Humanism: An Introduction
Humanism is a philosophical movement that emphasises the personal worth
of the individual and the centrality of human values. The Humanistic
approach rests on the complex philosophical foundations of
existentialism, and emphasizes the creative, spontaneous and active
nature of human beings. This approach is very optimistic and focusses
on noble human capacity to overcome hardship and despair.
Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
The idea that we are responsible for our own
lives, embodied in existentialism, is exemplified in the work of Carl
Rogers. However Rogers approach was extremely OPTIMISTIC. Rogers
believed that “The organism has one basic tendency and striving- to
actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism” (1951, p.
487).
Rogers believed that all people have a tendency
toward growth = ‘Actualization’. The need to maintain and enhance life.
The goal of existence is to satisfy this need. This desire to preserve
and enhance oneself is on one level:
Physical = staying alive by eating, keeping
warm, avoiding physical danger etc. On a higher level:
Psychological = self-actualization is about
testing and fulfilling our capabilities: seek out new experiences,
master new skills, quit boring jobs and find more exciting ones etc.
In the course of pursuing self-actualization,
people engage in what Rogers called the organismic valuing process.
Experiences that are perceived as enhancing to oneself are valued as
good and are therefore sought after. Experiences perceived as not
enhancing are valued as bad and are avoided. In other words, we know
what’s good for us!
Rogers used the term Fully Functioning Person
for someone who is self-actualizing. These people are OPEN TO
EXPERIENCING THEIR FEELINGS, don’t feel threatened by those feelings no
matter what they are. They trust their own feelings. They are open to
the experiences of the world. They live lives full of meaning, challenge
and fulfillment.
According to Rogers, the main determinant of
whether we will become self-actualized is childhood experience. Rogers
believed that it is crucial for children to receive positive regard,
that is affection and approval from the important people in their lives,
particularly their parents. Rogers believed it is important for us to
receive unconditional positive regard, that is affection and acceptance
with no strings attached. Often however, according to Rogers this regard
is conditional, it comes with strings attached. To be loved and approved
the child must be well-mannered, quiet, assertive, boyish, girlish,
whatever. These things are incorporated as conditions of worth. If the
conditions are few and reasonable then the child will be fine but if the
conditions of worth are severely limiting then self-actualization will
be severely impeded. According to Rogers, external conditions of worth
come to control more and more of a person's behaviour. We even start to
apply these conditions to ourselves. This pattern of self-acceptance and
self-rejection is called conditional self-regard. Eventually, a gap
opens between a person’s actions and his or her true self. The person
automatically covers over the split with perceptual distortions, denying
the conflict between self and reality. Rogers felt that theses
distortions can become so severe that they may lead to personality
breakdown.
Rogers: Self congruence
Rogers is sometimes called a self-theorist. He
assumed that the self doesn't exist at birth but that infants gradually
differentiate self from non-self. The self is constantly evolving.
One way of looking at the self is to look at the
ideal self and the actual self:
The ideal self is the person you’d like to be
The actual self is what you are now or even what
you THINK you are because remember from this perspective it’s all about
subjective perceptions.
When you are self-actualized then there is
congruence (i.e. harmony or agreement) between the real and the actual
selves. That is you become more like the self you want to be.
There’s a second kind of congruence and that is
between the actual self and experience. That is the experiences in life
should fit with the type of person you think you are. So there will be
incongruity if you think you’re generous but find yourself being mean to
someone or if you think your ruthless and you find yourself being soft
and mushy. If you think you’re clever and do badly in a test there will
be incongruence.
Incongruence is bad and means there is a
breakdown in your unitary sense of self. Incongruence leads to anxiety,
whether the incongruence is between actual & real self or between actual
self and experience. Rogers believed we defend ourselves against
incongruence or even the perceptions of incongruence.
Rogers: Incongruence and Defenses
This concept of defenses is very similar to the
psychodynamic concept. Rogers assumes 2 main categories of defenses:
1. DISTORTION OF EXPERIENCE: An example is
rationalization: creating a plausible but untrue reason for why
something is the way it is. OR another distortion of experience is when
you try to change you perception of an event from what you really know
it to be: you go out with someone other than your partner but tell
yourself that it doesn’t matter because your partner won’t mind.
2. PREVENTING THREATENING EXPERIENCES FROM
REACHING AWARENESS AT ALL: Denial serves this function.
Ultimately, defenses are there to maintain the
congruity or integrity of self. Defenses protect and enhance our
self-esteem.
