The humanistic approach to psychology came into existence towards the mid of 20th century following the rejection of the previously existing systems known as psychoanalytic and behaviorist theories ( Schultz & Schultz, 2015 ). The humanistic system put emphasis on the individuals’ inherent drive towards self-actualization which involves expressing one’s own capabilities and creativity. While the psychoanalytic approach gave the human a pessimistic view and behaviorism saw human as outcomes of environmental influence, humanistic gave special attention and dignity to human beings by focusing on creativity, free will, and the positive human potential. This system provided a new set of values through which to approach an understanding of the nature of human beings as well as the conditions while at the same time offered a greater range of more effective means to apply in the professional practice of psychotherapy and psychology education. A humanistic approach to psychology is useful in promoting individuals’ realization of self-actualization, promoting positive behavior change in patients through self-awareness as well promoting the idea of self-concept and self-esteem among the students in psychology education.
Overview of Humanistic Lens
A humanistic approach to psychology is a perspective that focuses on human beings as a whole rather than as a component while at the same time emphasizing on various concepts such as self-efficacy, free will, and self-actualization. This approach dated back to 1950s as a response to the rejection of psychoanalysis and behaviorism that were dominant by then. Psychoanalysis emphasized the understanding of the unconscious motivations that model human behavior while behaviorism focused on the conditioning processes that yield human behavior ( Miller, Nash & Fetty , 2014). Humanistic approach emphasized the potential of individuals while at the same time stressing on the significance of growth and self-actualization. The need to achieve personal growth and fulfillment is considered by humanists as the main motivator of human behavior. This approach was developed by various key theorists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.
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The Significance of Humanistic System of Psychology
A humanistic approach to psychology is important because of its application in my real life situations. For example, it can be applied in the person-centered therapy to help the clients develop a sense of self-fulfillment which brings a positive thinking. Humanistic psychology can also be applied to education, motivation as well as recognition of human self-worth (Hoffman & Jackson, 2014). It helps the therapists to make the patients understand that they have full potential for self-actualization thus encouraging positive outcome to the patients. It further shifts its focus of human behavior away from unconscious mind and observable behaviors but rather emphasizes the need to understand the human behavior of a whole person. It treats a person as a whole being who cannot be reduced into parts. Also, humanistic approach recognizes the value for human beings as it seeks to understand the meaning of human existence through personal values and self-fulfillment. This approach does not believe in the quantitative data but rather on the qualitative data which provides clear insight and greater holistic information towards understanding human behavior.
Humanistic Assumptions and Principles
A humanistic approach to psychology makes existential assumptions that human beings have free will. This means that people make choices in their own lives. It also assumes that people are generally good, and they have the need to make themselves as well as the world better place. It emphasizes the need for the human worth, human values as well as creativity of individuals. The humanistic approach to psychology, therefore, gives value to human beings, encourages the need for personal growth, creativity and recognition of human values which are essential elements of human life ( Schneider, Pierson & Bugental , 2014). Abraham Maslow referred to personal growth and human fulfillment as the element of human motive. Every person seeks to continuously achieve personal growth through what he termed as self-actualization.
Towards the end of the 1930s, psychologist got interested in understanding the unique issues of human beings which included self-actualization, creativity, hope, love, individuality, and hope as well as the creation of a concrete meaning for the existence of human beings ( Fischer, 2012 ). Humanistic psychology relies on five basic principles which include; human beings supersede the sum of their parts and as such, they cannot be broken into components. Human beings exist in unique context and are aware of themselves through consciousness. It further notes that human beings have a free will to make choices, and they always have goals which they want to achieve as they seek value and meaning to their existence. A humanistic system is therefore significant in recognizing the nature and behavior of human beings. It gives value to human and recognizes that people seek to achieve certain goals as they seek the meaning of their existence.
Significance and Application of Humanistic
Clinical Setting/Therapy
In a clinical setting, humanistic psychology can be applied in counseling and therapy for the patients. The goal of humanistic therapy is normally to help the patient develop a stronger sense of self-actualization ( Waterman, 2013 ). It educates the clients that despite their condition, they have a potential for the self-fulfillment, which is usually insight based. The therapists try to offer an insight to the clients about their inner conflicts. By encouraging the patients to develop a sense of self-actualization and initiate positive thinking, they will be able to understand their condition and make necessary steps towards recovery. Person-centered therapy is based on the idea that having trust in one’s experiences and believing in one’s self is the most significant element for achieving self-fulfillment. Under the person-centered therapy, any abnormal behavior is deemed to be as a result of a person’s lack of self-trust which result in a distorted view of self. There exist an incongruity between the current view of the person and the ideal self. The person-centered therapy focuses on helping the patients gain self-confidence, self-understanding, and self-acceptance. This is achieved through empathy, warmth as well as creating a belief among the clients that whatever the client goes through, they are still worthwhile people in the society.
