Humanistic Approach PDF

3 11 The Humanistic Approach Theory, Application, and Assessment The Roots of Humanistic Psychology Key Elements of the Humanistic Approach Carl Rogers Abraham Maslow The Psychology of Optimal Experience Application: Person-Centered Therapy Assessment: The Q-Sort Technique Strengths and Criticisms o...

3 11 The Humanistic Approach Theory, Application, and Assessment The Roots of Humanistic Psychology Key Elements of the Humanistic Approach Carl Rogers Abraham Maslow The Psychology of Optimal Experience Application: Person-Centered Therapy Assessment: The Q-Sort Technique Strengths and Criticisms of the Humanistic Approach DNY59/E+/Getty Images Summary Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.  The Humanistic Approach 253 I was once involved in a discussion about Jim Morrison, the leader of the 1960s rock group The Doors. For a few years, Morrison was a rock legend who personified counterculture thinking. But he also abused his body with drugs and alcohol and died of an apparent heart attack at age 27. One man in this discussion blamed society for Morrison’s self-destructive behavior and death. He argued that Morrison’s alienation from his parents, harassment by police, and pressure from music industry executives pushed the singer to his tragic death. A woman in the group disagreed. She argued that no one forced Jim Morrison to take outrageous doses of dangerous drugs or to go on daily drinking binges. For that matter, no one kept him in the music business. If it was that much hassle, he could easily have gotten out. Which of these views do you suppose is more “humanistic”? You may be surprised to find that the woman who blamed Morrison’s problems on himself is probably more aligned with the view of humanistic psychology than the man who pointed to society and the hassles Morrison faced. This is not to say that humanistic psychologists are heartless or insensitive to the problems society tosses our way. But failure to take personal responsibility for how we react to those problems is completely foreign to the humanistic approach to personality and well-being. This perspective is easier to understand if we look at the circumstances that gave birth to the humanistic view. By the middle of the 20th century, two major views of humanity had emerged from the discipline of psychology. One was the Freudian concept. According to this perspective, we are all victims of unconscious sexual and aggressive instincts that constantly influence our behavior. The other view came from the behaviorists (discussed in Chapter 13), who, in the extreme, view humans as little more than large, complex rats. Just as a rat is conditioned to respond to laboratory stimuli, humans are said to respond to stimuli in their living environments over which they have no control. We act the way we do because of the situation we are in or the situations we have been in before—not because of some personal choice or direction. Many psychologists had difficulty accepting either of these descriptions of human nature. In particular, important aspects of human personality such as free will and human dignity were missing from the Freudians’ and the behaviorists’ descriptions. In response to these concerns, a so-called “third force” was born. The humanistic approach (sometimes, perhaps incorrectly, referred to as existential or phenomenological psychology) paints a very different picture of our species. A key distinction between the humanistic approach and other theories of personality is that humanistic psychologists assume people are largely responsible for their actions. Although we sometimes respond automatically to events and may at times be motivated by unconscious impulses, most of the time we have the power to determine our own destiny and to decide our actions. We have free will. Jim Morrison may have found himself under tremendous pressure and difficulties, but how he responded to that situation was his own choice. Had Morrison seen a humanistic therapist, he probably would have been encouraged to accept this responsibility and make choices about his lifestyle consistent with his individuality and personal needs. The third force in American psychology caught on rapidly with a large number of psychotherapists and personality theorists. The emphasis on individuality and personal expression in the 1960s (which gave rise to the counterculture movement personified Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 254 Chapter 11 / The Humanistic Approach by Jim Morrison) provided fertile soil for the growth of humanistic psychology. The election of prominent humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow to president of the American Psychological Association in 1967 symbolized the ­acceptance of the humanistic approach as a legitimate alternative perspective. Humanistic psychology never did overthrow psychoanalysis or behaviorism, but it did manage to make a niche for itself among the major approaches to understanding human personality. Although not as popular as it once was, there remains an active community of humanistic psychologists and a large number of psychotherapists who identify with this perspective. The Roots of Humanistic Psychology A lthough humanistic psychology evolved from many sources, its roots lie primarily in two areas: existential philosophy, which is decidedly European in flavor, and the work of some American