Chapter 11 / The Humanistic Approach PDF

270 Chapter 11 / The Humanistic Approach In summary, Csikszentmihalyi’s prescription for happiness contains many of the elements traditionally embraced by humanistic personality psychology. Flow experiences require us to live in the present and to get the most out of our lives in the here and now....

270 Chapter 11 / The Humanistic Approach In summary, Csikszentmihalyi’s prescription for happiness contains many of the elements traditionally embraced by humanistic personality psychology. Flow experiences require us to live in the present and to get the most out of our lives in the here and now. Achieving the goal is not the point. Rather, it is the struggle and experience along the way that provide the enjoyment. Moreover, happiness comes from taking control of our own lives rather than caving in to conventional standards or demands from others. In the flow state, people are intensely in touch with their experiences and often feel a sense of personal mastery. Like the peak experiences Maslow described, flow experiences are occasions for personal growth. Application: Person-Centered Therapy C “When arl Rogers’ approach to counseling presents an interesting challenge for humanI accept istic psychotherapists. According to Rogers, a therapist cannot possibly undermyself as I stand clients as well as clients understand themselves. He also maintained that clients, am, then I rather than the therapist, are responsible for changing themselves. So what is left change.” for therapists to do when people come to them for help? Rogers’ answer was that Carl Rogers the therapist provides an atmosphere within which clients are able to help themselves. He called this approach person-centered therapy. Rogers believed each individual naturally grows in a positive, self-actualizing direction unless that person’s progress is in some way impeded. The therapist simply allows the client to get back on the positive-growth track. After successful Rogerian therapy, clients should be more open to personal experience, more able to accept all aspects of themselves, and, therefore, less likely to use defenses when encountering information that threatens their self-concept. In short, they should be more fully functioning and happier people. But how is this accomplished? Therapists must first create the proper relationship with their clients. The most important rule here is to be open and genuine. Therapists should be themselves rather than play the role of therapist they were taught in graduate school. This means being honest with clients, even if that includes being very frank (but not cruel) at times. Rogers believed clients can always tell when a therapist isn’t being genuine with them, and the mistrust that comes from this perception can doom a therapeutic relationship. The proper therapeutic relationship also requires unconditional positive regard from the therapist, something many clients have been denied elsewhere in their lives. Clients must feel free to express and accept all their thoughts and feelings during therapy without fear of rejection from the therapist. Unconditional positive regard does not mean therapists must approve of everything clients say and do. Indeed, in the safe atmosphere provided by the therapist, clients may disclose some disturbing information about themselves. But because therapists accept clients with positive regard despite these faults and weaknesses, clients learn to acknowledge—and eventually change—these aspects of themselves. In addition to providing an accepting relationship, therapists can help clients understand their own thoughts and feelings through a process of reflection. Rather than interpret what clients really mean, as a Freudian therapist might, a Rogerian 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. Application: Person-Centered Therapy 271 therapist helps clients listen to what they are saying. Part of this process is simply giving clients the opportunity to put their feelings into words. By translating vague feelings into precise words, clients come to understand their feelings. Clients listen to own their words and examine their thoughts, perhaps for the first time. One technique a therapist can use to further this process is to restate what the client says. Some people mistakenly think this means the therapist simply repeats the client’s words verbatim. But as the following excerpt demonstrates, the goal is to help clients explore their thoughts and feelings by directing their attention to what they are saying. In this example, Rogers is working with a woman who is struggling with her sense of personal identity: Client [C]: I suppose I want to know just what to do, but then maybe nobody could give me that. Therapist [T]: You realize that you are probably looking for immediate answers that nobody could give you. C: I just don’t know. I don’t know what I’m looking for. It’s just that I wonder if I’m insane sometimes. I think I’m nuts. T: It just gives you concern that you’re as far from normal as you feel you are. C: That’s right. It’s silly to tell me not to worry because I do worry. It’s my life. … Well, I don’t know how I can change my concept of myself— because that’s the way I feel. T: You feel very different from others and you don’t see how you can fix that. C: I realize, of course, that it all began a long time ago—because everything begins somewhere. I wasn’t just—somehow or other something failed somewhere along the line. And I guess we sort of have to get at it, a sort