IV Humanistic Model

HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE

 Developed as a reaction both to the negative, aggressive view of human nature developed by the psychoanalytic paradigm and the scientific, response-oriented, conditioned view of behaviorism.  Roots in existential philosophy

Main elements:  Strong belief in free will and freedom of choice  Here and now  Phenomenology  Personal growth

Carl Rogers

 Person- or client-centered approach  Person’s subjective experience is paramount

 Actualizing tendency  fully functioning person

 People are innately good

Social self vs. true self  Social self-concept  Conditions of worth  Anxiety – comes from receiving information inconsistent with our self-view  Defense mechanisms  Distortion  Denial

 Unconditional Positive Regard  Congruence

Therapy - Active listening  Reflect and reframe  Communicates empathy  Helps clients understand what they’re thinking/feeling  Helps clients really hear what they’re saying  Client comes to see self as others do/accept or modify what they see.

Strengths (Rogers)  Comprehensive  Tried to do a lot of research  Optimistic, positive about human nature  Had influence on how we think, esp in therapy fields  Used in many areas (race relations, politics, workplace, family, etc.) Humanistic - 2 Weaknesses (Rogers)  Hard to test, concepts can be vague

Abraham Maslow

 Deficiency needs  Growth needs

Hierarchy of 5 basic classes of human needs Basic physiological needs Safety needs Love needs Need to achieve and be competent/need for esteem Need for self-actualization

Study of psychologically healthy people

Peak experiences

Csikszentmihalyi and optimal experiences (please review in book; will not cover in lecture)  i.e., “Flow”  Totally engaged, really enjoyable, not just pleasurable 8 Characteristics of flow experiences

Applications

Psychotherapy  Resacralization

Workplace  Eupsychian management

Strengths (Maslow)  Positive view of human nature  Focus on healthy side  Provocative, stimulating thought in many disciplines  Impact on pastoral and educational counseling and business

Weaknesses (Maslow)  Limited to healthy development, mostly  Imprecise, hard to test  Not well-supported by research

Strengths of Humanistic theories in general  Focus on healthy functioning  Gives responsibility and power to patient  Positive view of human nature Humanistic - 3  Application to therapy, counseling, workplace  Palatable to many people

Weaknesses of Humanistic theories in general  Limited to a narrow band of problems  Naïve assumptions about human nature.  Free will can’t explain all human behavior  Key concepts poorly defined  Research isn’t that rigorous  Clients aren’t always the most reliable source of information  Not a lot of Humanistic research because they felt it was dehumanizing to reduce people to numbers

Research Findings

Self-disclosure  Jourard  Self disclosure and relationship patterns  Gender differences  Disclosure of traumatic experiences

Loneliness  Definition: Social network smaller or less satisfying than the person desires  Lonely people are pessimistic about social encounters  They lack social skills

Self-esteem

 Self-concept is our idea of ourselves  Self-esteem is how we evaluate that idea of ourselves  Self-worth is the fluctuations we feel within the day or week  Global vs. domain specific self-esteem  Self-esteem stability  less stability = more sensitivity to feedback  highs higher, lows lower  unrelated to global self-esteem level  more related to depression than self-esteem level is  cultural variability

Need for privacy and solitude – Please study in book