{"id":2173,"date":"2013-06-03T08:22:17","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T08:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/counsellingtu.onpressidium.com\/?page_id=2173"},"modified":"2021-11-01T07:45:03","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T07:45:03","slug":"humanistic-school-of-psychology","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/counsellingtutor.com\/humanistic-school-of-psychology\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanistic school of Psychology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\tHumanistic Approach to Counselling\n\t<\/h1>\n\t

The humanistic approach to counselling is a<\/b> relatively new approach in Psychology named the ‘third force<\/strong>‘, a term coined by American psychologist Abraham Maslow<\/strong><\/a> in 1968.<\/p>\n

Carl Rogers adopted Humanistic theory into his Person Centred therapeutic model.<\/p>\n

Humanism rejected assumptions of human behaviour based on behaviourism<\/strong>, the psychology of shaping individuals’ behavioural patterns using punishment and reward, a technique developed in animal experiments by psychologists such as John B Watson and B.F. Skinner.<\/p>\n\t

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Humanism also rejected the psychodynamic approach<\/strong>, because it relied on the therapist analysing the client<\/strong>, not seeing them as individuals with a unique world view. The psychodynamic approach believes that subconscious desires drive human behaviour<\/strong>. This idea is known as ‘Drive Theory’ a concept developed by Austrian psychologist\u00a0 Sigmund Freud.<\/p>\n

Humanist thinkers believed that both behaviourism and psychodynamic approaches are deterministic<\/strong>, meaning that humans beings lacked free will<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Humanism blossomed in the throughout 1970’s-80’s influencing education, social work and healthcare provision especially in the UK.<\/p>\n\t

Unlike psychoanalysis which placed an emphasis on unconscious drives which had to be analysed and interpreted by the therapist, or behaviourism which believed children were born ‘Tabula Rasa’ or a wax slate which could be smoothed and moulded by the stimulus of punishment and reward, humanism believes that individuals are a product of their own subjective experience.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\t

Key Principles<\/h2>\n\t

1. It offered a new perspective on how human beings experienced the world<\/strong> and those in it, based on their perception of the world around them. It put individual conscious perception at the heart of the human experience<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t

2. It provided an expanded horizon of methods of inquiry in the study of human behaviour<\/strong>. It focused on the personal perception of themselves and others. One of the key elements of the approach is that human beings are not solely the product of their environment; they are internally directed to fulfil their potential<\/strong>, sometimes referred to as ‘self-actualisation<\/strong>‘ (Maslow 1968).<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"Humanism\n\t

3. It changed the way psychotherapists approached the treatment of those who were having emotional difficulties. They relied less on analysis and directing the client<\/strong>. Humanistic approaches put an emphasis on the client’s world view or internal frame of reference<\/strong> (Rogers 1980).<\/p>\n\t

One of the greatest champions of Humanisms was American psychologist Carl Ransom Rogers,<\/strong> a contemporary of Maslow, who in the 1950s developed a humanistic approach to psychotherapy<\/strong> which he named Person-Centred Therapy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t

Unlike psychoanalysis which placed an emphasis on unconscious drives which had to be analysed and interpreted by the therapist, or behaviourism which believed children were born ‘Tabula Rasa’ or a wax slate which could be smoothed and moulded by the stimulus of punishment and reward, humanism believes that individuals are a product of their own subjective experience,<\/strong> a position in philosophy know as phenomenology<\/strong>, the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness.<\/p>\n\t

Critique of Humanism<\/h3>\n