3. Carl Rogers introduced the notion of a fully functioning person.
According to his theory, we all progress toward a state of fulfillment and
happiness unless derailed by life ’s obstacles. People who encounter
evidence that contradicts their self-concept often rely on distortion and
denial to avoid the anxiety this might create. People who grow up in
families that give only conditional positive regard may come to deny
certain aspects of themselves. Rogers advocated the use of
unconditional positive regard by parents and therapists to overcomethis denial.
4. Abraham Maslow introduced a hierarchy of human needs. According
to this concept, people progress up the hierarchy as lower needs aresatisfied. Maslow also examined psychologically healthy people.
He found several characteristics typical of these self-actualized indivi-
duals, including the tendency by some to have frequent peakexperiences.
5. One recent outgrowth of the humanistic approach to personality is
presented by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He finds people describe the
happiest and most rewarding moments in their lives in terms of a “flow”
experience. Csikszentmihalyi argues that turning one’ s life into a series
of challenging and absorbing tasks, what he calls optimal experiences, isthe key to happiness and personal fulfillment.
6. One of Rogers ’contributions to psychology is the person-centered
approach to psychotherapy. Rogers said the therapist ’s job is to create
the proper atmosphere for clients ’growth. This is accomplished by
entering a genuine relationship with clients, providing unconditional
positive regard, and helping clients hear what they are saying. Maslow ’s
hierarchy of needs concept has been applied to the problem of job satis-
faction. He argued that one ’s career provides an opportunity for personal
growth and that employers should arrange working situations to better
meet employees ’higher order needs.
7. Many person-centered therapists have adopted the Q-Sort assessment
procedure. This procedure allows therapists and clients to see discrepan-cies between clients ’images of themselves and the person they would
like to be. Therapists can administer the Q-Sort at various points duringtreatment to measure therapy progress. Improvement is seen when clientsclose the gap between their real and ideal selves.
8. Among the strengths found in the humanistic approach to personality
are the attention given to the positive side of personality and theinfluence this approach has had on psychotherapy and job satisfaction.
Criticisms include the unscientific reliance on free will to explain
behavior and the difficulty in dealing with many of the poorly definedconstructs used by humanistic theorists. Some therapists have
challenged the usefulness of person-centered therapy for many types
of clients and psychological problems. The humanistic approach hasalso been criticized for making many naive assumptions about
human nature.304 CHAPTER 11 The Humanistic Approach