Humanist Psychology

Existentialism

• The idea that we are free to choose and so adaptable that we can make human nature what we want it to be

• We need to come to terms with the experience of our mortality

• We need to come to terms with the responsibility and experience of choice

• WE must make our own lives meaningful, we must seek self-actualization (becoming what we are capable of being)

Formed as a reaction AGAINST

• Behaviourism

• It is all stimulus – response, conditioning, and observational learning

• Little free will

• Psychodynamic Theory

• Freud and his, “We are all a seething cauldron of primal urges.”

• Little free will

The different theories are not necessarily competing elements – they have all contributed to

our understanding of human behaviour.

Theories, theories, theories

• Different schools of thought have different ideas

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhjn7yAU0R4&feature=PlayList&p=6B4602C4EB1550BF&index=8

• Story of the elephant and the four blind people

What is a humanistic approach?

• Don’t focus on the negative, “people are horrible” perspective (expect the best, not the worst)

• Our life pattern is not set (not deterministic or pre-determined

• Each of us has a unique perspective• People have value and should not be used

for political or economic ends (people are not cattle, should not be slaves)

• People have innate dignity and a fundamental human right to dignity

Human Potential

• Get to know yourself• Humans can change

– we are not static, we can develop

• People want to do their best, want to achieve, want to experience life and have great curiosity

• People need to courageously take responsibility for themselves

http://www.museevirtuel.ca/Exhibitions/Haida/java/english/art/image_art68.html

The Raven and the First Men; sculpture in yellow cedar by Bill Reid.Photo: U.B.C. Museum of AnthropologyNb1.481

• Most of us normally think that if we have enough worldly goods, then we can do what we want to do, and then we can be happy. The sequence is HAVE - DO - BE.

• But what we in humanistic psychology say is that it is exactly the other way round. If we can be who we really are, we will find ourselves doing things which genuinely satisfy us and give us enjoyment, and then we shall have all we really want. The sequence for us is BE - DO - HAVE.

• http://www.ahpweb.org/rowan_bibliography/chapter2.html

Humanism and AGENCY

• Agency is the idea that you act on the world, that you feel you can act to make things happen

• Puts you in charge

• Makes you responsible

• Is work

Victor Frankl

• http://www.ted.com/talks/viktor_frankl_youth_in_search_of_meaning.html

Maslow’s Hierarchy

• We all have needs for self-actualization– To become whatever we are capable of

becoming– Each path to individual self-actualizatin

is unique

• Developed a Hierarchy of Needs

Carl Rogers

• Most influential of the Humanist theorists and psychologist

• Our behaviour is a reaction not to our unconscious motivations, but a response to our immediate conscious experience of self and experience

• We can rely on ourselves, to trust ourselves to move toward self-actualization

Carl Roger’s Self

• An organized, consistent set of beliefs and perceptions (how we see ourselves)

• Once formed, our self directs our behaviour

Self-regard, Self-esteem• We develop our self-esteem at first

through the esteem others hold for us• Children develop esteem when they

receive– Unconditional positive regard

• Children disown themselves, their feelings when they receive– Conditional positive regard

• Children can develop conditions of worth – I am worth something only when I– Get good grades– Keep my room clean– Am skinny or dressed nicely

• Be realistic