Humanistic Approach

1. Humanistic Approach

2. Carl Rogers1902-1987 • Taught at University of • Chicago • Taught at the University of Wisconsin • Believes that a fully adjusted person can symbolize any experience in the conscious verbalization.

3. Carl Rogers believes we are born with no self-concept, and no self- but we do have an innate urge to become fully functioning and actualized people. At birth we have a confusing set of sensory impressions, physiological processes, and motor activities. Rogers calls this sum total of our experience the phenomenal field. As we mature the outside world imposes a kind of order or logic into this field. And, as we become aware to this logic our self, our self emerges and differentiates itself from the phenomenal field. The self is thus the conscious portion of experience.

4. Abraham Maslow • 1908-1970 • Attended University of Wisconsin • Taught at Brooklyn College • 1951 served as the chair of the psychology dept.

5. Abraham Maslow (1954) attempted to synthesize a large body of research related to human motivation. Prior to Maslow, researchers generally focused separately on such factors as biology, achievement, or power to explain what energizes, directs, and sustains human behavior. Maslow posited a hierarchy of human needs based on two groupings: deficiency needs and growth needs. Within the deficiency needs, each lower need must be met before moving to the next higher level. Once each of these needs has been satisfied, if at some future time a deficiency is detected, the individual will act to remove the deficiency. The first four levels are: 1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.;

6. 2) Safety/security: out of danger; 3) Belonginess and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted; and 4) Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition. According to Maslow, an individual is ready to act upon the growth needs if and only if the deficiency needs are met. Maslow's initial conceptualization included only one growth need--self-actualization. Self-actualized people are characterized by: 1) being problem-focused; 2) incorporating an ongoing freshness of appreciation of life; 3) a concern about personal growth; and 4) the ability to have peak experiences.

7. Maslow later differentiated the growth need of self-actualization, specifically naming two lower-level growth needs prior to general level of self-actualization (Maslow & Lowery, 1998) and one beyond that level (Maslow, 1971). They are: 5) Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore; 6) Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty; 7) Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one's potential; and 8) Self-transcendence: to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential. Maslow's basic position is that as one becomes more self-actualized and self-transcendent, one becomes more wise (develops wisdom) and automatically knows what to do in a wide variety of situations. Daniels (2001) suggests that Maslow's ultimate conclusion that the highest levels of self-actualization are transcendent in their nature may be one of his most important contributions to the study of human behavior and motivation.

9. Evaluation&CRTICS • '' 1. Humanistic phenomenology is too concerned with immediate conscious experience and does not pay sufficient attention to unconscious motivation, reinforcement contingencies, situational influences, and biological factors. • 2. The approach does not deal adequately with the development of human behavior. Postulating an innate tendency toward actualization can account for development, but does not explain its processes. Saying that a child develops because of an actualizing tendency is like saying that a person eats because of hunger; this may be true, but it says little about what hunger is or how it influences behavior. • More generally, though humanistic theories provide excellent descriptions of human behavior, they are not focused on the scientific exploration of its causes. To suggest that people act as they do because of their unique perceptions of reality may be personally satisfying, but not very informative in terms of understanding the variables that promote, maintain, and alter human behavior. • 3. Humanistic concepts are vague and difficult to comprehend, let alone investigate. Although humanistic psychologists have been chided for being unscientific, it may be more accurate to describe them as pursuing an approach to science that violates Western traditions. Their research methods are more qualitative than quantitative, and they approach psychology as a human science, not as a natural science. • 4. The clinical applicability of the humanistic approach is limited to those segments

10. Cont. • 4. The clinical applicability of the humanistic approach is limited to those segments • of the population whose intellectual and cultural background is compatible with its introspective nature. Further, the range of problems addressed by the approach is limited. Humanistic notions may be of great subjective value to the person struggling with a crisis of identity or values, but these notions (like the tenets of most other approaches) may not be very useful in situations where human distress results from unmet needs near the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy-needs for food, decent housing, and a job, for example. • 5. Finally, humanists' tendency to define ideal personality' development in terms of • personal growth, independence, and self-actualization fits closely with certain value systems prevalent in North America and in some Western cultures, but it may not apply to cultural traditions that emphasize interrelatedness and community (Heine et al., 1999).