Ed Deci (1975) - Self-Determination (Autonomy)
Rogers’ ideas are echoed in a more recent theory
of self-determination proposed by Ed Deci (1975) and expanded upon by
Deci and Richard Ryan (1980, 1985, 1987, 1991, 1995).
Some actions we perform are done to gain payment
or to satisfy someone else (their pressures or demands on us). These are
known as CONTROLLED actions (or introjected regulation). These are
“should”, “ought”: behaviour done to avoid guilt or anxiety, gain
self-approval, etc.
Some actions we perform are done so because they
have intrinsic value to the person, These are known as SELF-DETERMINED
actions (identified regulation). This is behaviour which is accepted as
personally meaningful and valuable We stay interested in performing a
behaviour if it’s self-determined. e.g. you’re more likely to stick with
this course and study hard if you are doing it because it has intrinsic
value for you, rather if it’s what your parents want you to do or even
if it’s because you think it will result in a good job and therefore you
pressure yourself.
There’s a wealth of evidence that shows that
promising someone rewards for working on an activity can undermine
people’s interest in them (intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation). However,
sometimes the presence of reward can increase motivation. Deci argues
that this is because reward has 2 aspects: a controlling (non
self-determined) aspect and an informational aspect. The informational
aspect tells you something about your skills. If the reward is telling
you you’re competent then it increases your motivation but if the reward
implies conditions of worth then the controlling aspect is more salient
and motivation decreases.
In other words, people are motivated by
self-determination and autonomy. WHY a person has various motivations to
do things, rather than what the aspirations are, is the key to
self-actualization.
Maslow (1970, 1987) - Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow began his psychological research
studying basic motivations of animals, but then shifted his focus to the
higher motivations of human beings. Abraham Maslow, like Rogers,
focussed on the positive. He was interested in the qualities of people
who get the most out of life. He was interested in what motivates them
(but his view of motivation was very different from what we looked at in
the dispositional perspective).
Hierarchy of Needs
He viewed human needs or motives as forming
a hierarchy.
1. PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS: At the bottom are the
basic, primitive needs for air, food, water - those things we HAVE to
have to survive
2. SAFETY AND PHYSICAL SECURITY NEEDS: shelter
from weather, protection against tigers etc. Very important but not
QUITE as important as the physiological needs.
3. LOVE AND BELONGINGNESS NEEDS: Companionship,
acceptance from others (like Rogers’ positive regard), affection.
4. ESTEEM NEEDS: needs for a sense of mastery
and power. Need for appreciation from others.
5. SELF ACTUALIZATION: similar use of the term
to the way Rogers used it. “The tendency to become whatever you’re
capable of becoming”: The highest of human motives. In trying to
describe the process of self-actualization, Maslow focused on moments
when self actualization was clearly occurring. Maslow used the term
“peak experiences” to refer to moments of intense self-actualization.
At these moments people feel connected to their surroundings and aware
of all the sounds and colours around them. There’s a loss of a sense of
time as the experience flows around you. You may feel awe, wonder or
even ecstasy. This is similar to what Csikszentmihalyi
(chick-sent-me-high) calls “flow” but he sees it not so much as joy or
ecstasy but rather as a period of intense concentration, with a slightly
elevated mood when time flows by very quickly.
Motives WEAKEN as go from the more primitive to
the higher needs (up the pyramid). In
general you need to deal with lower level needs before you can move onto
other needs.
Maslow: Self-Actualizing People
Characteristics of self-actualized people
according to Maslow (1968):
-
efficient and accurate in perceiving reality
-
are accepting of themselves, of other people
and of nature
-
are spontaneous in thought and emotion, rather
than artificial
-
are problem-centred - are concerned with the
eternal philosophical questions of humankind
-
are independent and autonomous
-
have a continued “freshness of appreciation”
of ordinary events
-
often experience “oceanic feelings” that is a
sense of oneness with nature
-
identify with all of humanity and are
democratic and respectful of others
-
form very deep ties but only with a few people
-
appreciate for its own sake the process of
doing things
-
have a philosophical, thoughtful, non-hostile
sense of humour
-
have a childlike and fresh creativity and
inventiveness
-
maintain an inner detachment from the culture
in which they live
-
may appear temperamental or ruthless as they
are strong and independent people guided by their own inner visions
Maslow suggested that from his observations
“probable” self-actualizers included:
Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, William
James, Albert Schweitzer, Aldous Huxley, Baruch Spinoza, Abe Lincoln
Studies have shown that only approximately 1% of
people self-actualize. Most others live between ‘love and belongingness’
needs and ‘self-esteem’ needs. Self-actualization is of course the
weakest of needs, and is easily impeded. Some people have a fear of
self-knowledge & entering into state of uncertainty. Sometimes cultural
norms stifle us e.g. ‘manly’. Many people feel the need for a balance
between safety and freedom.
