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This is the Humanist Approach
The humanist movement developed in America in the early 1960's and was termed the third force in psychology since it aimed to replace the two main approaches in the subject at the time, behaviourism and psychoanalysis. Influenced by gestalt psychology's ideas of studying whole units, and existential philosophy with its belief in conscious free will, humanists argued that behaviourism's artificial and dehumanising approach an psychoanalysis's gloomy determinism were insufficient to provide a complete psychology. The humanistic approach aimed to investigate all the uniquely human aspects of experience such as love, hope, creativity, etc. and emphasised the importance of the individuals interaction with the environment. Humanists, such as Abraham Maslow (1st April 1908 - 8th June 1970), believed that every individual has the need to self-actualise or reach their potential, and Carl Rogers (8th January 1902 - 4th February 1987) developed a client centred therapy to help individuals in this process of self actualisation. In line with its person-centred, idiographic, holistic approach and belief in free will, humanistic psychology rejects the traditional scientific and experimental approach to Psychology. Assumptions James Bugental (25th December 1915 - 17th September 2008), the first President of the American Association for Humanistic Psychology, described some of its fundamental assumptions: A proper understanding of human nature can only be gained from studying humans, not other animals. Psychology should research areas that are meaningful and important to human existence, not neglect them because they are too difficult. Psychology should be applied to enrich human life. Psychology should study internal experience as well as external behaviour and consider that individuals can show some degree of free will. Psychology should study the individual case, an idiographic approach, rather than the average performance of groups, a nomothetic approach. In general, humanistic psychology assumes that the whole person should be studied in their environmental context. Methods of Investigation Humanists take a phenomenological approach, investigating the individual's conscious experience of the world. For this reason they employ the idiographic case study, and use a variety of individualistic techniques, such as: flexible open ended questions the Q-sort technique, where the participant is given one hundred different statements on cards such as "I don't trust my emotions" or "I have an attractive personality" which they have to sort into piles for personal relevance. Contribution to Psychology The humanistic approach has been applied to relatively few areas of psychology, compared to other approaches. The main areas of explanation have been in: Personality/Self Identity - e.g. Roger's self theory Motivation - e.g. Maslow's hierarchy of needs and self actualisation Abnormality - e.g. due to impose conditions of worth by others or the inability to accept the true self. Humanists are against the nomothetic classification of abnormality. Strengths One of its biggest strengths is that it has re-emphasised the need to study consciousness and human experience for a complete study of the subject, To serve as a valuable agent of criticism against the extremes of the earlier approaches, To highlight the value of more individualistic and idiographic methods of study, particularly in the areas of abnormality and personality. To emphasise the importance of self-actualisation, responsibility, freedom of choice and social context in therapy. Weaknesses Humanistic psychology has not had the effect on mainstream psychology that other approaches have. This is probably due to the less scientific approach taken by humanists. The belief in free-will contradicts many other approaches that have a more deterministic attitude. It takes a more idiographic approach, seeking the more unique aspects of individuals, rather than producing generalised laws of behaviour that apply to everyone, The issues studied include consciousness and emotion, which are among the most difficult to study objectively.
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