Jerry M. Burger
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The Humanistic Approach: Theory,
Application, and Assessment
Chapter 11
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Chapter Outline
 Roots of humanistic psychology
 Key elements of the humanistic approach
 Carl Rogers
 Abraham Maslow
 Psychology of optimal experience
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Chapter Outline
 Application: Person-centered therapy and job satisfaction
 Assessment: Q-Sort technique
 Strengths and criticisms of the humanistic approach
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Roots of Humanistic
Psychology
 Existential philosophy
 Addresses the meaning of human existence, role of free will, and uniqueness of each human being
 Existential psychotherapy focuses on existential anxiety
 Ideas promoted by Carl Rogers and
Abraham Maslow
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Key Elements of the
Humanistic Approach
Personal responsibility
• People are responsible for what happens to them
Here and now
• People become fully functioning individuals when they live their lives as it happens
Experience of the individual
• Therapists provide therapeutic atmosphere that allows clients to help themselves
Personal growth
• People are motivated to progress toward some ultimately satisfying state of being
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Carl Rogers
 Believed in every individual’s potential to for a fulfilling and happy life
 Fully functioning person: People who strive and reach an optimal sense of satisfaction in their lives
 Anxiety is the result of acquiring knowledge that does not coincide with the impression one has about oneself
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Carl Rogers
 When faced with extreme threatening information, one relies on defenses
 Distortion and denial
 Conditional positive regard: Atmosphere when admiration is gained when accepted behavior is portrayed
 Leads to denial of one’s weaknesses
 Resolved through unconditional positive regard
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Abraham Maslow
 Motives identified by Maslow
 Deficiency motives: Results from a lack of needed object
 Satisfied when obtained
 Growth needs: Not satisfied by finding the object of need
 Satisfied by expressing the motive
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Hierarchy of Needs
 Categories of needs identified and arranged by Maslow
 Physiological needs - Hunger, thirst, air, and sleep
 Must be satisfied before moving to higher level needs
 Safety needs - Security, stability, protection, structure, order, and freedom from chaos
 Prominent when the future is unpredictable
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Motivation and the Hierarchy of Needs
 Belongingness and love needs
 D-love - Need to satisfy the emptiness people experience without it
 B-love - Experienced and grows as a result of being in the relationship
 Esteem needs
 Need to perceive oneself as competent and achieving
 Need for self-actualization
 Satisfied when people identify their true self and reach full potential
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Figure 11.1 - Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs
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Misconceptions About
Maslow’s Need Hierarchy
 Assumption that lower needs must be satisfied before turning to higher needs
 Description that need hierarchy is universal
 Means of satisfying a particular need varies across cultures
 Oversimplification that any behavior is motivated by a single need
 Behavior is the result of multiple motivations
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Study of Psychologically
Healthy People
 Maslow believed that knowing selfactualized people can provide lessons others can follow for fulfilling their true potential
 Types of psychologically healthy individuals
 Nonpeakers - Have a clear direction in life
 Peakers - Less conventional and more concerned with abstract notions
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Optimal Experience
 Moments in which a person’s attention is entirely focused on a activity
 Referred to as flow
 Components
 Activity is challenging and skilful
 One’s attention is completely absorbed by the activity
 Activity has clear goals
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Optimal Experience
 Presence of clear feedback
 Concentration can only be on the current task
 Achievement of personal control
 Loss of self-consciousness
 Loss of sense of time
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Application: Person-Centered
Therapy
 Application of Rogerian therapy makes clients more fully functioning and happier
 Involves creating a proper relationship with clients
 Open and genuine
 Unconditional positive regard
 Reflection - Helping clients understand their own thoughts and feelings
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Application: Job Satisfaction
 Occupations should provide opportunities for personal growth and satisfaction of higher order needs
 Jobs can satisfy people’s need for belongingness, self-esteem, and respect for others
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Application: Job Satisfaction
 Eupsychian management
 Rearranging an organization to help employees satisfy higher level needs
 Careers provide an avenue for personal growth
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Assessment: Q-Sort
Technique
 Basic procedure used to assess a wide variety of psychological concepts
 California Q-Sort
 Requires the client to sort a deck of 100 selfdescriptive cards into nine categories according to his/her real and ideal self
 Allows the clients to describe themselves
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Assessment: Q-Sort
Technique
 Clients whose real and ideal selves are unrelated have zero correlation
 Negatively correlated if real and ideal selves are at opposite sides
 Real–ideal self correlations increase as clients move through client-centered psychotherapy
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Figure 11.3 - Changing Real and Ideal Self
Q-Sorts for a 40-Year-Old Female Client
Source: From Rogers, C., International Journal of Social Psychiatry, June 1955; vol. 1: pp. 31–41,
Copyright © 1955. Reprinted by Permission of SAGE.
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
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Strengths of the Humanistic
Approach
 Emphasis on the healthy side of personality
 Several aspects have been adopted by therapists from other theoretical perspectives
 Growth of encounter groups
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Strengths and Criticisms of the Humanistic Approach
 Humanistic psychology adopted in education, communication, and business
 Organizations promote job satisfaction by taking care of employees’ higher needs
 Teachers and parents have adopted Rogers’ suggestions for education and child rearing
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
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Criticisms of the Humanistic
Approach
 Reliance on the concept of free will to explain human behavior
 Key concepts are poorly defined
 Self-actualization
 Fully functioning
 Limited applicability of psychotherapy techniques
 Naive assumptions about human nature
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
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