psychologists, most notably Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. Existential philosophy addresses many of the questions that later became cornerstones of the humanistic approach. Some of these include the meaning of our existence, the role of free will, and the uniqueness of each human being. Some psychologists align themselves so closely with existential philosophers that they have adopted the label existential psychologists. The list of prominent existential psychologists includes Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, Viktor Frankl, R. D. Laing, and Rollo May. Existential psychotherapy frequently focuses on existential anxiety—the feelings of dread and panic that follow the realization that there is no meaning to one’s life. Therapy often emphasizes the freedom to choose and develop a lifestyle that reduces feelings of emptiness, anxiety, and boredom. At about the time existential philosophy was making its way into conversations among psychologists, two psychologists were writing about their personal transitions from traditional views of personality to a humanistic perspective. Carl Rogers found his early efforts as a psychotherapist were largely unsuccessful. He started to question his ability to understand his clients’ problems and wondered whether he really could help people overcome their problems. “It began to occur to me,” Rogers reflected many years later, “that unless I had a need to demonstrate my own cleverness … I would do better to rely upon the client for direction” (1967, p. 359). The turning point for Abraham Maslow came while watching a World War II parade. Although the parade was supposed to promote American patriotism and the war effort, it made Maslow aware of the scope of society’s problems and just how little psychology had contributed to bettering the human condition. He became determined “to prove that human beings are capable of something grander than war and prejudice and hatred” (as cited in Hall, 1968, p. 55). The new ideas promoted by Rogers and Maslow found a receptive audience among psychologists also bothered by the limitations and deficiencies they saw in the dominant approaches to personality at the time. Within a relatively short period, these ideas and contributions from many other psychologists developed into a Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Key Elements of the Humanistic Approach 255 comprehensive new approach for understanding personality. However, unlike psychoanalysis, there is no single authority we can point to as the definitive spokesperson for the humanistic perspective and no clearly agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a humanistic personality theory. Nonetheless, we can identify some elements that are central to the humanistic approach. Key Elements of the Humanistic Approach T he problem of having no agreed-upon definition for humanistic psychology became obvious in the 1960s and early 1970s when it seemed nearly everyone identified himself or herself as “humanistic” in an effort to capitalize on the popularity of the approach at that time. As a result, humanistic psychology sometimes was associated with faddish therapies that promised to solve problems and provide the key to happiness for the price of a paperback book. Although no clear criteria exist for identifying which approaches to psychotherapy fall into the humanistic category, it is safe to say that the following four elements are central to the general viewpoint to which we apply the “humanistic” label: (1) an emphasis on personal responsibility, (2) an emphasis on the “here and now,” (3) a focus on the experience of the individual, and (4) an emphasis on personal growth. Personal Responsibility Although we may try to deny it, we are ultimately responsible for what happens to us. This idea, borrowed from existential philosophers, is central to the humanistic approach to personality and is illustrated in the way we commonly use the phrase “I have to.” We say, “I have to go to class,” “I have to meet some friends,” “I have to take care of my children,” and so forth. But the truth is that we don’t have to do any of these things. Within limits, there is practically nothing we have to do. Rather, humanistic psychologists argue virtually all our behaviors represent personal choices. People choose to remain in relationships; they do not have to. We choose to act passively; we could decide to act forcefully. We choose to go to work, call our friends, leave a party, or send a Christmas present. We do not have to do any of these things. The price we pay for making some of these choices can be steep, but they are choices nonetheless. Unlike the Freudian or behavioral descriptions of people at the mercy of forces they cannot control, humanistic psychologists see people as active shapers of their own lives, with freedom to change limited only by physical constraints. Clients working with humanistic psychotherapists are often encouraged to accept that they have the power to do or to be whatever they desire. However, this power can be a twoedged sword. When speaking in the abstract, nearly everyone agrees that freedom of choice is a good thing. But when applied at a personal level, accepting that our fate is in our own hands is often quite frightening. Taking responsibility means no more blaming others for your problems and no more feeling sorry for yourself. If things are going to change, it is up to you to do the changing. