Humanistic Psychology: The Focus on Individual Subjective Experiences, Diapositivas de Psicología

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• Chapter

HUMANISM –

PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH

Personality is studied from the point of view of the individual’s subjective experience.

Raised as a contra-cultural movement of the time against the idea of the human being as an abnormal, with no distinctiveness.

• They refuse animal experimentation as the right method in psychology for it exclude human nature.
• Psychology must study relevant matters to human being, despite whether we have the proper experimental tools to do it.
• Objective of study are internal subjective experiences, not external behavioural manifestations.
• There should not be a distinction between theory and applied psychology.
• Research should not be based in averaged data but in individual cases.
• Psychology must focus on what is required to a subject to enrich their life.

Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965)

• Based in Gestalt
• He wrote “The Organism” from his work with brain-injured soldiers.

ORGANISMIC SELF-REALIZATION THEORY

• The organism is in constant tension: self in order or self in chaos.
• The objective of human being is self-realization : overcome limitations and improve to change the world. This might not be in line with external world and will generate tension (catastrophe).
• Self-realization is to move forward from catastrophe to the next, from chaos to order.
• This belongs to normal psyche and consider the human being as active part fighting and changing the environment and the own self.

Charlotte Malachowski Bühler (1893-1974)

• She studied self-realization during the complete vital cycle.
• Biographic investigation method.

Self realization depends on a final assessment late in life depending on the tension suffered in 4 factors:

1. Need satisfaction tendency
2. Sexual tendency
3. Creative tendency
4. Internal order and integrative style tendency

CONSUMMATION

Feeling of reaching personal goals. Requires development of these 4 tendencies, at any degree

Carl Rogers (1902-1987)

• Therapy oriented
• Person centered theory: " The organism has one basic tendency and striving - to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism ” (Rogers, 1951, p. 487)^1.
• humans have one basic motive, that is the tendency to self- actualize : to fulfil one's potential and achieve the highest level of 'human-beingness' we can.

Rogers, C. R. (1951). Perceptual reorganization in client-centered therapy.

For a person to achieve self-actualization they must be in a state of congruence: when a person’s “ideal self” (i.e., who they would like to be) is congruent with their actual behaviour (self-image)

People are inherently good and creative. They become destructive only when a poor self-concept or external constraints override the valuing process.

SELF CONCEPT

• DEF: the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself.
• The self is influenced by the experiences a person has in their life, and out interpretations of those experiences.
• Two primary sources that influence our self-concept are childhood experiences and evaluation by others. The self-concept includes three components: 1. Self-worth (or self-esteem) – what we think about ourselves. Rogers believed feelings of self-worth developed in early childhood and were formed from the interaction of the child with the mother and father. 2. Self-image – How we see ourselves, which is important to good psychological health. Self-image includes the influence of our body image on inner personality. At a simple level, we might perceive ourselves as a good or bad person, beautiful or ugly. Self-image affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves in the world. 3. Ideal self – This is the person who we would like to be. It consists of our goals and ambitions in life, and is dynamic – i.e., forever changing. The ideal self in childhood is not the ideal self in our teens or late twenties etc.

THERAPY

• CLIENT CENTERED THERAPY: they are not patients, they are clients. Therapist and client are equal partners rather than as an expert treating a patient.
• The client is responsible for improving his or her life, not the therapist.
• The client consciously and rationally decides for themselves what is wrong and what should be done about it. The therapist is more of a friend or counselor who listens and encourages on an equal level, with empathy and no judgment.
• Techniques used are listening, accepting, understanding and sharing, which are more attitude-orientated than skills-orientated.

Client-centered therapy operates according to three basic principles that reflect the attitude of the therapist to the client:

1.The therapist is congruent and genuine with the client. 2.The therapist provides the client with unconditional positive regard : I accept you as you are. 3.The therapist shows empathetic understanding to the client

CONCLUSIONS

• Human being back to focus in psychology.
• Clients, no patients.
• Psychology of the normal being.
• Individual experiences matters.
• Experimental method is not important here, as the human being is not only biology.
• Needs and growth of human being.