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Summary Psychology 213 Exam Notes (Chapters: 6, 9, 12, 14, 17)
Chapter 6, 9, 12, 15, 17 and intro to part 4 notes from the textbook, and lecture notes all covered
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, Introduction to Part 4: Person-orientated approachesBackground
• Person-oriented approach = not one single view, it accommodates a variety of views
• Theorists share specific complementary assumptions, which contrast with the assumptions made
by psychoanalysts and behaviourists
• These theorists = uncomfortable with the psychoanalytical view of the human being as a creature
who is at the mercy of internal and external forces
• The person-oriented theorists have little sympathy with such a pessimistic, limiting view of the
human being
• Image of person as a passive, unintegrated being that is controlled by the environment, whose
functioning is on a par with that of animals, = unsatisfying to the person-oriented theorists
• Most of these theorists also emphasise the study of the whole human being
• They underline the integrated nature of the person, in contrast with reductionist and
elementalist views.
• Person-oriented theorists present different explanations and shifts in emphasis to close up the
gaps they see in the psychoanalytical and behaviourist approaches
• Person-oriented, psychoanalytical and behaviourist approaches share the following basic principles:
1. The individual as a dignified human being
2. The conscious processes of the individual
3. The person as an active being
4. Emphasis on psychological health
5. The individual as an integrated whole
1.1 The individual as a dignified human being:
• Humans are unique beings with qualities that distinguish them from lifeless objects like stones
and trees, and also from animals
1.2 The conscious processes of the individual:
• Contrast to emphasis Freud gives to the role of unconscious processes, the person-oriented
theorists recognise the role of conscious processes, especially conscious decision-making processes
• Person-oriented theorists prefer to concentrate on the individual’s conscious experiencing and
their evaluation of it
1.3 The person as an active being:
• For person-oriented theorists, person does not simply react to external environmental stimuli, or
submit to inherent drives over which they have no control
• They acknowledge individuals’ active participation in determining their own behaviour, their
inherent inclination towards actualising their potential and their creative ability
• Person-oriented theorists are more interested in the person’s own contributions to growth and
realising their potential
• Active decision-making processes are of vital significance in optimal human functioning
,1.4 Emphasis on psychological health
• The person-oriented theorists asserted that the psychologically healthy person should be the
criterion in examining human functioning, and not the neurotic or psychotic person
• A basic tenet of the person-oriented approach is that each individual should be studied as an
integrated, unique, organised whole or Gestalt
• The person-oriented theorists revived these ideas in reaction to the following three approaches:
o Dualism: which studied body and spirit as separate entities
o Behaviourism - which divided the individual into fragments of behaviour in the form of
stimuli and responses
o Reductionism - which attempted to explain behaviour by means of a few simple underlying
elements (as in psychoanalysis where all forms of behaviour were ascribed to the functioning
of the id drives)
Maslow Rogers
• Maslow established humanistic psychology as • Rogers’ theory is also representative of
a ‘third force’ in psychology in reaction to humanistic psychology
psychoanalysis and behaviourism
Maslow and Rogers both = person-oriented theories
• Emphasises the actualisation of human • Emphasises the importance of people’s
potential and possibility of humans to subject experience of themselves (self-
influence their own behaviour by choice concept) and its influence on personality
• Focuses on understanding why some people • Individual is central figure in actualisation of
are exceptional (self-actualisers) their potential with environment as either a
facilitating or inhibiting role
• Healthy functioning forms the basis of his • Only achieved in an environment in which the
theory individual feels accepted
• Frankl’s theory:
o Representative of the existentialist approach because he underlines the higher spiritual
dimensions
o Existentialist approach = important because it has to do with the search for meaning in
what lies outside the self and the human ability to transcend and find meaning and purpose
in even the most desperate of circumstances
o Frankl sees the person as a being who functions on three levels of existence – a physical, a
psychological and a spiritual level; approach = holistic
Historical background
Existentialism
Existentialism: = latin word exitere – means ‘to stand outside oneself’/‘to appear’/‘to step out’
• Existentialism implies that human beings:
o Can be more than they are
o Have the ability to stand outside of themselves (and to look at themselves)
o Can transcend their genetic and environmental limitations
• Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche (precursors to existentialist psychology) opposed:
, o View that the human can only discover truth as a thinking being
o Tendency to view the human being as a mere object that can be controlled like a robot
• For existentialists – an individual is object-directed and therefore continually observing something
or thinking about something
• Existentialists emphasise that a person cannot be studied in isolation from the world or other
people and that true experiencing occurs only within the subjective framework of their existence
• Existentialists emphasise the following:
o The experiencing person in a process of emerging
o The subjective world perceived by the experiencing human being
o Self-reflection and self-transcendence – rising above the limitations of the self by setting
goals and ideals
o Rising above circumstances by choosing specific attitudes towards them
Phenomenology
• The impression made by Brentano’s philosophical ideas on Edmund Husserl’s thinking gave birth to
a new philosophy – phenomenology
• Husserl rejected the idea that perception is the result of stimuli impinging from the outside
• With the existentialist view of the importance of the individual’s subjective world of perception
as a starting point, Husserl stressed the idea that people go out to their world and
consequently attach personal meanings to the things they experience
• Phenomenology examines phenomena or manifestations as given – in other words, just as they
occur, without imposing personal theories or specific systems upon the phenomena
• According to the phenomenological method of psychological analysis, people can therefore be
evaluated only if their subjective perceptions can be discovered
Holism
Holism: from Greek word holos, meaning complete, whole totality’
• Jan Smuts (founding figure) was the first to use this term
• Holism original context = biology and evolution
• Smut = larger whole in mind, namely the eternal and the role of humans in the eternal
• Smuts was therefore trying to bridge the gaps between the physical, biological, and psychological
with this acknowledgement of a larger reality
Humanism
• Originated in reaction to psychoanalysis and behaviourism, referred to as third force psychology
• Ideas put forward by the humanists were not new; humanistic ideas gave prominence to ideas
which had long been current and which derived mainly from holism and phenomenology
• Humanists concentrate more on the actualisation of the individual’s own inner potential than on
the impulse towards something or ‘Someone’ greater than the self
• Distinction between actualisation and the perfection variants of fulfilment model
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