and interdependence, therefore approach doesn't apply universally and is the product of the culture within which it was developed