Week 5: Humanistic Psychology

Question 1

The problems in therapy pre-humanistic (3)

Answer 1

In the 1950s and 1960s many psychologists believed that human experiences could not be adequately understood by natural sciences or reducing humans to labels or diagnoses

At this time, behavioural psychology was resulting in a significant focus on observable traits, which humanistic theorists found to be reductionistic and limiting in understanding the diversity of human experiences

Focusing only on behaviour did not address the complexity of inner experiences

Question 2

What humanistic therapy focused on (5)

Answer 2

Humanistic therapies began to focus on: being client-centred, experiential, existential, and gestalt. Also focus on emotions.

Question 3

There are 4 main assumptions about this theoretical framework: (humanistic)

Answer 3

1: Importance of Phenomenology
2: Belief in Growth*
3: Self-Reflective Agents
4: Relationship

Question 4

Humanistic leading figures (4)

Answer 4

Leading figures are Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, Clark Moustakas

Question 5

1: Importance of Phenomenology (3)

Answer 5

Phenomenology is understanding conscious experience first-hand, rather than third-person observation (which characterizes the modern, scientific approach)

It is one of the most central principles of this theoretical framework

It is the attempt to understand people’s subjective worldviews, feelings, perceptions, and values*

Question 6

2: Belief in Growth* (3)

Answer 6

Human experience is characterized by ongoing change and growth

Example: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, specifically the belief that humans can strive for self-actualization

Self-actualizing is a central principle within humanistic theories and Rogers believed this was a biological imperative

Question 7

4 aspects of Self-actualising

Answer 7

1) self-awareness

2) self-realisation (fulfillment of one’s full poterntial)

3) autonomy

4) self-regulation (manage one’s own emotions)

Question 8

3: Self-Reflective Agents (3)

Answer 8

Humans make use of symbols and language and can therefore reflect on their experiences

The self-reflective process allows humans to grow and change

Feelings and desires indicated what is most important and allow people to understand their needs and interactions with others

Question 9

4: Relationship (3)

Answer 9

Treat everyone with respect and caring; everyone is unique and values

Therapists try to understand the subjective worldview of the other without judgement

Purpose is to develop an authentic egalitarian relationship

Question 10

Overview of Person-Centred Therapy/ Client-Centred Therapy (Patterson & Joseph, 2007) in terms of research (4)

Answer 10

A central element to Rogers’ theory is that humans have an inherent tendency for optimal functioning which includes growth and development*

Mainstream in psychological frameworks in the 1950s and 1960s.

Research involved phenomenological methods and qualitative research

Perhaps a limitation in a discipline that favours knowledge derived from quantitative research

Question 11

Person-Centred: the actualizing tendency

Answer 11

Humans, along with all living organisms, have a natural motivational drive

Question 12

Person-Centred, a person’s process and self-concept overview (3)

Answer 12

In favourable environments, a person’s self-concept actualizes, consistent with their organismic valuing process*

Rogers believed that people’s attitudes and behaviours were consistent with internal value directions

However, in unfavourable conditions, the actualization of the self-concept was not in congruence with (external) organismic experience, and this created conflict

Question 13

self actualistion and conflicts (2)

Answer 13

While self-actualization can refer to the process of growth an individual experiences, with the goal of optimal functioning, self-actualization can be at odds with the actualizing tendency, thus creating conflict in the person

An individual’s actualizing tendency can often be undermined or blocked by unfavourable environmental conditions*

Question 14

Conditions of worth

Answer 14

People are only worthwhile and loveable if they think, act and feel in the a specific way to meet the needs of others (order to gain the love and worth from others)

Question 15

organismic valuing process

Answer 15

innate ability to know what’s important to them

Question 16

What are the effects of conditions of worth?

