“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.”

–Carl Rogers

Humanistic PsychologyBy Cydnee Christensen & Lauren Leydsman

Humanistic Psychology…Is an approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the positive potential of human beings.Peaked in the 1960’s, during the generation of the “flower children.”

Began as a reaction to psychoanalysis and behaviorism. It was believed that psychoanalysis and behaviorism were too pessimistic.

Viewed people as free agents who have an inherent need to develop, grow and attain their full potential.

Brief History1943 – Abraham Maslow described his hierarchy of needs in A Theory of Human

Motivation.

1951 – Carl Rogers published Client-Centered Therapy.

Late 1950’s - Abraham Maslow and other psychologists held meetings to discuss the development of an organization devoted to a more humanist approach to psychology.

1961 – the American Association for Humanistic Psychology was established.

1962 – Abraham Maslow published Toward a Psychology of Being, where he described humanistic psychology as the “third force” in psychology.

Humanistic-Existential Approach

• Integrates the insights of both psychologies with a focus on how a personality can become optimal. • Humanistic psychologists emphasized a positive, optimistic

view of the human nature that highlights people’s inherent goodness and their potential for personal growth.

• Existentialist focused on the individual as a responsible agent who is free to create and live his or her own life while negotiating the issue of meaning and the reality of death.

• Theorists turn their attention to how humans make healthy choices that create their personalities.

•The human motive toward realizing our inner potential•Pursuit of knowledge•Expression of one’s creativity•Quest for spiritual enlightenment•Desire to give to society

•Humanists see as a major factor in personality.

Self-Actualizing Tendency

•Goes back to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

•Only when the basic physiological needs are satisfied can we pursue the higher needs, culminating in self-actualizing.

•Need to be good•Need to be fully alive•Need to find meaning in life

•Humanists believe that this explains individual personality differences by the various ways the environment facilitates (or blocks) attempts to satisfy psychological needs.

Self-Actualizing Tendency continued…

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

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

•The humanistic approach states that the self is composed of concepts unique to ourselves. Self-Concept is a person’s explicit knowledge of his/her own behaviors, traits, and other personal characteristics.

•The 3 components of Self-Concept are:•Self-Worth (or Self-Esteem) : the extent to which an individual likes, values, and accepts the self. •Self-Image : how we see ourselves, which includes the influence of our body image on inner personality. Also has affect on how a person thinks, feels, and behaves in the world.•Ideal Self : the person who we would like to be. Consists of goals and ambitions in life and is dynamic.

•Rogers believed that feelings of self-worth developed in early childhood and were formed from the interaction of the child with the parents.

• A person who has high self-worth has confidence and positive feelings about themselves, faces challenges in life, accepts failure and unhappiness at times, and is

open with people.• A person with low self-worth may avoid challenges in life, do not accept that life can be painful and unhappy at times, and will be defensive and guarded with other people.

Carl Rogers’ Self Theory

•Carl Rogers viewed the child as having 2 basic needs : positive regard from others and self-worth.

•Positive Regard has to do with how other people evaluate and judge us in a social situation.

•The 2 types of positive regard are:•Unconditional Positive Regard : when parents and significant others accepts and loves the person for what he or she is.•Conditional Positive Regard : where positive regard, praise and approval, depend upon the child. An example would be behaving in ways the parents think are correct.

•Congruence is when a person’s ideal self and actual experience are consistent or very similar.

•The development of congruence is dependant on unconditional positive regard.

•Incongruence is when there is a difference between a person’s ideal self and actual experience.

•Incongruence is “a discrepancy between the actual experience of the organism and the self-picture of the individual insofar as it represents that experience.”

Rogers’ Self Theory continued…

Existential Approach• Existentialists agree with many of the features of personality as

believed by the humanists but focus more on challenges to the human condition more profound than the lack of a nurturing environment.

• Rollo May and Victor Frankl argues specific aspects of the human condition – awareness of our own existence and the ability to make choices about how to behave – have a double edged quality.• They bring extraordinary richness and dignity to human life.• They force us to confront realities that are difficult to face.

• Regards personality as governed by an individual’s ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death.

Existential Approach continued…

• Difficulty finding meaning in life and in accepting responsibility of making free choices brings on anxiety (or angst).

• Thinking about the meaning of existence brings an awareness to the inevitability of death.

• People do not consider these existential issues on a day to day basis but rather pursue superficial answers that help deal with the angst and dread experienced.

• However, for existentialists this is not the solution. We should face these issues square-on and learn to accept and tolerate the pain of existence.

Victor Frankl’s Theory of Logotherapy

• Victor Frankl is a famous existentialist philosopher, psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor and personal student of Freud.

• Logotherapy was founded upon the belief that the strongest motivation in human nature is the search for meaning in one’s life.• “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed.” –Victor

Frankl

• The 3 basic tenets of logotherapy are:• Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.• Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life• We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at

least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering.

• Meaning is always found outside ourselves. If we have nothing and no-one to live for, nothing meaningful to give to the world, if we have no greater cause than our own interests to serve, we are overcome with a sense of futility and our lives remain empty.

Frankl’s Theory continued…

• Finding meaning can be discovered in 3 ways:• By creating a work or doing a deed (Creative Values)

• The active processes in life.• By experiencing something or encountering someone (Experiential Values)

• Realized when a person becomes sensitive and receptive to the truth and beauty.

• By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering (Attitudinal Values)

• An important aspect is known as the tragic triad, consisting of pain, guilt, and death.

Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.

-Victor Frankl

Person-Centered TherapyAssumes that all individuals have a tendency toward

growth and that this growth can be facilitated by acceptance and genuine reactions from the

therapist.•Assumes that each individual is qualified to determine his/her own goals for therapy, such as feeling more confident or making a career decision, and even the frequency and length of therapy.

•This is a nondirective treatment.•The therapist tends not to provide advice or suggestions about what the client should be doing.•The therapist paraphrases the client’s words, mirroring the client’s thoughts and sentiments.

Person-Centered Therapy continued…•3 basic qualities of person-centered therapy:

•Congruence•Openness and honesty in the therapeutic relationship.

•Empathy•Continuous process of trying to understand the client, or seeing the world from the client’s perspective.

•Unconditional positive regard•Providing nonjudgmental, warm and accepting environment.

•In this therapy the therapist tries to understand the client’s experience and reflect that experience back to in a supportive way, encouraging the client’s natural tendency to grow. (A little reminiscent of psychoanalysis.)

Gestalt TherapyAn existentialist approach to treatment with the goal of helping the

client become aware of his/her thoughts, behaviors, experiences, and feelings and to “own” or take responsibility for them.

• Therapists are encouraged to be enthusiastic and warm toward their clients.

• It emphasizes the experiences and behaviors that are occurring at that particular moment in the therapy session. This is called focusing.

• Clients are encouraged to put their feelings into action.• The Empty Chair Technique is where the client imagines that another

person is in an empty chair sitting directly across from the client. The client role plays what he/she would say to the other person and he/she would imagine what the other person would say.

• In this type of therapy, the goal is to facilitate awareness of the client’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and experiences in the “here and now,” with assumption that greater awareness will clear a path to living a more fully and meaningfully.

T / F : Our ideal self is the extent to which an individual likes, values, and accepts the self.

Test Question