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 256 Chapter 11 / The Humanistic Approach The Here and Now Think about the last time you walked to a class or to a scheduled meeting. Perhaps you spent the time thinking about what you did last weekend or ruminating over an embarrassing incident. Maybe you rehearsed something you wanted to say to someone or thought about how nice it would be just to get through this week. A humanistic psychologist might say that what you really did was to lose 10 minutes. You failed to experience fully the 10 minutes that life handed you. You could have enjoyed the fresh air, appreciated the blue sky, or learned something from observing or talking with other people. According to the humanistic perspective, we can’t become fully functioning ­individuals until we learn to live our lives as they happen. Some reflection on the past or future can be helpful, but most people spend far too much time thinking about events that have already happened or planning those that might. Time spent on these activities is time lost, for you can live life fully only if you live it in the here and now. Of course, potential distractions from living life to its fullest are everywhere. The writer Carl Sandburg once referred to television as “a thief of time.” Were he alive today, one can only imagine what he might say about the countless hours lost to the many mindless diversions available through cell phones and the Internet. A popular poster reminds us, “Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life.” This phrase could well have been coined by a humanistic psychologist. The humanistic view maintains that we need not be victims of our past. Certainly, our past ­experiences shape and influence who we are and how we behave. But these experiences should not dictate what we can become. People do not need to remain shy and unassertive just because they “have always been that way.” You do not have to remain in an unhappy relationship simply because you don’t know what else to do. Your past has guided you to where you are today, but it is not an anchor. The Experience of the Individual No one knows you better than yourself. This observation is a cornerstone of humanistic psychology. Humanistic psychologists argue that it’s absurd for therapists to listen to clients, decide what the clients’ problems are, and force clients to accept the therapist’s interpretation of what should be changed and how it should be changed. Instead, humanistic therapists seek to understand what their clients are experiencing and try to provide a therapeutic atmosphere that allows clients to help themselves. People sometimes find this view of the therapist’s role a bit puzzling. Aren’t clients turning to therapy because they need help understanding and solving their problems? The answer is that, whereas some people may not understand the source of their difficulties at the moment, the therapist also has no access to this information. During the course of successful therapy, clients come to understand themselves and develop an appropriate strategy for dealing with their problems. You might have had a similar experience when facing a personal issue. Well-meaning friends may have provided plenty of advice, but it was only when you considered that advice and came to a decision on your own that you were able to resolve the problem. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Carl Rogers “Whether one calls it a growth tendency, a drive toward self-actualization, or a forward-­ moving directional tendency, it is the mainspring of life.” Carl Rogers 257 Personal Growth Suppose tomorrow you inherited several million dollars, settled down with someone who will admire and love you always, and were promised a long and healthy life. Would you be happy? Most likely, your answer is yes, or perhaps even, “Are you kidding?” No doubt having all these things is better than not having them. But a humanistic psychologist would probably predict that your happiness is short-lived. That’s because there is more to life than simply taking care of all our immediate needs. ­Happiness also requires that that we grow in a positive direction. According to the humanistic approach, we are all motivated to progress toward some ultimately satisfying state of being. Carl Rogers referred to this state as becoming a fully functioning individual. Abraham Maslow (1970) used the term self-actualization. A person becomes self-actualized when he or she becomes “more what one idiosyncratically is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming” (p. 46). This growth process is assumed to be the natural manner of human development. That is, we progress toward this satisfying state unless life’s difficulties prevent us from doing so. When obstacles block our personal growth, humanistic psychotherapy can be helpful. However, the therapist does not put clients back on track. Only the client can do that. Rather, the therapist creates a therapeutic atmosphere that allows clients to overcome their problems and continue growing. Rogers describes this ever-unfolding of one’s self as a “process of becoming.” Carl Rogers H umanistic psychology could ask for no better example of how to live life fully than the career of Carl Rogers. Rogers pioneered humanistic psychotherapy. He was the first to popularize a “person-centered” approach to