humanistic approach :(

origins

• Started in the late 1950s and 1960s

• Growing dissatisfaction among some psychologists with the two major approaches

• Psychodynamic psychology was seen as placing too much emphasis on the conflicted person, driven by unconscious instincts

• Behavioural psychology was seen also as having a negative view of human nature with its view of people as puppets controlled by strings of the environment

 

• 1961 - Association of Humanistic Psychology was launched

• Founding psychologists were interested in creating an organisation with a more meaningful vision of human nature, focussed on self, health personal growth and creativity

• Two of the key founders were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

key assumptions/ideas

• Holism - humans are not reducible to parts or functions

• Free will - humans have free will and are responsible for their choices

  • Although it sides with free will and argues humans can determine their own development, it does acknowledge that we have constraints on our free will (e.g. social rules, laws and morals) that can restrict us

    • Self-determination

• Self-actualization - humans have a natural need to reach their full potential

• Individuality - each person is different and should be treated as such

  • Humanistic psychologists reject a scientific model that attempts to establish general principles of human behaviour

  • It is idiographic - believes that psychology should concern itself with the study of subjective experience, as humans are active agents who are all unique

  • This is referred to as a person-centred approach

• Experiential - humanistic psychology emphasizes experiential means over behaviour modification or analysis of the unconscious, so more qualitative and idiographic

free will

• All approaches we have considered so far are determinist to some degree in their suggestion that behaviour is entirely/partly shaped by forces we have no control over

  • Even cognitive approach which says we are free to choose our own thoughts would argue it is constrained by limits of our cognitive system

• Humanists claim that humans are self-determining and have free will, we are still affected by external and internal influences but are also active agents who determine our own development

• Humanists like Rogers and Maslow reject scientific models that attempt to establish general principles of human behaviour - as active agents we are all unique and psychology should concern itself with subjective experiences rather than general laws

  • Referred to as a person-centred approach

subjective experience

• Humanistic psychologists also believe that the most fundamental aspect of being human is a subjective experience.

  • This may not be an accurate reflection of the real world, but a person can only act in terms of their own private experience subjective perception of reality.

• Humanistic psychologists argue that physical objective reality is less important than a person’s subjective (phenomenological) perception and understanding of the world. Thus, how people interpret things internally is (for them), the only reality.

  • Sometimes the humanistic approach is called phenomenological. This means that personality is studied from the point of view of the individual’s subjective experience.

  • Meaning is the purpose or value that a person attaches to their actions or experiences.

• According to Rogers, we each live in a world of our own creation, formed by our processes of perception. He referred to an individual’s unique perception of reality as his or her phenomenal field.

• Humanistic theorists say these individual subjective realities must be looked at under three simultaneous conditions.

  • First, they must be looked at as a whole and meaningful and not broken down into small components of information that are disjointed or fragmented like with psychodynamic theorists.

    • Rogers said that if these individual perceptions of reality are not kept intact and are divided into elements of thought, they will lose their meaning.

  • Second, they must be conscious experiences of the here and now. No efforts should be made to retrieve unconscious experiences from the past.

    • Phenomenological means ‘that which appears’ and in this case, it means that which naturally appears in consciousness. Without attempting to reduce it to its component parts – without further analysis.

  • Finally, these whole experiences should be looked at through introspection. Introspection is the careful searching of one’s inner subjective experiences.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

• Maslow (one of the founders of humanistic psychology) - one of his main interests was in what motivates people

• He described hierarchy of needs that motivate our behaviour

 

• Self-actualization = morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts

• Esteem = self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others

• Love/belonging = friendship, family, sexual intimacy

• Safety = security of: body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, property

• Physiological = breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion

 

• The bottom four levels were referred to as 'deficiency needs' by Maslow

  • Only once the current need is met can you move up to the next level of the hierarchy

  • If these were not met, Maslow believed we would experience this as having something important missing in our lives

• The top hierarchy (self-actualisation) is referred to as the 'being' or 'growth' need

  • In order to reach self-actualisation, our primary goal, the deficiency needs must be met first

• Maslow believed that everyone has a desire for personal fulfilment, which he called 'self-actualisation'

  • Self-actualisation is defined personally and can be pursued in many different ways - it is a growth need

  • Humanistic psychologists regard personal growth as an essential part of what it is to be human - personal growth is concerned with developing and changing as a person to become fulfilled, satisfied and goal-orientated

    • Not everyone achieves this and there are important psychological barriers that may prevent a person from reaching their potential

carl rogers’ view on the self

• Important element of his theory was the concept of self - it is a model of who we are and what we are capable of

• We construct the self during childhood from two main sources:

  • Our personal experiences of the world

  • The evaluations of other significant people

 

The self

• This is defined as “the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself.”

