[NOTE: THIS WASN'T WRITTEN BY ME, BUT BY A FRIEND]
The Humanistic Approach to Psychology
In contemporary psychology, there are five approaches. An
approach is a perspective that has certain assumptions about human behaviour,
such as which parts of the mind are worth studying, the way they function and
research methods on how to study them. The approaches are:
- Biological,
- Behaviourist/Social Learning Theory
- Psychodynamics
- Cognitive
- Humanist
This piece will describe and discuss the
Humanist approach.
ORIGINS
At the time when the approach was beginning to be developed,
the two main approaches were the “First force” of Freud’s research of
psychoanalysis and the “Second Force” of behaviourism which developed out of
Ivan Pavlov’s research of conditioned reflexes e.g. his experiments with dogs
salivating to conditioned stimuli. Psychologists met in the late 1950s to
discuss creating a more holistic view of psychology that was concerned
exclusively with human issues. These preliminary meetings lead to other
developments, resulting in the description of humanistic psychology as a “third
force” in psychology, along with the other two that have been described. The
Association for Humanistic Psychology was formed in 1961, and in 1971 was
recognised by the American Psychological Association.
BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
- Each person is a unique individual, and
psychology should focus only on the subjective experiences, and that to understand a
person it is necessary to understand their emotions, feelings and thoughts.
This is one of ways in which humanism is different to the other approaches,
because this view is ideographic. If all of us are different there cannot
be universal laws of behaviour which the other approaches attempt to develop.
- People have free will over their actions and can
develop as they want, achieve what they want in life, and not be determined
by any other aspect, unlike the other approaches.
- People must be looked at from a “holistic” view,
and behaviour cannot be reduced down into component parts and simple
explanations, as is done in the cognitive, behaviourist and biological
approaches, or else we lose what it is to be human.
- People are inherently good and are driven to
fulfil their potential.
The feelings of humanist psychologists are that people are
more than “robots” driven by the environment or, as Sigmund Freud claimed, by
unconscious forces and conflicts.
Humanists reject determinism (that there is no free will and behaviour is
determined by aspects out of human control) and reductionism (reducing behaviour
down to simple explanations) as well as the usefulness of scientific psychology.
METHODOLOGY
The approach does not use scientific experiments, as it
believes they are dehumanising, and also lower the ecological validity of
results as people will behave differently in a lab than in “real life”. The
approach instead uses qualitative methods such as case studies and interviews
in research.
IDEAS OF THE
HUMANISTIC APPROACH
Two of the formulators of the ideas of
humanistic psychology are Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.
Carl Rogers emphasised the importance of self-concept and
created what is known as client-centred therapy, or more often, Rogerain
Counselling, whilst Maslow was more interested in the motives that drive
people.
CARL ROGERS
Carl Rogers was the primary formulator of the ideas of the
humanist approach, and shared the general assumptions of humanist psychology
with other humanists. He also believed that each of us perceives the world in
our own unique way, and to understand what someone does you have to see the
world as they do. He also believed that people had the innate tendency to
“self-actualise”, which refers to people having the ability to achieve their
potential in life. This potential can be academic, sporting, artistic etc.,
which is a much more positive view of human behaviour than the other
approaches, which are often quite depressing. This is also manifested in any
living thing, such as the flower that forces its way through paving stones and
the forest ecosystem that spreads to be as large as it can.
Some of his other ideas are:
Organismic Valuing
This is the idea that every organism has the innate idea of
what is good or bad for them. E.g. a baby that dislikes its food will spit it
out. People will tend to move away from situations that threaten them or cause
harm.
Positive Self
Regard
This is a sense of self-worth or self-esteem. If we lack
this, then our path to achieving our potential will become disrupted or
blocked. An example of this is academic failure and disruptive behaviour from
school children will low self-esteem who believe they are not good enough.
Unconditional
Positive Regard
We need to be loved, valued and respected by others - it is a
precondition to our development. If a child is fed and cleaned, but not loved
and nurtured, it will not develop and thrive. This love, value and
respect must be given without conditions or else we will not gain positive
self-regard.
Conditions of worth
The positive regard of others must not have “strings
attached” or conditions, but it normally does. Over time this may result in conditional
self-regard, where we believe we only have worth if we meet the conditions
that have been imposed on us by society through family, friends, media etc.
Examples are “I am not rich therefore I am unhappy” or “I must pass my exams, else I am
worthless”.
