Humanistic perspective

1. Humanistic Perspective
Instructor: Rustam Ali

2. Schools and Perspectives in Psychology
• Structuralism
• Functionalism
• Behaviorism
• Gestaltism
• Psychodynamic
• Biological Perspective
• Cognitive Perspective
• Existential Perspective
• Humanistic Perspective
• Cultural Perspective
• Islamic Perspective

3. Humanistic Perspective
• Humanistic perspective focus on the uniqueness of each individual.
• A humanistic perspective is an approach to psychology that emphasizes
empathy and stresses the good in human behavior.
• Focus on human potential and achievement
• Emphasizes that people are inherently good and pays special attention to
personal experiences and creativity.
• Attributes human characteristics and actions to free will and an innate drive
for the self actualization.

4. Main Key points
• Humanistic psychologists believe that an individual's behavior is connected
to his inner feelings and self-image.
• The humanistic perspective centers on the view that each person is unique
and individual, and has the free will to change at any time in his or her life.
• The humanistic perspective suggests that we are each responsible for our
own happiness and well-being as humans.
• We have the innate (inborn) capacity for self-actualization, which is our
unique desire to achieve our highest potential as people.
• Major thinkers of humanistic perspective are Abraham Maslow & Carl
Roger.

5. History of Humanistic Perspective
• Humanistic perspective emerged during the 1950's as a reaction to the
psychoanalysis and behaviourism that dominated psychology at the time.
• Psychoanalysis was focused on understanding the unconscious
motivations that drive behavior while behaviorism studied the
conditioning process that produce behaviour.
• Influence came from early Greek philosophers who believed human
beings were unique.
• Humanistic psychology was popularized After world war 2 and the cold
war.

6. Major Contributors
• 1943_Abraham Maslow described his hierarchy of needs in "Theory
of Human Motivation"published in "Psychological Review".
• 1951_Carl Rogers published "Client Centred Therapy" which
described his huministic, client_centred approach to therapy.
• 1961_ The "Journal of Huministic Psychology" was established.
• 1962 _American Association for Huministic Psychology was formed.
• 1971_Huministic Psychology becomes an APA division.

7. Abraham Maslow ( 1908-1970 )
Spiritual father of humanistic psychology

8. Abraham Maslow ( 1908-1970 )
• Abraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist
• Best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
• A theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human
needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.

10. Carl Rogers (1902 – 1987 )

11. Carl Rogers (1902 – 1987)
• Carl Ransom Rogers was an
American psychologist and
among the founders of the
humanistic approach in
psychology
Self Actualization
"The organism has one basic
tendency and striving - to
actualize, maintain, and enhance
the experiencing organism”
(Rogers, 1951, p. 487).

12. Self-concept
• Self-concept is how you perceive your
behavior, abilities, and unique
characteristics.
• For example, beliefs such as "I am a good
friend" or "I am a kind person" are part of an
overall self-concept

13. Self concepts
• Personality of a person revolve around the self concepts which we
made
• Childhood experiences
• Evaluation by others
• For a healthy growth of the personality of an individual he needs an
environment which gives him
• Genuineness
• Positive Regards
• Empathy
• These 3 factors lead to Self Actualization

15. Positive Regards create Self Worth
Unconditional Regards
• Leads to healthy personality
• Society accept person
• Self confidence
• Express his feelings freely
Conditional Regards
• Leads to unhealthy personality
• Low self esteem
• Dependent

17. Equilibrium
• For achieving self actualization a person must be in equilibrium with
his ideal self and self images
• Behaviour of a person depends upon the consistency of the idael self
and self image
• Ideal image=self image > stage congruence
• A person’s ideal self may not be consistent with what actually
happens in life and experiences of the person. Hence, a difference
may exist between a person’s ideal self and actual experience. This is
called incongruence.

19. Fully functioning person
• Open to experience
• Live in present
• Creative
• Trust feeling
• Fulfilled
• Happy life

20. Merits of Humanistic Perspective
• Shifted the focus of behavior to the individual/whole person rather
than the unconscious mind ,genes,observable behavior etc.
• Satisfies most people's idea of what being human means because it's
values personal ideals and self-fulfillment.
• Qualitative data gives genuine insight and more holistic information
into behavior.
• Highlights the values of more individualistic and idiographic methods
of study.

21. Demerits of Humanistic Perspective
• Unscientific-subjective concepts (can't objectively measure self -
actualization)
• Qualitative data is difficult to compare.
• Ignores the unconscious mind.
• Behaviourism -Human and animal behavior can be compared.

22. Thanks