Answer 16

Rogers referred to such unfavourable circumstances as conditions of worth

These develop when children learn that positive regard is conditional upon a certain way of being/doing and these become internalized, and begin to influence the organismic valuing process*

Question 17

When conditions of worth become internalized… (2)

Answer 17

individuals then have the tendency to evaluate their experiences from an external source (i.e., others) rather than by their own internal values

“As the individual becomes estranged from his or her organismic needs, there is a loss of trust in the person’s own internal judgments, and an increasing tendency to defer to the external judgment of others” (p. 122)

Question 18

overview of the process in person-centred (diagram) (7)

Answer 18

1 Self-Actualization (optimal functioning)

2 Actualizing Tendency
- innate drive
- Holistic development
(achieve, spirit, emo, physical, creative)

3 Childhood

4 OVP

5 Self-Concept

6 Conditions of Worth

• Secure vs. insecure/disorganised attachment

7 Perspective
(looking to others (outer self)/ me (real/self)
Conflict between Actualising Tendency and Self-Actualisation

Question 19

Therapeutic Change (6 steps)

Answer 19

1. Two persons are in psychological contact.
2. The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious.
3. The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship.
4. The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.
5. The therapist experiences empathic understanding of the client’s internal frame of reference and endeavours to communicate this experience to the client.
6. The communication to the client of the therapist’s empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved.
   ~ Carl Rogers, (1957)

Question 20

Psychopathology vs. psychotherapy (2+2)

Answer 20

Psychopathology:
Conditions of worth
Failure to learn from experience

Psychotherapy:
The therapist must trust the client
The therapist must establish a certain type of relationship with the client

Question 21

Person-centred: When conditions (therapeutic change) are met, results in… (Neukrug, 2018) (7)

Answer 21

• Increased openness to experience
• Greater ability to be more objective and have more realistic perceptions
• Improved psychological adjustment
• More congruence, increased self-regard, movement from an external to internal locus of control
• More acceptance of others
• Having better problem solving skills
• Having more accurate perception of others

Question 22

Congruence

Answer 22

“Congruence refers to the clinician’s ability to be genuine and authentic, well-integrated and aware of themselves and how they are perceived by others. People who are congruent transmit messages that are clear and coherent; their inner and outer selves are consistent.”

Seligman and Reichenberg (2010, p. 152)

Question 23

Unconditional Positive Regard (7)

Answer 23

• Caring about
• Respecting
• Accepting people for who they are without placing any requirements on them to act, feel or think in certain ways to please their clinicians
• Valuing the client as a separate person whose thoughts, feelings, beliefs and entire being are openly accepted without conditions
• Individuals experience conditions of worth, to receive this, so they may discount their own experiences
• Behaving in ways that please others leads to anxiety, losing touch with oneself, feeling alienated from oneself.
• Thus, UPR is crucial to the success of therapy.

Question 24

Empathy (3)

Answer 24

• Empathy requires a therapist to have his/her own sense of separateness so as not to get lost in the client’s perceptual world.
• Empathy is a process, an attitude
• “To enter another’s world without being influenced by one’s views and values.”
  ~ Carl Rogers, (1975)

Question 25

Being Person-Centred (2)

Answer 25

Person-centred therapy is in part, characterized by one’s attitude.

Active listening is about developing proper skills.

Question 26

Existential Psychotherapy Watson, Goldman, & Greenberg (2011)

Answer 26

Existential theory emerged in the 1940s

As a response to the biological and mechanistic view that was conveyed in psychoanalytic psychology, existentialists wanted to understand the individual’s “way of being in the world” (rather than doing; making meaning of one’s experiences was central)*

People’s capacity for loving relationships is the highest form of human existence

Question 27

Existential Psychotherapy: Leading figures are (5)

Answer 27

Paul Tillich, Rollo May, James Bugental, Viktor Frankl, Irvin Yalom

Question 28

Central Features of Existential Psychotherapy (8)

Answer 28

The goal of therapy is to live a more authentic life*

Within existentialism, this can be done either by accepting struggle without self-delusion or by developing purpose and finding meaning

Life changes occur within the client’s own subjective experience, not by what others tell them they ought to be doing

Becoming genuinely aware of one’s own inner process, attitudes, emotions, thoughts, and intentions characterized the interpersonal exchange between client and therapist

Informed by European philosophers, existential psychotherapists believed that it was essential to attend intently to the client’s experiences and bracket* their own assumptions

This requires holistic listening

Practitioners focus on the clients’ emotions, cognitions, and embodied aspects of the clients’ experience in order to develop an accurate understanding of the client’s inner world

There is a greater focus on current “here and now” experiences, and less emphasis on the client’s past