One question that Rogers
asked is why, when we live in a society that in many ways is so affluent, many
of us our unhappy. In his view, at least partly, is that the things we attach
value to are not things that are necessarily good for our psychological
well-being. What he believed was the problem is that society can interfere with
our actualising tendency. Certain things that society (through our parents,
friends, teachers, media etc.) tells us are important are not necessarily the
things that are actually good for our development as people. As a consequence,
we continually labour to fulfil these goals which are conditions of worth, and
these may not be helpful in helping us achieve our goals. As we perceive the
regard of others as conditional, we only value ourselves in relation to the
conditions of worth we meet that have been imposed on us. Incongruity is
created when there is a gap between the “real self” which is what we could
become, and the “ideal self” which is what we think we should become. If we are
set for a life where we continually try to achieve the goals, and so conditions
of worth that have been set for us by others, we are set for a life of
unhappiness.
To try to deal with this we have defences, which are
employed to cope with the feelings of anxiety associated with incongruity. An
example is denial, such as when a student who doesn’t turn up for an exam never has to
face bad grades. Another is distortion, where a student may blame a teacher for
poor teaching or an unfair test for bad grades. These defences distort our
perception of reality or deny parts of it, and if you are not in touch with reality
you will lose touch with aspects of it, and be unable to accurately understand
your place in the world. As a result you will never achieve your potential - the only thing that will give you a more contented life.
And so we pursue the goals that we think will make us happy.
The next pay rise, the next partner, the next piece of clothing, etc. will
finally make us happy, but it never will.
The fully
functioning person
Roger’s didn’t use the term “happy” when describing
psychologically healthy people, even if this is what he meant in essence. He used
the term “fully function person”, which is somebody whose mental set-up
puts them in a position to achieve their potential. He believe that they are:
- Open to experience – they don’t distort the world
- Living in the ‘here-and-now’ – they don’t dwell
on the past or worry about the future
- Doing what’s good for them – they trust
organismic valuing to guide their decisions and choices
- Experientially free – they feel as if they are
in control of their lives, rather than being constrained
- Creative – They contribute to the actualisation
of others through art, science, parenting or their job
Client-centred
Therapy
We cannot make people happy (or fully functioning). If we
try to change them or tell what to do, because this would be imposing a condition of worth upon
them, adding to the problem.
In
client-centred therapy, conditions are created under which a person can start
to make their authentic choices, and support them through the changes they
decide to make.
Roger’s compared it to riding a bike. You can’t tell a
person how to do it, as they will only learn through trying. You can support them
while they learn, but if you never let them go they will never be able to do it
independently.
Rogers believed that successful therapy or counselling has
more to do with the relationship
the therapist develops with the client than with the techniques used by the therapist.
If the therapist can develop the right sort of relationship,
they can give the client room to examine their own problems, sources of
unhappiness and perception of the world. Once they can do this they
can make the changes they want. Rogers identified three important qualities
that the therapist must have with their client in their relationship:
- CONGRUENCE – Honesty and genuineness. The therapist
must relate to the client as one human being to another, rather than as a
professional, such as a doctor.
- EMPATHY – The therapist must be able to feel
what the client feels, because this is the only way for the client to
feel as if they are genuinely understood.
- RESPECT – The therapist must show acceptance and
unconditional positive regard for the client, as the lack of unconditional
positive regard is often the source of the client’s unhappiness.
The main technique used is reflecting back
to the client what they have said, which involves demonstrating to the client that
they are really understood, whilst at the same time helping them explore their
feelings and perceptions so they can arrive at their own understandings.
ABRAHAM MASLOW
Like Roger’s, Maslow believed that people are driven to
fulfil their potential. His view is that we have certain needs that we need
to fulfil. As we take care of one group of needs, another group becomes more
important. Much of his work was focused on identifying the needs that people
have, and why some fulfil their potential more than others.
Whilst Rogers was concerned with the self, Maslow was
concerned with the motives that drive people, and he believed that there were
two kinds: (1) Deficiency Motivation – the need to reduce psychological
tensions such as hunger and thirst, and (2) Growth Motivation – which is the
motivation to satisfy the need to be loved and esteemed.
The growth motives operate on the principle that, when no
deficiencies remain, people then have the need to develop beyond their current
condition.
Hierarchy of needs
Maslow thought that we are driven to fulfil our needs, but
some take priority over others. For example you may be hungry, but you may
forget it if you are thirsty, and you will certainly forget your thirst if you can’t
breathe. In other words, some needs are felt more strongly than others. Maslow looked at
how strongly each need was felt, and was then able to arrange them into a hierarchy.
The
needs in order of priority, with those most strongly needed to be satisfied at
the bottom:
- Self-actualisation
– fulfilling you human potential
- Esteem
– being respected by others, and having status and recognition
- Love and
belonging – love, friendship and a sense of community
- Safety
– freedom from threat and danger
- Physiological
– food, water, oxygen etc.