Person-centered therapy is usually non-directive in which the therapist listens to the clients’ point of view without any interruption or making any judgment so that the client can come to insight with himself ( Castonguay & Hill, 2012 ). The therapist ensures that all the feelings of the client are heard and taken into account while at the same time ascertaining that there is an environment of warmth and self-acceptance for the patient. The therapist engages in active long listening to the feelings of the client before making the client to understand himself and gain self-acceptance prior to counseling. While a therapist may not be completely non-directive, an environment accompanied with nonjudgmental and unconditional positive regard will initiate the feelings of acceptance and value among the clients.
Existential therapy is another field in which humanistic approach to psychology plays a key role. It emphasizes on the idea that human beings have freedom and choice to bring sense into their lives. People are free to define who they are and what they want to do. The client is then forced to seek for the meaning of their life while at the same time exploring the purpose. Human beings experience a conflict between exercising their freedom and the limitations such as culture. Existential therapy helps the clients resolve this kind of conflict by making them understand and explore the meaning of life even as they make free choices.
The humanistic approach to therapy can also be applied to the theory that was developed by Abraham Maslow. Maslow had a belief that people naturally motivated to develop their full potential as they strive to realize self-actualization. However, people get driven by needs in which he introduced a hierarchy of needs that people must fulfill as they strive towards self-actualization. These needs must be met in a hierarchical order for one to reach self-actualization. Failing to meet any need may block one from reaching the self-actualization goal. He believed that the psychological problems arise due to the difficulty that people face in trying to fulfill the self-esteem needs which will then prevent one from reaching self-actualization. The goal of the therapy is, therefore, to remove the distorted views that people have about themselves, help them improve their self-esteem while they continue on their path towards the self-actualization.
Empathy and self-help are some of the essential aspects of humanistic therapy. Empathy emphasizes the ability of the therapist to view the world like he is the client. The therapist seeing the world in the eyes of the client is essential in helping create positive mind change through the feeling of self-esteem and value. The therapist needs to apply an unconditional positive regard which requires the therapist to understand the care that he is required to offer to the client. The kind of interaction between the client and the therapist should be the one that allows for free flow of information and the therapist should not seem to have authority over the whole process. A humanistic approach to psychology requires the therapist to show the willingness to listen and understand what the client says. The therapist should ensure that there is a nonviolent communication that creates a positive feeling about the client. Humanistic psychology also applies to self-help because it is dedicated to changing the ways in which people think. Improvement is only possible when people decide to change their way of thinking about themselves. Humanistic psychology is applicable in many ways of providing therapy to the clients to facilitate one’s feeling of value and potential ability to improve.
Humanistic in Education
Humanism emphasizes the need to achieve the development of the child’s self-concept. It starts by making the learner feel good about himself. Having a positive feeling towards oneself is useful in understanding the strengths and weaknesses, and having the belief that one can always improve. Learning is not a one-time activity but rather a process that requires progress towards self-development. When self-development is achieved, it leads to self-actualization. The learning of children take place because of the inner drive, and the reward is driven by the development of the sense of achievement that learning leads to some reward. While the behaviorism theory of psychology is of the opinion that learning is due to the expectations of the extrinsic rewards, humanistic approach to psychology is of the view that learning occurs because the students have an expectation that learning something affords ( Grogan , 2012). Extrinsic rewards are those rewards from outside such as money and praise while intrinsic rewards are those rewards from within oneself. The humanistic approach to psychology focuses on intrinsic rewards other than extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards for learning include self-motivation and achievement of self-actualization. A humanistic reward for education involves self-reward other than expecting rewards from outside.
Humanistic psychology requires the teachers to focus on developing the self-esteem of the child so that the children can feel good about themselves as they learn. Self-esteem and a feeling of the ability to set own goals and achieve them can lead to self-efficacy ( Grogan , 2012). Such method of learning is known as child-centered education which makes the child take responsibilities for their own learning. Both the positive reinforcement and praise that is advocated for by the behaviorism theorists is rejected by the humanists. Praise and rewards can be dangerous to children as it can make learners put many efforts towards receiving praise and rewards other than self-gain and achievement from education. If education is to prepare the students for the future then the humanistic approach becomes the correct choice for the teachers and the students. A teacher under humanistic approach act as a facilitator other than a disseminator of knowledge. They should be concerned with the emotional needs of the child. A positive feeling is essential for the facilitation of learning.
Due to the individual differences between the students, it is appropriate that the teachers offer a different learning experience for the students. The humanistic approach to psychology in education argue that what is lacking in education is congruity approach. Using many alternatives in education provide many valuable outcomes that reflects genuine differences between the students, teachers as well as subjects ( Friedman& Robbins, 2012 ). The humanistic approach focuses on promoting the growth of the individual students as a whole. Humanistic have a view that education is a process through which the students can learn to increase their knowledge to interact effectively with their environment. Education is a continuous process rather than just a one-time activity. Humanistic approach sees education as a component of three parts which include learning, valuing and acting. Learning involves cognitive understanding whereas valuing involve developing attitudes towards what we have learned.
