HUMANISM

TOPIC OUTLINE
Abraham Maslow (Biography)
1.a Maslow's Hierarchy of needs

1.b Characteristics of Self-Actualized Person

1.c Qualities of Self-Actualizing Person

1.d Self-Actualizers that Maslow's Studied

1.e Maslow's Humanistic Psychology

1.f Basic Principles of Humanism

1.g Maslow's View on Motivation

1.h The Jonah Complex

1.i Contributions to Psychology

1.j Dynamics of Self-Actualization

1.k Criticisms about Maslow

ABRAHAM MASLOW

American psychologist who was best

known for creating Maslow's hierarchy
of needs

Born April 1, 1908, in Brooklyn, New York.

Abraham Maslow grew up in Brooklyn, New

York, the first of seven children born to his
Jewish parents who emigrated from Russia.

Maslow later described his early childhood as

unhappy and lonely, and he spent much of his
time in the library immersed in books.

He died in California on June 8, 1970,

due to a heart attack.
MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
 Characteristics of Self-Actualized Person
They are motivated by They share deep relationships
Embrace the unknown growth, with a few, but also feel
and the ambigous not by the satisfaction identification and affection
of needs. towards the entire human race.

They accept themselves, Self-actualized people Self-actualized people

together with all their flaws. have purpose. are humble.

They prioritize and enjoy the

They are not troubled Self-actualized people
journey, not just
by the small things. resist enculturation.
the destination.

While they are inherently

Despite all this,
unconventional, Self-actualized people
self-actualized
they do not seek to are grateful.
people are not perfect.
shock or disturb.
Qualities of Self-Actualized Person
Self-actualizing people tend to focus on problems outside themselves;
have a clear sense of what is true and what is false; are spontaneous
and creative; and are not bound too strictly by social conventions.

Truth Dichotomy Necessity Simplicity

Self
Goodness Aliveness Completion sufficiency

Beauty Unique Justice Playfulness

Wholeness Perfection Order Effortlessness

Self-Actualizers That Maslow Studied
Maslow based his study on the writings of other psychologists and
people he knew who clearly met the standard of self-actualization

Eleanor Roosevelt Albert Einstein Thomas Jefferson

Abraham Lincoln Jane Addams Realistic orientation

Acceptance of
themselves and
others

Spontaneity of
expression

Attitudes that are

problem-centered
rather than self-centered

Independence

Democratic Emotional Identification with

Philosophical
values depth humanity

Transcendence
of the Creativity
environment
Maslow's Humanistic Psychology

Maslow's thinking was original. Most psychologists

before him had been concerned with the abnormal
and the ill. He urged people to acknowledge their
basic needs before addressing higher needs and
ultimately self-actualization.
Basic Principles of Humanism

1. Someone's present functioning is their most significant aspect.

2. To be mentally healthy, individuals must take personal responsibility for their

actions, regardless of whether the actions are positive or negative.

3. Each person, simply by being, is inherently worthy. While any given action may
be negative, these actions do not cancel out the value of a person.

4. The ultimate goal of living is to attain personal growth and understanding. Only
through constant self-improvement and self-understanding can an individual ever
be truly happy.
Maslow's View on Motivation

Maslow has these basic assumptions regarding motivation:

Holistic approach to motivation

that is, the whole person, not any single part or function, is motivated.

Motivated is usually complex

that a person's behavior may spring form several separate motives.

People are continually motivated by one need or another

as one satisfied a need, another need replaces them

All people everywhere are motivated by the same basic needs

fundamentally the need for food, safety and friendship are common to
the entire species.

These needs can be arranged on a hierarchy

that these needsare grouped in different levels
The Jonah Complex

The Jonah complex is the fear of success which prevents self-

actualization, or the realization of one's potential.

Just as the fear of achieving a personal worst can motivate personal

growth, the fear of achieving a personal best can also hinder
achievement

originally suggested by Maslows friend,

Professor Frank Manuel. The name comes
from the story of the Biblical prophet
Jonah's evasion of the destiny to prophesy
the destruction of Nineveh.
Contributions to Psychology

Abraham Maslow shifted focus to look at the

positive sides of mental health.

His interest in human potential, seeking peak

experiences and improving mental health by
seeking personal growth had a lasting influence
on psychology.
Dynamics of Self-Actualization

To the extent a person finds cooperative

social fulfillment, he establishes meaningful
relationships with other people and the larger
world.

