The document explores the origins and essential assumptions of humanistic psychology and its role in transformative coaching, highlighting critical figures such as Maslow and Rogers. It discusses the potential dangers of wholesale introjection and critiques the humanistic tradition while emphasizing the importance of empathy, personal agency, and unconditional positive regard in coaching relationships. The author expresses hopes for the evolution of the humanistic approach to coaching, advocating for a balance between individual and collective perspectives and the continued richness of flexible coaching practices.

1. The Humanistic Tradition in
Transformative Coaching

2. What we’ll cover
● Origins & essential assumptions of humanistic psychology
● Its role in transformative coaching
● Dangers of wholesale introjection
● Critiques of the tradition
● My hopes for the humanistic tradition in coaching

3. 5
5. Integrative Principle
5 Animas Principles of Transformative Coaching
4
2
3
2. Humanistic Principle
3. Holistic & Systemic Principle
4. Psychological Principle
1
1. Phenomenological Principle

4. Origins and Assumptions of
Humanistic Psychology

5. Origins of Humanistic Psychology
● 2 schools of psychology plus divide of body and mind
● Post-war optimism
● Maslow (1908 - 1970)
● Rogers (1902 - 1987)
● Rejection of authority and professionalisation
● Human Potential Movement
● 1960s and 70s - counterculture
● Rollo May (1909 - 1994)

6. Essential assumptions
● Centrality of experience -
Epistemology
● Personal agency
● Self-actualising tendency - theory
of motivation
● Essential OKness and wholeness
of people
● Importance of finding the real self -
ontology
● Holistic nature of being
● Unconditional Positive Regard
● Vitality of relationship for
conditions of acceptance
● Non-directive approach
● Derived from values deemed as
positive and human

7. The Hierarchy of Needs

8. The Hierarchy of Needs

9. What is self-actualisation?
“to become more and more what one is, to become
everything that one is capable of becoming.
Abraham Maslow

10. Unconditional Positive Regard

11. Unconditional Positive Regard
“The individual has within him or her self vast resources
for self-understanding, for altering her or his self-concept,
attitudes, and self-directed behaviour—and that these
resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of
facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided.”
Carl Rogers

12. Rogers’ 6 Necessary & Sufficient
Conditions for Change

13. 6 Necessary & Sufficient Conditions for Change
1. Two persons are in psychological contact.
2. The client desires change but experiences stuckness.
3. The coach is congruent and authentic in the relationship.
4. The coach experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.
5. The coach experiences and communicates empathic
understanding of the client's internal frame of reference.
6. The client receives and feels the coach’s empathic understanding
and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved.

14. The function of the relationship

15. The function of the relationship
● Empathy creates trust and acceptance
● Client experiences themselves anew in the
relationship
● Dialogue facilitates change through awareness
and acceptance
● Coach and client are both essential to the
relational quality

16. The Humanistic Tradition in
Transformative Coaching

17. HP in Transformative Coaching
● Power of dialogue and personal inquiry
● Underlying unconditional positive regard
● Centrality of client’s experience
● Belief in growth and trust in client to move towards growth
● Holistic nature of the person
● What TC specifically introduces - a focus on mental
paradigms that derives more from constructivist theory and
practice

18. The danger of wholesale
introjection

19. The danger of wholesale introjection
● Rejection of the positivist, cognitive and logical dimensions
to coaching
● Overemphasis on the relationship in coaching
● Subtle imposition of humanistic values

20. Critiques of
the Humanistic Tradition

21. Critiques of the Humanistic Tradition
● Lack of clarity and basis on belief
● Supremacy of humans
● Over-privileging personal agency
● Focus on the self and the needs of
the individual
● Moral superiority as a shadow
● The poeticisation of human life
● Focus on a dualist self and other
approach
● Detached criticism of normal life
● Risks perpetuating existing
systems through personal
responsibility
● A determination to be the
bulwark against a damaging
world
● A over-focus on growth

22. My hopes for the humanistic
approach

23. My hopes for the humanistic approach
● That we can be non-judgemental to those
who fall outside our scope of easy
non-judgement
● That we can respect people’s ability to
respond as an individual does not diminish
the importance of the collective
● That we can trust in people to be robust
enough to recognise the truth without
having to soften the truth’s blow
● That our belief in people’s OKness is
granted to all, not just those we think are
OK!
● That the optimism espoused by
humanistic psychology is reflected in
how we, as change makers, face our
challenges together not hubristically as
critics looking in
● That believing in dialogue allows for
true communication instead of
process-driven pattern of interaction.
● And that coaching will continue to
benefit from the richness of flexibility
over professionalisation - just as
Rogers hoped.

24. Finish by celebrating
● Belief in essential OKness
● Belief in the individual’s ability to make a difference
● Belief in our capacity to grow and change
● Belief in dialogue
● Desire to focus on happiness