The humanistic approach to teaching focuses on the role of non-cognitive variables in learning. What students need are emotions, values, and the self-perceptions. The focus is to ensure that meaning is created to the students so that they get motivated to learn. Humanistic requires the students to understand their own reasons for certain behavior that they depict. The students are made to believe that the environment around the classroom can support their learning. Learning is facilitated by the feeling the students have about their ability to learn. Abraham Maslow argues that that letting students grow is the best way to encourage learning. Teachers need to help the students improve their potential through their needs satisfaction. Under the humanistic approach, six features of the teacher are identified which include understanding the needs of the students, understanding their values, motives, self-perception as well as establishing positive thinking among the students ( Friedman& Robbins, 2012 ). Under the humanistic approach, students can openly discuss their opinions and feelings which can be helpful in promoting learning among them.
Self-actualization remains the main goal of the humanistic approach to teaching. The major reason why people learn is to pursue their own self-actualization needs. Self-actualization is the main instinct for people and acts as the motive and driving force that make people learn. The humanistic approach is opposed to taking students acceptor who does not have emotions. Rogers believes that students need to develop freely and have a positive attitude towards their learning. Teaching needs to apply safe psychological environment that promotes the students to set their own inner potentiality. Under the humanistic approach, Maslow suggests that the relationship between the teachers and students needs to be one of interpersonal relationship and emotional communication ( Medlock , 2012). Students require a sense of warmth, love, care, and recognition from the teachers so that they can realize their own potential. Teachers must, therefore, create a harmonious relationship between them and students in which they express emotions and unconditional care for the students. Understanding and caring for the emotions of the students is essential for motivating the students and encouraging learning and growth.
A humanistic system has been considered useful in promoting learning among the students. By focusing on making students understand their potential and the ability to improve, it facilitates the positive attitude towards learning amongst the students. Unlike the behaviorism which pays little attention to the self-actualization of individuals, humanistic system focus on the ability of the learner to achieve self-actualization motives. They start by first developing an interest in learning with the view that it provides self-reward. Unlike the behaviorism which sees learning to be driven by the extrinsic rewards, humanistic involves students expecting the rewards from within themselves. They view learning as something that will provide them with self-satisfaction and achievement which will then lead to self-actualization. It emphasizes the ability of people to decide and determine their own destiny and what they want to achieve in life.
Humanistic approach specifies various features that can be useful in enhancing learning and growth amongst the students. The learning environment should be able to provide an exciting and pleasurable environment where students can enjoy learning. The teachers should capitalize on the interests of the students while at the same time offering an opportunity for the students to have intellectual growth. Creating positive relationships that lead to satisfaction helps create a strong sense of competence, identity, expectations of success as well as higher levels of achievement. Failing to offer the learners with the feeling of emotional care can lead to behavioral problems, reduced interests in schools and lower achievement in school. Therefore, humanistic approach to psychology emphasizes the need to be sensitive to the feelings of the students, develop positive self-concepts amongst learners while at the same time help the students achieve self-actualization.
Criticisms of Humanistic
A humanistic approach to psychology has been criticized by many scholars for various reasons. First, critics argue that humanistic approach ignore biology. Furthermore, other critics have noted that humanistic approach is unscientific as it ignores objective evidence and rather focuses on the subjective concepts. Humanistic approach has also made a comparison of human behavior using animals, and the critics have noted that it is impossible and unrealistic to make a comparison of human behavior with that of animals ( Hoffman, Lopez & Moats, 2013). The human behavior cannot be compared to that of animals. The humanistic approach also had a belief in free will. Critics have described this as an opposition to the deterministic laws of science. Other critics have also criticized humanistic approach for making naïve and premature assumptions that do not have objective evidence. The approach has poor testability as humanistic concepts are difficult to operationally define and test scientifically. The theory has also been criticized for just providing a description of personality instead of giving a deeper explanation of it thus making it narrow.
Conclusion
The humanistic system of psychology is useful in promoting individuals’ realization of self-actualization, promoting positive behavior change in patients through self-awareness as well promoting the idea of self-concept and self-esteem among the students in psychology education. Learning has been made easy amongst students as a result of the application of the humanistic system. Learners are encouraged to have self-esteem and determination to achieve their full potential which will, in turn, help them achieve self-actualization. Furthermore, it has been successfully applied in person-center therapy where the focus is for the clients to develop a sense of self-fulfillment which make them feel that despite their condition, they are still valued and recognized. Unlike the behaviorism and psychoanalytic which focus on the pessimistic view of human beings and viewing human behavior as a product of the environmental influence, humanistic focus on the value for human beings and ability to achieve self-actualization. It is therefore useful in understanding the human being as a whole rather than as a component.
References
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