Humanistic approach

Treatment and therapies

Getting you thinking

• Read section one of the handoutQ: what are the principles of humanism?

Basic principles

• Every person has their own unique way of perceiving the world

• Hence their method is not objective- relies on imagining what that person is like

• Exercise free will- a person can choose their behaviour and what happens to them

• Differs from Psychoanalysis (past ocntrolling the persons’ actions

• Differs from behaviourism (external stimulus conditioning us)• Differs from Biological ( Our genes and body making us who

we are)

If psychology…

• Endorsed the ‘soul’ as ‘US’, it would be from the humanistic perspective…

Background of this approach

• Developed by Cark Rogers • Bets known for-

unconditional positive regard with it’s therapy of: ‘Client centred approach’.

• With children: play therapy • Ranked 6th next to Freud of

the most influential psychologists of our time (globally)

• Inspired the work of Maslow: hierarchy of Needs

His Motto

• This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. (Rogers 1961)

Person (Client) centred approach: the principles

Principles • Operates according to:• The therapist is congruent

with the client • The therapist provides the

client with unconditional positive regard

• The therapist shows empathetic understanding of the client

Goals of the therapy• With three goals in mind: • increased self-esteem • greater openness to

experience

• Eventually reach• Self-actualisation

Congruent

• Genuineness• Being ‘real’ • “What I am feeling inside is present in my

awareness and comes out through my communication” (Rogers, 1965)

In terms of Goals:

• The goal of therapy from the humanistic orientation is to allow the client to achieve congruence in term of his real self and his ideal self. This means that what a person is and what he wants to be should become the same as therapy progresses.

Unconditional Positive Regard• Deep and genuine caring for the client

• May not approve of the actions of the client but approves of the client…

• Therapist: ‘I’ll accept you as you are’… • The client directs their own recovery through

feeling safe that they can say anything as the therapist has ‘unconditional positive regard’.

• Q: Is this possible?

Lets take a closer look: anyone been counselling?

• Do they try to link what you are saying to some earlier trauma?

• Might convince you this is where it stems from?

• Suggested regression?

• Anything wrong with these kinds of therapies?

Empathetic understanding

From Carl Rogers: "If I am truly open to the way life is experienced by another person...if I can take his or her world into mine, then I risk seeing life in his or her way...and of being changed myself, and we all resist change. Since we all resist change, we tend to view the other person's world only in our terms, not in his or hers. Then we analyse and evaluate it. We do not understand their world. But, when the therapist does understand how it truly feels to be in another person's world, without wanting or trying to analyse or judge it, then the therapist and the client can truly blossom and grow in that climate.“ (Rogers, 1975)

So what is mental illness then?

• Does not really have a theory on what is mental illness, rather how to treat it

• What they do say is: • Person is in a state of Incongruence• Is disassociated from their situation• They are not living in the moment with life• This makes them depressed • They are concentrating on the bad instead of the

good

How about psychosis?Does Humanism offer a treatment

• Psychosis originates from a label and stigmatism • , “As I accept myself as I am, only then can I change.” In

humanistic therapy, the therapist can help even a schizophrenic accept who they are by reflecting acceptance of the psychotic individual. This may culminate in curativeness, although perhaps not a complete cure. However, when the schizophrenic becomes more able to accept who they are, they can then change. Social acceptance is crucial for coping with schizophrenia, and social acceptance leads to self-acceptance by the schizophrenic. The accepting therapist can be a key component in reducing the negative consequences of stigma as it has affected the mental ill patient client

Person/ Client centred approach – steps

• The client directs their own recovery, but the therapist will take note of the following steps to judge its success and for the client to achieve the two goals:

• Handout• Anything good about these steps?• Any criticisms to these steps?

His therapy in Action: Adult

• 45 minutes video:• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24d-FEpt

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His therapy in action: Play therapy

• Handout http://www.minddisorders.com/Ob-Ps/Play-therapy.html

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Successes

• Handout:• Read section: Normal results • What is good about this therapy?• Effective?• Appropriate?

Abnormal results

• The failures…