treating clients (Rogers, 1951) and was an early advocate of using groups as a form of therapy (Rogers, 1970). He eventually expanded his ideas from his work with clients into a general theory of personality (Rogers, 1961). Late in his career, Rogers applied the humanistic approach to social issues such as education and world peace (Rogers, 1969, 1977, 1982). The Fully Functioning Person Like other humanistic theorists, Rogers maintained that each of us naturally strives to reach an optimal sense of satisfaction with our lives. He called people who reach this goal fully functioning. What are fully functioning people like? Rogers identified several characteristics. Fully functioning people are open to new experiences. Rather than falling into familiar patterns, they look to see what life will throw their way. Related to this, fully functioning people try to live each moment as it comes. The idea is to experience life, not just pass through. Fully functioning individuals also learn to trust their feelings. If something feels right, they’re likely to try it. They are sensitive to the needs of others, but they aren’t overly concerned with meeting the standards society sets for them. If a fully functioning woman wants to cut her hair or quit her job, she probably won’t stop herself just because others might not approve. It’s not that fully functioning people are rebellious. They may Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG/Corbis Documentary/ Getty Images Carl R. Rogers 1902–1987 Like the inevitable unfolding of one’s true self that he promoted, Carl Rogers’ interest in science and his concern for people carried him from Midwest farm boy to leader of the humanistic movement in psychology. Carl was a shy but very intelligent boy growing up in Illinois. He had a particular fondness for science, and by the time he was 13, he had developed a reputation as the local expert on biology and agriculture. Ironically, the Rogers household was anything but warm and affectionate. Openly expressing emotions, later a key feature of Rogerian therapy, was not allowed. As a result, like two of his siblings, Carl developed an ulcer by age 15. Rogers went to his mother and father’s alma mater, the ­University 258 of Wisconsin, in 1919 to study agriculture. He had planned a career in farming but soon lost his enthusiasm. He tried a correspondence course in psychology one summer and found it boring. Finally, he settled on religious studies. In 1924, Carl moved with his new wife, Helen, to New York City to attend Union Theological Seminary as he prepared himself for a career as a minister. But two developments in New York led to a change in plans. First, studying theology caused Carl to question his religious beliefs. “It would be a horrible thing to have to profess to a set of beliefs in order to remain in one’s profession,” he observed. “I wanted to find a field in which I could be sure my freedom of thought would not be limited” (as cited in Kirschenbaum, 1979, pp. 51–52). A career in theology promised Rogers an opportunity to help people, but his faith continued to wane. The second development was a renewed introduction to psychology. While at the seminary, Rogers and several classmates took psychology courses across the street at Columbia University. These classmates included Theodore Newcomb and Ernest Hilgard, who also went on to become important figures in psychology. Much to his parents’ dismay, Rogers eventually left the church to pursue graduate study in psychology at Columbia. After graduation, Rogers worked at a child guidance clinic in Rochester, New York. Later he joined the faculty at Ohio State University and the University of Chicago before returning to the University of Wisconsin in 1957. Throughout this time, Rogers battled with the well-established Freudian approach to psychotherapy and the dominant behavioral influence in academia. But in time he began to win many of these battles. When the American Psychological Association handed out its first annual award for distinguished scientific contribution in 1956, Carl Rogers was the recipient. In 1963 Rogers moved to La Jolla, California, where he founded the Center for Studies of the Person. He devoted the last 15 years of his life to the issues of social conflict and world peace. Even in his 80s he led workshops and communication groups in such places as the Soviet Union and South Africa. Rogers continued to write extensively and to shape the discipline of psychology until his death in February 1987. follow the traditional path of college, job, marriage, and family, but only if each of these choices is consistent with their own interests, values, and needs. Unlike some depictions of them, fully functioning people aren’t simply mellow folks who take everything in stride. On the contrary, they experience emotions— both positive and negative—more deeply and more intensely than most people. Fully functioning people accept and express their anger. To do otherwise would be to cut themselves off from some of their feelings. Because of these intense emotions, Rogers maintained that fully functioning people lead richer lives than most of us. