Developing individual in society Lecture 2 : 15/02/2021 Phenomenological Approaches Lecturer: Ava Horowitz Phenomenology - Interested in the subjective - Phenomenon : An observed fact or event - More interested in the persons perception of facts and events - Strong support of self-determination and free will - Looks at the individual as they are now, not their past or heredity - A humanistic approach = Sees people as good and as self-perfecting. Carl Rogers - Self Actualization Believed there was an inborn drive to reach our fullest potential. - Actualization : This inborn drive to fulfil our potential. - Self-actualization : We are driven towards 'congruence'. Wholeness, everything about us fitting together perfectly. - Allows us to become the 'fully functioning person'. A healthy adult. Positive regard: - The need for positive regard is important for self-actualization to occur. Acceptance, love, and friendship. - It was very important that children get unconditional positive regard from their parents, to be accepted and loved regardless of what happens. - This is internalised if it occurs in your early years and becomes unconditional self- regard. You think of yourself positively despite your mistakes or failures. - Conditional positive regard : You will only be loved if you are this sort of person or do these sort of things. - The requirements to gain conditional positive regard are known as conditions of worth: - These come from others and become internalised in the individual. - We then begin to only think well of our selves if we achieve these conditions of worth that others place upon us.
Conflict: - Rogers believed that due to this, there is a strong dispute between self-actualization and the need for positive regard. - Striving to meet others / your own conditions of worth are an obstacle to attaining your true potential according to Rogers. Rogerian therapy would be needed to resolve these conflicts and self-actualize. This is a 'pattern of difference'. There is a difference between what people can become, but there are patterns of how the conditions of worth that apply to people in society and various cultures, and how it produces such affects. Client-centred therapy - Created by Rogers to be a place of unconditional positive regard. - This attempts to help the patient become free of their conditions of worth. - They would work through their problems with the therapist, who would offer this unconditional positive regard. They will value you regardless of what you say in that room. - This would lead to self-actualization for the individual. Abraham Maslow - Hierarchy of needs - Also utilises the self-actualization but saw it as one need amongst many others. - Created a hierarchy in a pyramid, which displayed the needs from the most primitive and most demanding, to the most distinctly human and least demanding at the top. - If you did not reach one stage of the hierarchy, you could not meet the other needs above it. One could not worry about esteem needs without