• The self is the humanistic term for who we really are as a person. 

  • The self is our inner personality, and can be likened to the soul, or Freud’s psyche. 

  • The self is influenced by the experiences a person has in their life, and out interpretations of those experiences. 

  • Two primary sources that influence our self-concept are childhood experiences and evaluation by others.

• The humanistic approach states that the self is composed of concepts unique to ourselves. The self-concept includes three components:

  • Self-worth (or self-esteem) comprises what we think about ourselves. Rogers believed feelings of self-worth developed in early childhood and were formed from the interaction of the child with the mother and father.

  • Self-image: How we see ourselves, which is important to good psychological health. Self-image includes the influence of our body image on inner personality.

  • Ideal-self: This is the person who we would like to be. It consists of our goals and ambitions in life, and is dynamic – i.e., forever changing. The ideal self in childhood is not the ideal self in our teens or late twenties etc

conditions of worth

• If we experience a lack of unconditional positive regard (unconditional love) from our parents, we are likely to have low self-esteem = starts in infancy

  • Rogers believed that someone's self-esteem is based on how much a person's actual self matches their ideal self

• When we feel we aren't the person we want to be then our self-esteem is affected, Rogers claimed that what affects our image of our actual self are conditions of worth

  • Conditions of worth are conditions that we have to meet to feel we are of worth

• A parent or significant person who sets limits on their love for their child (conditions of worth) is storing up psychological problems for the child in the future

  • Rogers claimed that these conditions will cause people to lower their self-esteem - which in turn affects their mental health

• Feel low self-esteem, bad effect on mental health and worthless

congruence

• Rogers 1959 argued that for personal growth to be achieved, an individual's concept of self, must be broadly equivalent to or have congruence with, their ideal self (the person they want to be)

• If the gap between the two is too great the person will experience a state of incongruence and self-actualisation will not be possible due to the negative feels that arise from incongruence

  • Congruence - agreement or harmony; compatibility

  • When incongruence occurs, we depart from accurately integrating all of our authentic experiences into our self-structure, we are no longer a unified whole person.

    • Rather, we develop different facets of self, some of which may feel threatened by certain experience

fully functioning adult

• Open to experience - both positive and negative emotions accepted. Negative feelings are not denied but worked through (rather than resorting to ego defence mechanisms)

• Existential living - in touch with different experiences as they occur in life, avoiding prejudging and preconceptions. Being able to live and fully appreciate the present, not always looking back to the past or forward to the future (living for the moment)

• Trust feelings - feeling, instincts, and gut-reactions are paid attention to and trusted. People's own decisions are the right ones, and we should trust ourselves to make the right choices

• Creativity - creative thinking and risk-taking are features of a person's life. A person does not play safe all the time. Involves the ability to adjust and change and seek new experiences

• Fulfilled life - a person is happy and satisfied with life, always looking for new challenges and experiences

rogers and maslow differing views on self-actualisation

• According to Maslow, people also have needs which must be met for self-actualisation to be possible. 

• The basic needs e.g. food and water have to be satisfied before the higher psychological and emotional needs.

• This is shown in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

 

• According to Rogers, people could only self-actualise if they had a positive view of themselves (positive self-regard).

• This can only happen if they have unconditional positive regard from others – if they feel that they are valued and respected without reservation by those around them (especially their parents when they were children).

