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‘Outline and evaluate the humanistic approach’ (16 marks)
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Amy BishopPsychology Humanistic approach- 16 mark essay
‘Outline and evaluate the humanistic approach’
The humanistic approach is a positive approach which understands the importance of
subjective experience and each person's capacity for self determination. This approach
rejects other approaches saying that they focus too much on the negative side of psychology
and instead, focuses on healthy growth and the individual human. The three parts to this
approach are: Free will, Self Actualisation, The self congruence and conditions of worth.
Free will is the idea that humans can make choices and aren’t determined by our
biological/external factors, humans are active agents who have the ability to determine our
own development. Therefore, Rogers and Maslow reject scientific models that attempt to
establish general principles of human behaviour as we should be more concerned with
subjective experience rather than general laws.
Self-actualisation is the desire to grow psychologically and fulfil your full potential and
become what you are capable of, all humans strive to achieve this as when you reach self-
actualisation you are fulfilled, satisfied and goal orientated. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a
five leveled hierarchical sequence in which basic needs must be satisfied before higher
psychological needs can be achieved. The five levels starting from the bottom are:
Physiological needs, Safety and security, Love and belongingness, Self-esteem and self
actualisation. The four lower levels must be met before an individual can work towards self-
actualisation. As you go up the levels you develop more personal growth and become more
fulfilled, which humanist psychologists regard as essential to being a human however not
everyone can achieve this.
Rogers argued that for personal growth to be achieve, an individual's concept for self (the
way they look at themselves) must be equivalent to, or have congruence with their ideal
self.There are two selves: the perceived self, which is how you look at yourself or think
others look at you and the ideal self, which is the person you want to be.If the perceived and
ideal self are close together then they have congruence meaning that they can achieve self-
actualisation, however if they are far apart a person will experience a state or
incongruence(negative feelings of self worth) and self-actualisation won't be possible.
Rogers client- centred therapy is a non-directive technique that reduces the gap between
the two selves to help people cope with everyday problems of living. Many issues we
experience in adulthood (for example low self esteem) have their roots in childhood due to
an unconditional positive regard from the parents (this is a condition of worth as the parent is
limiting their love for their child). Roger’s therapy provides the client with the unconditional
positive regard they failed to receive as children, closing the gap between the two selves,
making self-actualisation possible.
One strength of the humanist approach is that it’s not reductionist. Humanists reject attempts
to break up behaviour and experiences into smaller components, and instead they use the
idea of holism and look at the whole individual, which better represents the complexity of
human behaviour. Other approaches try to explain behavior in simplistic terms by breaking it
down, for example, Behaviourists explain learning in terms of simple stimulus-response
connections, and Freud explained the personality as a conflict between id, ego and
superego. However, the idea that subjective experience can only be understood by
considering the whole person, makes this approach have more validity whilst considering
behaviour in it’s real life context.
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