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Carl Rogers 259 Anxiety and Defense If we all have an innate desire to be fully functioning individuals, why is there so much unhappiness in the world? Why doesn’t everyone get the maximum enjoyment out of life? Rogers was well aware that the world is full of disappointments and difficulties, all of which are potential sources of anxiety. Becoming a fully functioning person doesn’t eliminate all our problems. But it does mean we acknowledge and deal with these problems directly rather than rely on psychological defenses to avoid them. Rogers maintained that anxiety often results from encountering information that is inconsistent with the way we think of ourselves. You may believe that you are a good tennis player, a kind person, a good student, or a pleasant conversationalist, but occasionally you receive information that contradicts this self-concept. For example, suppose you think of yourself as the kind of person everybody likes, but one day you overhear someone say what a jerk he thinks you are. How do you react? If you were fully functioning, you would accept the information. You might acknowledge to yourself that, although you are a fine person, not everyone is going to find you pleasant and wonderful. Unfortunately, most of us are not capable of such a well-adjusted reaction. For those of us who fall short of being fully functioning, hearing information that threatens our self-concept leads to anxiety. And if that information is excessively threatening, the anxiety will be difficult to manage. This is where Rogers’ theory takes on a slight Freudian flavor. Rogers proposed that we initially process this threatening information at a level somewhere below consciousness, a process he called subception. As in Freud’s theory, we often rely on defenses to keep the information from entering awareness. Rogers called our most common defense distortion. Returning to the example, you might convince yourself that the person who called you a jerk was in a bad mood or is just a rude person. However, in more extreme cases, you might resort to outright denial. No, you might convince yourself, he wasn’t really talking about me but about someone else with a name that sounds like mine. People who think of themselves as undesirable also turn to distortion and denial when they encounter information to the contrary. If they hear that someone is attracted to them, they might tell themselves the admirer is just being polite or perhaps is scheming to get something from them. We also use defenses when making observations about ourselves. Each of us on occasion acts in ways that fall short of our personal standards. Perhaps you have cheated a friend out of money or said some hurtful things to a loved one. Rather than acknowledge your shortcomings and trying to learn from your mistake, you may have distorted the situation (“She often overreacts to innocent comments”) or denied the facts (“I didn’t know the money was his”). Distortion and denial often succeed in the short run by reducing anxiety. But this relief comes at a price. Each use takes us further and further away from experiencing life fully. In severe cases, people replace reality with fantasy. A man may think of himself as the world’s most desirable bachelor when in fact there are no objective reasons to draw this conclusion. A student with poor grades might convince herself that she is a genius whose ideas are simply too sophisticated for her instructors to appreciate. However, at some point, the gap between self-concept and reality may become so large that even our defenses are inadequate. In this case, people experience what ­Rogers called a state of disorganization. The protective barrier against threatening information collapses, and the result is extreme anxiety. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 260 Chapter 11 / The Humanistic Approach Conditions of Worth and Unconditional Positive Regard Jerry Burger/Santa Clara University Why is it so difficult to face facts and incorporate relevant information as we develop a sense of who we are? Rogers’ answer is that most of us grow up in an atmosphere of c­ onditional positive regard. As children, our parents and caregivers provide love and support. However, they rarely do this unconditionally. Rather, most parents communicate affection for their children as long as the children do what is expected of them. When parents disapprove of their children’s behavior, they withhold their admiration and love. The children get the message that they are loved but only when they do what their parents want. The positive regard children need and want is conditional upon their behavior. As a result of this conditioned esteem, children learn to accept only the parts of themselves their parents deem appropriate. They deny or distort their weaknesses and faults and become less and less aware of who they really are. Unfortunately, this process continues when the child becomes an adult. We often incorporate into our self-­concept only those characteristics that are likely to win the approval of significant people in our lives. Instead of acknowledging and expressing aspects of ourselves that others might not approve of, we simply deny that we possess these unflattering characteristics. And as we lose touch with our real self, we become less and less fully functioning. Is the child a bad boy, or has he merely done a bad thing? Rogers argues that parents should provide children with unconditional positive regard. Although the boy may have done something the mother did not like, he is still loved and prized by her. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.