In other words, he establishes meaningful

connections to an external reality, an
essential component of self-actualization.
Criticisms about Abraham Maslow

Maslows Hierarchy of Needs has its share of criticisms. Some critics have
noted vagueness in what is considered a deficiency; what is a deficiency for
one is not necessarily a deficiency for another

Secondly, there seem to be various exceptions that frequently occur.

Maslow also regarded that the relationship between different human needs and
behaviour, being in fact often motivated simultaneously by multiple needs, is
not a one-to-one correspondence
TOPIC OUTLINE
Carl Rogers (Biography) 2.1.7.Outcome
2.Methodology Learner Centered- Teaching
Person- Centered Theory
3.Person of Tomorrow
2.1.1.Basic Assumptions
4.Criticism on Carl Rogers Theory
2.1.2.Self- Actualization
5. Rollo May (Biography)
2.1.3.Awareness
5.1 Soreen Kierkegaard (Biography)
2.1.4.Barriers to Psychological Health
5.1.2 Existentialism
2.1.5.Conditions of Client/Person- Centered
Therapy

2.1.6.Process and Stages of Therapeutic

Change
CARL ROGERS Rogers was born on January 8, 1902, in
Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
His father, Walter A. Rogers, was a civil
engineer and his mother, Julia M.
Cushing, was a homemaker and devout
Pentecostal Christian.Carl was the fourth
of their six children.

He entered the University of Wisconsin as

agriculture major.
Eventually, he entered the Union
Theological Seminary in New York where
he took several psychology and education
courses at the neighboring Columbia
University.

He then developed his approach to

therapy as non-directive technique
which eventually named as Client-
Centered Therapy and further evolved
into Person-Centered Theory.
Person Centered Theory

If the therapist is congruent and

communicates unconditional positive
regard and accurate empathy to the
client, then therapeutic change will
occur; if therapeutic change occurs, then
the client will experience more self-
acceptance, greater trust of self, and so
on.
Basic Assumptions

Formative Tendency
tendency for all matter, both organic and inorganic to evolve from simpler to
more complex forms.

Actualizing Tendency
tendency within all living things to move toward completion or fulfillment of
potentials.

Maintenance
includes basic needs similar to the lower needs on Maslows hierarchy of
needs.

Enhancement
willingness to learn things that are not immediately rewarding.
Self-Actualization

Ideal Self
an individuals view of self as one wish
to be. It involves all those qualities we
wish to possess.

Self- Concept
all those aspects of an individuals
being and experiences that are
perceived in awareness by an
individual.
Awareness

Ignored/Denied
these are experiences below the
threshold of our awareness.

Accurately Symbolized
experiences used to freely admit the
self- structure and are both non-
threatening and consistent with our
view of self.

Distorted
when our experiences are not
consistent with our view of self, we
reshape or distort the experience so
that it can become congruent to the
current self-concept.
Barriers to Psychological Health
Conditions of worth
Most people are unconditionally
accepted. Instead, they receive
conditions of worth; that is, they feel
that they are loved and accepted only
when and if they meet the conditions
set by others.

Incongruence
when self-concept and ideal self is
congruent
Vulnerability
the greater the incongruence
between our perceived self and
our organismic experience, the
more vulnerable we are.

Anxiety and Threat

these are experienced as we gain
awareness of such incongruence.
Defensiveness
protection of self- concept
whenever anxiety or threat is felt
due to the inconsistencies of
experience and self.

Disorganization
when defenses fail, it usually
results to disorganized or psychotic
episodes.
Conditions of Client- Centered Therapy

Counselor Congruence
therapist is congruent with the client where
unconditional positive regard and empathy is
provided.

Unconditional Positive Regard

attitude towards the client is genuinely
positive without possessiveness, evaluation,
and reservations.

Emphatic Listening
exists when therapist accurately sense the
feelings of their clients and are able to
communicate these perceptions so that the
client knows that another person has entered
their world without prejudice, projection, or
evaluation.
Process and Stages of Therapeutic Change
Stage 1
characterized by unwillingness to communicate
anything about oneself.

Stage 2
characterized by unwillingness to communicate
anything about oneself.

