Essay question: Discuss the humanistic approach to psychology, as outlined by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, with a focus on the concept of free will and personal agency.
It is a 16 marker which answers this question and considers how humanistic psychology differs from other psychological appro...
All human behaviour, according to Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow's humanistic
psychology, may be described in terms of free will. This is not to say that humans are
unaffected by internal or external forces; rather, we are active agents who can choose how
we behave. As a result, Rogers and Maslow reject generic scientific explanations of human
behaviour, claiming that we are all unique individuals who require a person-centered
approach to psychology.
Humanistic psychology involves three parts being; self actualisation and Maslows Heirarchy
of Needs, the self congruence and conditions of worth and the influence of counselling
psychology. First of all, personal growth, according to humanistic psychologists, is a
fundamental component of what it means to be human which humans feel the need to reach
its full potential. Maslow's hierarchy of Needs is a five-leveled hierarchy in which basic
physiological requirements like hunger and then safety must be met before we can reach
love and belonging. The more basic the need, Maslow reasoned, the more powerfully it is
felt. Rogers claimed that in order to accomplish personal progress, one's concept of self
must be roughly similar to the ideal self. If the difference between the two "selves" is too
wide, the person will experience incongruence, and self-actualization will be impossible
owing to the bad sensations that incongruence causes. Therapists offer unconditional
positive esteem for their 'clients,' expressing acceptance regardless of the opinions
expressed by the client. The therapist can help dissolve the client's conditions of worth and
enable them to become more authentic to themselves by focusing on current concerns
rather than obsessing on the past.
Humanistic psychology has the flaw of being unscientific which suggests the strategy
concentrates on concepts that aren't observable or measurable and can't be examined in a
controlled environment. Abstract ideas such as "self-actualization" and "congruence," for
example, are poorly quantified, making them difficult to see and assess. This therefore is a
negative as it implies that the strategy is not backed up by solid empirical evidence.
The approach, on the other hand, might be lauded for its applicability. This indicates that,
despite having a small number of real-world applications compared to the other theories,
humanistic psychology has revolutionized counseling. Many counsellors in the United
Kingdom and the United States, for example, employ a client-centered approach, and similar
ideas have also been used in education, health, and social work. This is encouraging
because the method has benefited real people's lives.
The fact that the technique is mostly based on non-experimental research is an issue. This
implies that Rogers stated that experimental procedures made it impossible to validate the
results of counseling, instead advocating for more qualitative approaches such as interviews,
which many argue makes it difficult to evaluate his ideas. For example, we can never be
sure whether counseling causes the changes seen in the person without experimental data.
This is a concern because the method may be subjective.
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