Maslow: Transpersonal Psychology (1971)
Maslow proposed a ‘higher psychology’ which he
called Transpersonal psychology = beyond human. Toward the end of his
life, Maslow made a distinction between two different kinds of
self-actualizers. The type I’ve just described and others he called
“transcendent self-actualizers”. These people focus on mystical,
ecstatic, spiritual states, cosmic awareness, unitive consciousness,
etc. Self-actualization becomes the most important aspect of their
lives. They are motivated by beauty, truth, unity, religiosity. All
experience is sacred to them.
Maslow: Problems of measuring self-actualisation
Maslow used interviews, observations,
biographical studies, self-report questionnaires and projective tests to
“measure” self-actualization. It was and is a very loose approach to
measurement. It’s hard for theorists to agree precisely WHAT
self-actualization is and HOW to measure it. In other words it’s not
been tightly defined and operationalised. The concept of self
actualization provides some very interesting insights but it is hard to
actually verify self-actualization scientifically. One scale, the
Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) by Shostrom (1974), is a
self-report measure of self-actualization . research using this measure
finds the scale has various validity and reliability weaknesses but does
at least capture some aspects of a “healthy” personality (e.g. Burwick &
Knapp, 1991).
Therapeutic Approach
While humanistic and existential psychology both
stress freedom, they understand it slightly differently. For humanists,
freedom is liberation from limiting conditions of worth: once achieved
that will lead to self-actualization
Rogers ‘Client-centred Therapy’ (1951)
The best known and probably the most popular
humanistic therapy is Rogers “client-centred therapy”. Remember that
Rogers believed that human beings are intrinsically good and are
motivated to self-actualize. Self-actualization may be impeded by
conditions of worth so they need to be removed. REMOVING these
conditions of worth is the way to solve people’s problems. Client
centred therapy is the means to that end. Treatment is focussed on the
INDIVIDUAL. The therapist tries to see the world through the client’s
eyes so that the client will come to see his or her view of reality as
having value. The therapist empathizes with the client and offers
unconditional positive regard i.e. UNLIMITED ACCEPTANCE. By doing this,
the therapist hopes to induce the client to accept the totality of his
or her experience and thus facilitate unconditional positive
SELF-regard.
The therapist “hears” the client by mirroring
back the message they are getting from the client. They restate the
content and state the feelings they are picking up from the client. This
process helps the client clarify their feelings and not to feel
threatened when doing so. The touchstones of this approach are EMPATHY,
INTUITION, and UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD. Ultimately the client is
responsible for his or her own growth - the therapist just helps to
facilitate this process. .
Therapeutic Approach: ‘Group-based Growth and
Therapy’
Other types of “therapy” based on the
phenomenological approach to personality (whether existential or
humanistic) are group-based therapies. These growth groups offered
something lacking in everyday life at work, school, church, and within
the community. Some examples of various groups
based on this tradition are:
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Encounter Groups
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Gestalt Groups
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Sensitivity Training Groups
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Marathon Groups
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Sensory Awareness Groups, Body Awareness
Groups, Body Movement Groups
-
Creativity Workshops
-
Team Building Groups
-
Experiential Education (e.g. Adventure
programs)
Many of these groups are not really therapy as
such but are just meant to be beneficial to all. Encounter groups, which
were very popular in the 60s are given this name because the group helps
people encounter the reality of their own experiences more directly.
Although each type of group is different there
are some important similar features:
-
Encouraging people to get in touch with their
feelings
-
Encouraging people to get in touch with their
sensory experiences
-
Encouraging people to act out fantasies,
impulses and feelings within the group atmosphere of mutual trust
(safe place for change and growth) and unconditional positive regard
-
They offer social support, empathy,
encouragement, feedback
-
Exploration of possible new ways of being
socially, psychologically, and physically. The idea being to transfer
this growth to the rest of life.
-
Generally, this type of therapy is more likely
to be beneficial than not but not as good as individual therapy.
Better if the leaders use caring rather than confrontation. Group
leaders need to be properly trained or there can be negative effects.
Not marvellous for people experiencing SEVERE psychological distress.
-
The dark side to this process is
deindividuation - absorption in the group and a lessened sense of
individuality. This is the possible outcome of some of these groups.
Deindiviuation has a number of negative consequences such as
aggressive and antisocial behaviour
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