  • Self-actualisation is the need for personal growth and innate drive towards self-actualisation is present throughout life. Not being able to fulfil these aspirations leads to no self-actualisation.

person-centred counselling pt 1

• Counselling psychology

  • In order to reduce the gap between people's self-concept and ideal-self, Rogers developed a 'client-centred' therapy called person-centred counselling (PCC)

  • Roger's referred to those in therapy as 'clients' rather than 'patients' as he saw the individual as the expert on their own condition who are encouraged to discover their own solutions, rather than the therapist directing the sessions

  • Roger argued that many everyday issues (such as low self-esteem and worthlessness) stem from lack of unconditional positive regard from parents

 

• Roger's therapy is important form of modern-day psychotherapy - led to general appraoch of counselling which is applied in many settings today

  • Referred to those in therapy as clients not patients and saw them as the experts in their own condition

  • So the therapist is not directing the therapy, client is just encouraged towards discovery of their own solutions within a therapeutic atmosphere that is warm, supportive and non-judgemental

• He believed that with counselling people would be able to solve their own problems in constructive ways and enhance their self-esteem

• Rogers argued that three core conditions are essential for a therapeutic relationship between therapist and client

  • Empathetic understanding - therapist should enter client's world and see it as if it were their own (understand and listen)

  • Unconditional positive regard - acceptance of the client without conditions of worth

  • A congruent/genuine therapist - therapist who is in touch with their own feelings and shows up authentically (openness and self-disclosure)

person-centred counselling pt 2

• Rogerian therapy aim is to increase person's feelings of self-worth, reduce level of incongruence between self-concept and ideal self and help person become more fully functioning person

• Rogers' work transformed psychotherapy and introduced a variety of counselling - in UK and US similar counselling skills are practised, not only in clinical settings but throughout education, health, social work and industry

• CCT praised as forward looking and effective approach that focuses on present problems rather than dwelling on the past however much like psychoanalysis it is best applied to treatment of mild psychological conditions

 

• Very non-directive form of therapy as clients deal with their problems at their own pace and the therapist's job is to remove obstacles so the client can move forward in life - take responsibility for their own healing

  • Being understood and valued allows us to grow - follow our own inner compass

  • Rogers recorded his sessions and analysed transcripts to examine what led to a happy outcome - first person to record and publish complete cases of psychotherapy

• Revolutionised the course of therapy - making it the patient who leads the conversation

strengths of the approach pt 1

• Humanistic approach has contributed to our understanding of human behaviour by developing counselling techniques

  • In order to reduce gap between people's self-concept and ideal-self, Rogers developed a 'client-centred' therapy called person-centred counselling

  • Person centred counselling was adopted by the Marriage Guidance Council in the 1950s in the UK

  • British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) identifies PCC as their core approach (Dryden 2007)

  • Shows that the humanistic approach has contributed to our understanding of human behaviour in some ways

• However, some argue that PCC is best applied to the treatment of 'mild' psychological conditions, such as anxiety and low self-worth rather than schizophrenia as the client will not have adequate assessments of reality due to their hallucinations/delusions

  • Therefore, as PCC is a client-directed therapy, it would not be appropriate for people with serious mental conditions to lead the conversation so humanistic approach may not be as effective for these conditions

 

• A strength of Maslow's hierarchy in the humanistic approach is that it can be linked to and therefore, contribute to economic development.

  • Research by Hagerty 1999 looked into the relationship between economic growth and measures of Maslow's need levels in 88 countries over a 34-year period.

  • He found that countries in earlier stages of economic development were characterised by lower-level needs (psychological and safety needs such as food, resources and high murder rates) whereas areas in advanced stages of economic development showed higher-level needs (esteem and self-actualisation, shown by female emancipation and educational enrolment at higher levels).

  • Educational enrolment rates are significant as an indication of self-actualisation because education is seen as the measure of people's desire to better themselves.

• Therefore, this shows that the humanistic approach in the form of Maslow's hierarchy is relevant to more than just individual growth and can correlate with economic development on a global scale.

strengths of the approach pt 2

• A strength of the humanistic approach is that there is research supporting Roger's view of the conditions of worth in a real-life setting.

  • Research into the behaviour of adolescents has shown evidence that is consistent with Roger's view as individuals who experience conditional positive regard are likely to experience incongruence as their actions are targeted at meeting other's expectations despite clashing with their own values.