Stage 3
they may talk about themselves but may still
refer as an object or refer to past or future events.

Stage 4
begin to talk about deep feelings but not ones
presently felt.
Stage 5
expresses feelings in present, began to undergo
significant change and growth and accepts
responsibility for their choices.

Stage 6
They freely allow unto awareness those
experiences that they had previously denied
toward becoming fully functioning or self-
actualizing.

Stage 7
since growth was irreversible on Stage 6, this
stage occurs outside the therapeutic encounter.
Those who reach this level become fully
functioning.
Outcome
When the client-centered therapy is successful, clients become more congruent,
less defensive, and more open to experience and becomes more realistic.

Learner- Centered Teaching

A person cannot teach another person directly; a person can only facilitate
another's learning
A person learns significantly only those things that are perceived as being involved
in the maintenance of or enhancement of the structure of self

Experience which, if assimilated, would involve a change in the organization of self,

tends to be resisted through denial or distortion of symbolism

The structure and organization of self appears to become more rigid under threats
and to relax its boundaries when completely free from threat

The educational situation which most effectively promotes significant learning is

one in which (a) threat to the self of the learner is reduced to a minimum and (b)
differentiated perception of the field is facilitated
Persons of Tomorrow
Experience
Harmonious
Relationship
with others

More Adaptable More Integrated

Open to Basic Trust of

their experiences Human Nature

Live fully in Greater Richness

the moment in Life
Criticism on Carl Rogers Theory
Carl Roger was quite radical and different in urging people to relax their facades
and find their true selves.

He carried non direction to an extreme.

He thought the relationship that worked in therapy was a model for all social
relationships between humans.

He claimed Rogerian methods can be applied to each and every problem.

However, there is no evidence that biological problems like schizophrenia or autism
respond well to the Rogerian approach.
Finally, Rogerian therapy is sometimes reduced to the sterile technique of
"echoing" what a client says.

Rogers recommended that a Rogerian therapist repeat or paraphrase a client's

thoughts, in order to insure comprehension was taking place.

That is actually a valuable technique, but it can be silly if it is done too often or too
automatically.
Rollo May
His mother often left the
children to care for themselves,
May was born in Ada, and with his sister suffering
Ohio, on April 21, from schizophrenia, he bore a
1909. He experienced great deal of responsibility.
a difficult childhood
when his parents His educational career took him
divorced and his to Michigan State University,
sister was diagnosed where he pursued a major in
with schizophrenia. English, but he was expelled
He was the first son due to his involvement in a
of a family with six radical student magazine.
children.

After being asked to leave, he attended Oberlin College A victim of declining health,
and received a bachelor's degree in English. He later May died due to congestive
spent three years teaching in Greece at Anatolia heart failure at the age of 85. He
College. During this time, he studied with doctor and was attended in the end by his
psychotherapist Alfred Adler, with whom his later work wife, Georgia, and friends.
also shares theoretical similarities.
Soren Kierkegaard
Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic
and religious author who is widely considered to
be the first existentialist philosopher.

Kierkegaard's theological work focuses on Christian

ethics, the institution of the Church, the
differences between purely objective proofs of
Christianity, the infinite qualitative distinction
between man and God, and the individual's
subjective relationship to the God-Man Jesus the
Christ, which came through faith

He emphasized the balance between freedom and

responsibility. he wishes to understand people as
they exist in the world as thinking, active and
willing being.
Existentialism

Existential psychology is an approach to

psychology and psychotherapy that is based
on several premises, including: understanding
that a "whole" person and understanding
that people's lives have purpose, values, and
meaning.

This is a process that seeks meaning within

the whole of the person's existence, including
the client's personal history.

Care
Anxiety Guilt Intentionality Love
Will

Freedom and
Destiny
Criticisms
May believed that psychotherapists towards the end of the 20th century had
fractured away from the Jungian, Freudian and other influencing psychoanalytic
thought and started creating their own 'gimmicks' causing a crisis within the world
of psychotherapy.

These gimmicks were said to put too much stock into the self where the real focus
needed to be looking at 'man in the world'. To accomplish this, May pushed for the
use of existential therapy over individually created techniques for psychotherapy.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollo_May#Influences_and_psychological_background

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sze/maslow-the-12-characteris_b_7836836.html

https://www.learning-theories.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.html

https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html