Humanistic Approach

MAIN ASSUMPTIONS
 The humanistic approach focuses on studying consciouys experience rather than
behaviour. It emphasises the role of personal responsibility and free will rather
than determinism. It rejects the use of experimental methods and believes that
discussions about experience is more useful. It emphasises the importance of
the individual striving towards personal growth and fulfilment and focuses on
studying the whole person in their environmental context and believes that
psychology should use single case studies rather than the average performance
of groups.
FREE WILL
 Humanistic psychology believes that we are all self-determining and have free
will.
 People are still affected by internal and external influences, but we are active
agents who can determine our own development.
 For this reason, humanistic psychologists such as Rogers and Maslow reject the
use of scientific models to establish general laws of human behaviour.
 As active agents, we are all unique and psychology should be more concerned
about studying subjective experiences of individuals rather than trying the
establish general laws. This is sometimes referred to as the people centres
approach.
MASLOWS HEIRARCHY OF NEEDS
 One of Maslow’s main interests was what motivates people.
 He described a hierarchy of needs as what motivates our behaviour.
 In order to meet our primary goal, self-actualization a number of other deficiency
need must be met first.
 To progress through the hierarchy the current need in the sequence must be met so
the individual can move up to the next need.
SELF ACTUALISATION
 Most people have an innate desire to reach their full potential – become the best
they can possibly be. Self-actualisation is the upper most level of Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs, all other 4 levels must be completed in order to reach self-actualisation and
fulfil their potential.
 This applies through early development when a baby is first focused on physiological
needs and applies through adult life.
 Humanistic psychologists believed that personal growth is an essential part of what it
is to be human. Personal growth is concerned with developing and changing as a
person to become satisfied, fulfilled and goal oriented.
 Not everyone will manage this however, there are psychological barriers that may
prevent someone from fulfilling their full potential.
THE SELF, CONGURENCE AND CONDTIONS OF WORTH
 The self is the individuals sense of themselves and their worth.
 A healthy sense of wellbeing is when an individual shows reasonable consistency
between ideal self and actual self. This is known as congruence.
 If the gap is too large it can lead to incongruence. This leads to low self-worth,
maladjustment and self-actualisation cannot be reached due to negative feelings.
  Humans have the basic need to feel nurtured and valued by those who have a
significant role in our lives, such as parents (love, acceptance, praise)
 If this is given freely, without any conditions (unconditional positive regard) the
child will develop a healthy sense of self-worth, recognising their abilities and
difficulties.
 Children who are given negative regard, criticism, blame experience low self-
esteem. They feel as if they must meet certain conditions to be accepted.
 In other words, parents who set boundaries or limits to their love are storing up
psychological problems for their child in the future.
 To reduce the gap between self-concept and ideal self, Rogers set up client
centres therapy.
COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY
 Rogers’ client centred therapy is an important form of modern-day psychotherapy.
 Rogers believed that those taking part of therapy should be referred to as clients not
patients as they are the expert of their conditions.
 Rogers believed that the clients should be encouraged toward the discovery of their
own solutions in a therapeutic atmosphere that is warm, supportive, and non-
judgmental.
 Rogers believed that an effective therapist should provide the client with 3 things:
unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy.
 The aim of Rogerian therapy is to increase feelings of self-worth, reduce the levels of
incongruence between self-concept and ideal self, and help the person become more
of a fully functioning person.
 Client centred therapy has been praised for being a more forward looking and
effective approach.
 It is best applied for the treatment of mild psychological conditions such as anxiety
and low self-worth.

EVALUATIONS
 A strength of the humanistic approach is that it advocates holism and rejects
attempts to break up behaviour and into smaller components. Other approaches
tend to focus on reductionism such as the behaviourist approach which explains
human and animal learning by breaking up behaviour into its stimulus-response
connections. The cognitive approach sees humans as information processing
‘machines’. Holism is the view that human experience can only be understood by
considering the whole person. The holistic experience that is incorporated into the
humanistic approach can be viewed as having more validity than its alternatives by
considering human behaviour in its real-world context.
 Another strength is that the humanistic approach is optimistic. Humanistic
psychologists have been praised for their focus on promoting a positive image of the
human condition and putting the person back into psychology. This contrasts with
Freuds view that we are all prisoners of our past and all dwell somewhere between
‘common unhappiness and absolute despair’. However, humanistic psychologists
refer humans as good, free to work towards achievement of their potential and
control their lives. This suggests that the humanistic approach provides a refreshing
alternative to other approaches.
 A limitation of the humanistic approach is that it has very few applications to real life,
unlike many of the other approaches such as the behaviourist and biological
approach. One potential issue is that the humanistic approach is described by some
as a set of abstract principles rather than a comprehensive theory. However, there
have been 2 notable contributions from the humanistic approach: counselling
techniques (such as client centred therapy which focuses on giving unconditional
positive regard to the client and is used to treat mild psychological conditions such as
anxiety) and explaining motivation, particularly in education and the workplace by
using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
 A further limitation is that many ideas in the humanistic approach are culturally
biased. Concepts such as individual freedom, autonomy and personal growth are
more relevant towards individualistic Western cultures. Collectivist cultures such as
Japan, emphasise the importance of interdependence and community which does
not link well with the values of the humanistic society eg self-actualisation. This
means that the humanistic approach may not be appropriate to apply universally and
is therefore, limited.