  • Harter et al 1996 discovered teenagers who fulfil conditions in order to meet their parent's expectations and gain their love are more likely to end up with low self-esteem and self-worth as well as developing depression or losing touch with their identity.

• Therefore, this research evidence highlights the practical application of Rogers' view on conditions of worth in real-world settings as the humanistic approach can contribute to explanations of adolescent behaviour.

  • Therefore parenting advice can be given on the topic - to prevent this from occurring further

 

• A strength of the humanistic approach is that there is a focus on holism rather than reductionism and any attempts to break up behaviour and experience into smaller components is rejected.

  • Whilst other approaches analyse individual components to explain human behaviour (behaviourists explain learning in terms of simple stimulus-response connections; Freud described the whole personality as a conflict between three things: Id, Ego and Superego; biological psychologists reduce behaviour to basic physiological processes and cognitive approach sees humans as being information processing machines).

  • Humanists, on the other hand, advocate holism which is the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by considering the whole person.

• The approach may have more validity than alternatives by considering meaningful human behaviour within real-life context.

• HOWEVER having said that, reductionist approaches may be more scientific

  • This is because ideal of science is the experiment and experiments reduce behaviour to independent and dependent variables

  • One issue with humanistic psychology is that unlike behaviourism, there are relatively few concepts that can be broken down to single variables and measured

  • Means that humanistic psychology is short on empirical evidence to support its claims

 

• Humanistic psychologists have been 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 psychology offers a refreshing and optimistic alternative; sees all people as basically good, free to work towards the achievement of their potential and in control of their lives

 

weaknesses of the approach pt 1

• Evaluating the humanistic approach scientifically is difficult because most of the evidence used to support this approach fails to establish a causal relationship between variables

  • Rogers was an advocate of non-experimental research methods, arguing that the requirements of experimental methods make it impossible to verify the results of counselling

  • Most psychologists would argue that, without experimental evidence, evaluation of a therapy, or theory that underlies it, becomes very difficult

• Some studies show personal growth after receiving humanistic counselling but these do not show that the therapy cause changes, which is a fundamental requirement of scientific psychology

 

• A criticism of humanistic psychology is that it represents an overly idealised and unrealistic view of human nature.

  • Critics argue that people are not as inherently good and 'growth-oriented' as humanistic theorists suggest, and the approach does not adequately recognise people's capacity for pessimism and self-destructive behaviour.

  • The view that personality development is directed only by an innate potential for growth is seen as an oversimplification, as is the humanistic assumption that all problems arise from blocked self-actualisation.

• Encouraging people to focus on their own self-development rather than on situational forces may be neither realistic nor appropriate in modern society.

  • Also it kind of contradicts Rogers as it places unrealistic expectations on what humans should aspire for

weaknesses of the approach pt 2

• Culturally biased

  • Many of the ideas that are central such as individual freedom, autonomy and personal growth are readily associated with countries that have individualist tendencies not collectivitst

  • Countries with collectivist tendencies emphasise the needs of the group and interdependence, ideals of humanist psychology do not apply

  • So the theory does not apply universally and is product of the cultural context in which it was developed

• In a later development to his theory Maslow did acknowledge that, for some people, needs may appear in a different order or may even be absent altogether.

  • This is borne out by cross-cultural evidence.

  • For example, a study carried out in China (Nevis, 1983) found that belongingness needs were seen as more fundamental than physiological needs and that self-actualisation was defined more in terms of contributions to the community than in terms of individual development.

• Consistent with this, many studies have confirmed that Europeans and Americans focus more on personal identity in defining their self-concept, whereas Chinese, Japanese and Koreans define self-concept more in terms of social relationships.

 

• Humanistic psychology does include several vague ideas that are abstract and difficult to test.

  • Concepts such as 'self-actualisation' and 'congruence' may be useful therapeutic tools but would prove problematic to assess under experimental conditions.

  • Rogers did attempt to introduce more rigor into his work by developing the Q-sort an objective measure of progress in therapy.

  • Nevertheless, as would be expected of an approach that describes itself as anti-scientific, humanistic psychology is short on empirical evidence to support its claims.

• Therefore, it means the approach has had limited impact within the discipline of psychology as a whole.