5. The Humanistic Approach

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we think about the humanistic approach, focusing in particular on: (i) its origin as Rogers and Maslow’s response to Freud’s unscientific approach and behaviourism’s overly clinical experimentation; (ii) the philosophy behind it, centring around people’s specific drives, wants and needs; (iii) the impact of humanistic psychology on the field of modern talking therapy, particularly in the Western world; (iv) the strengths of the approach, including its applicability to those both with and without psychological conditions; (v) the approach’s weaknesses, including its lack of potential for empirical testing.

Course

In this course, Dr Ayoub Bouguettaya (University of Birmingham) explores the five main psychological approaches. In the first lecture, we think about the psychodynamic approach and its famous founder, Sigmund Freud. In the second lecture, we consider the behavioural approach and its overt focus on observable phenomena. In the third lecture, we think about the cognitive approach and its views of human consciousness as abstract. Next, we consider the biological approach and its tight integration with modern medicine. In the fifth lecture, we think about the humanistic approach and its ubiquitous presence in modern therapeutic interventions throughout the Western world. In the sixth and final lecture, we consider how these approaches interact and overlap.

Lecturer

Dr Ayoub Bouguettaya is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham. Dr Bouguettaya’s research interests are in social psychology and how knowledge from that field can be applied to others, particularly health, including how we can apply social identity theory to societal problems, as well as investigating the different perspectives one might take on those issues. Some of Dr Bouguettaya’s recent publications include 'The relationship between gambling advertising and gambling attitudes, intentions and behaviours: a critical and meta-analytic review' (2020) and 'The Effect of a Food Addiction Explanation Model for Weight Control and Obesity on Weight Stigma' (2020).