In our development, we move through the levels of the
hierarchy. An infant is only concerned with its physiological needs, and then
it becomes aware of its need for safety, then to love and be loved. Later it begins to feel the need for self-esteem, and so on.
Depending on how our lives turn out, we generally reach a
level where our most important needs are satisfied. Our activities become
habitually directed to meeting the next set of needs that are to be satisfied,
which become our salient needs.
However at times we may become stressed or under threat, and
so may regress to meeting more basic needs. For example, you may have esteem
needs as your salient needs, but if you lost a partner, love and belonging become
priorities, and your needs for esteem are put on hold.
Problems or crises at a point in a person’s life can cause
them to fixate on a particular set of needs, and this can affect their future
happiness. A person who lived through a period of extreme deprivation may
satisfy their salient needs, but may become obsessed with money or keeping
enough food in their house.
Maslow believed this was the cause of neurotic mental health
issues, such as anxiety or depression.
Self-Actualisation
Maslow believed that those who have met their deficit needs,
and engaged with growth needs, might reach the stage of self-actualisation. Such people tend to be remarkable individuals, such as Abraham Lincoln or
Martin Luther King, and so have made the most of their human potential.
The characteristics of these people are:
- Reality centred – they can tell the genuine from
the fake in people
- Problem centred – they view life’s difficulties
as problems to be solved
- Autonomous – they are relatively independent
- Non-conformist – they do not respond to the
social pressure to fit in
Self-actualisers, as Maslow identified them, also tend to
prefer solitude, have a few important personal relationships rather than many
shallow ones, a non-hostile sense of humour, very accepting of themselves and
others, and have a strong sense of morality and ethics. They are not perfect
individuals and may harbour certain flaws or problems, such as being prone to suffering
from anxiety and guilt, being absent minded, being overly kind, occasionally lose
their sense of humour, or even being ruthless.
EVALUATION
Client centred therapy has shown to be effective in treating
mild psychological disorders, and in explaining abnormal behaviour such as low
self-worth and phobias.
The approach is optimistic about people, as it recognises
that people have free will and are responsible for their own actions - not
controlled by their environment or the inner unconscious. It also recognises that our
experiences are important.
However, the rejection of scientific methods in explaining
and investigating means that its theories and concepts cannot be investigated
properly. For instance, how do you quantify incongruity? Without empirical and
quantitative data, the humanist approach must use case studies and interviews, which are
rich in detail, but are subjective and therefore unreliable.
Roger’s
own concepts are culturally bound e.g. self-actualisation is focused on the
individual in a western culture. As a result it doesn’t deal with group achievements
that may be more important in an eastern culture.
Focusing on the individual means that the approach does not
look at what people have in common with one-another.
Despite its limitations, the humanistic approach has been significant and useful as the “third
force” of psychology, and has made psychologists think carefully about what the
subject matter of psychology should be. It has made them recognise the importance
of people’s personal experiences, what they think and how they feel.
As you’ll know, the NHS is a
publicly funded health provider, with finite resources to treat and care for
patients. However, if the very best interventions were used for every patient,
the NHS would need many times the funding it currently receives. As a result, something
has to give, and certain drugs, procedures and care elements must be withheld
to stay within budget. The billion-pound question is how the service should be
rationed – what should be provided, and to whom.
This is known as the ‘rule of
rescue’, that we see ourselves as having an ethical prerogative to save an
identifiable person, even if the resources put into it would be better used on
what could be termed ‘statistical’ people. The term comes from the enormous
resources that are often put into finding a missing person, or rescuing one in
danger. You may have noticed that, to quite an extent, this is how the NHS
functions, with things like intensive care units, expensive ‘last-ditch’ cancer
drugs, and arguably many surgical procedures. In other words, prioritising care
to people who require it immediately at the expense of people who could have
their risk of disease reduced. The fact remains that those ‘statistics’ are
still people in need of healthcare, and that their eventual illness and death
is just as real as the individual’s. The rule also acts the other way -
patients believe, rightly or wrongly, that they are entitled to certain
treatments. This can be very difficult for doctors if the expected treatment is
not within guidelines.
In an ideal world we should want
to help all groups of people, be they identifiable individuals or ‘statistics’,
and be they young or old, but we often aren’t able to do so. In these
times of economic trouble, perhaps we have an imperative to move from the ‘rule
of rescue’ to a more holistic provision of healthcare which has greater
emphasis on prevention and early diagnosis, lest the service run into such financial
difficulties that it cannot adequately provide either. By the way, this is not a manifesto to stop dialysis or shut
down ICUs, but simply something to get people thinking about how healthcare is
rationed, and whether some parts of the NHS may have become too bloated at the
expense of simpler preventative intervention.