of reeducation. But I don’t feel as though I can do it myself. T: You realize that the roots must go a long way back, and that at some point you will have to start in reworking it, but you’re not sure whether you can do it. C: That’s right. It’s just the idea that I can see myself going through life this way, 50-, 60-, and 70-year-old—still thinking these horrible thoughts. And it just doesn’t seem worthwhile—I mean, it’s so ridiculous. While everybody else is going their way and living life, I’m sort of at the edge, and looking on. It just isn’t right. T: The future doesn’t look very bright when you look at it that way. C: No. I know I’m lacking in courage, that’s the big thing I’m lacking. That must be it, ’cause other people aren’t swayed so easily. … It’s a hard thing to explain these things. It’s just as though—it’s—true but I laugh at it in a way. … It’s a very confused feeling. 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. 272 Chapter 11 / The Humanistic Approach T: Logically, you realize that courage is one of your deficiencies, but inside yourself you find yourself laughing at that notion and feeling that it doesn’t really have anything to do with you. Is that it? C: That’s right. I always sort of make myself different. That’s it. (1947, pp. 138–140) Therapists never tell clients what the client really means to say. Instead, therapists restate what they believe they are hearing. However, these restatements are only suggestions for the client to agree with or reject. If the process is effective, clients come to see themselves as others do and eventually accept or modify what they see. Clients may come to understand that they have been distorting or denying parts of their experiences. A man may realize he has been trying to live up to his father’s impossibly high expectations, or a woman may come to understand she is afraid to commit herself to a serious relationship. In the freedom provided by the therapist’s unconditional support, clients peel away their defenses, accept who they are, and begin to appreciate all of life’s experiences. Today a large number of psychotherapists identify their approach as humanistic (Cook, Biyanova, Elhai, Schnurr, & Coyne, 2010), and many others include aspects of person-centered therapy in their work (Cain & Seeman, 2002). Reviews of empirical studies find considerable evidence for the effectiveness of humanistic psychotherapy and for approaches to therapy that focus on humanistic concepts like finding meaning in one’s life (Angus, Watson, Elliott, Schneider, & Timulak, 2015; Elliott, 2002; Vohs, Craig, & Cooper, 2015). Not only do many clients benefit from the person-centered approach, but the effects of the treatment can often be seen many months after the therapy sessions end. Assessment: The Q-Sort Technique A persistent challenge for psychotherapists of all stripes is to demonstrate the ­e ffectiveness of their treatment. Carl Rogers was very aware of this challenge and strongly encouraged research on the effectiveness of person-centered psychotherapy. Too often therapy is declared a success simply because the therapist and client feel there has been improvement. However, without empirical evidence of therapeutic change, Rogers argued, psychologists are in danger of fooling themselves. So how can a humanistic psychologist demonstrate that clients are more fully functioning or closer to self-actualization after a few months of therapy? One tool that has proven useful is a procedure called the Q-Sort. The basic procedure was developed several decades ago (Stephenson, 1953) and has been used to assess a wide variety of psychological concepts, including parent–child attachment (Tarabulsky et al., 2008), defense mechanisms (Davidson & MacGregor, 1996), temperament (Buckley, Klein, Durbin, Hayden, & Moerk, 2002), and strength of romantic relationships (Bengston & Grotevant, 1999). Rogers saw that the procedure also fit nicely with his approach to psychotherapy and quickly adopted it. 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. Assessment: The Q-Sort Technique 273 The California Q-Sort (Block, 2008) is a good example of a Q-Sort procedure used by many humanistic therapists. The materials for this test consist of a deck of 100 cards. A self-descriptive phrase is printed on each card, such as “is a talkative individual,” “seeks reassurance from others,” or “has high aspiration level for self.” If you were a client about to begin counseling with a Rogerian therapist, you might be instructed to read the cards and sort them into categories. On the first sort, you would be asked to place the cards into nine categories according to how much you believe the description on the card applies to you. The nine categories represent points on a normal distribution (Figure 11.2), with the categories on the extreme ends representing characteristics most descriptive of you (Category 9) and least descriptive of you (Category 1). Let’s suppose the description on the first card is “is a talkative individual.” If this phrase describes you very well, you would place the card in Category 9 or 8. (8) (12) (16) (18) (16) (12) (8) (5) Un ch Ex ar tre ac m ter el ist y ic Un ch ar ac Qu ter it ist e ic Un ch ar ac Fa ter irl ist y ic Un ch Som ar ac ew ter ha ist t ic Re la Ne tive ut ly ra l Ch So ar me ac w ter ha ist t ic Ch ar ac Fa ter irl ist y ic Ch ar ac Qu ter it ist e ic Ch Ex ar tre ac m ter el ist y ic (5) Figure 11.2 Distribution of Cards on Block’s Q-Sort 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.