OCR Psychology A Level Book 2 sample

Humanistic explanation of schizophrenia The humanistic approach rejects the assumptions and even the language of both the medical and psychodynamic approaches. This is discussed in the key research by Thomas Szasz on The myth of mental illness (page 44). Schizophrenia is not a disease and people with schizophrenia are not ill; it is not the result of unconscious forces of which the person is unaware. The humanistic explanation emphasises the conditions that lead to health and well-being rather than the symptoms of illness. Active and holistic People with schizophrenia are not passive carriers of symptoms. Like the rest of us, they are active participants in their own ‘life journey’. In understanding the causes of schizophrenia and how patients can be helped, the humanistic approach focuses not on some narrow aspect of psychological functioning but on the whole person. Striving for meaning and growth According to humanistic psychologists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, all of us strive to make sense of our existence in the world, to give it meaning—this is typical of ‘normal’ development. The person with schizophrenia (or any other mental ‘disorder’) does not have an ‘illness’ but is experiencing a form of immaturity. Their development into a healthy and fulfilled person has been blown off course by whatever circumstances forced them to become dysfunctional and develop schizophrenia (e.g. stress, abuse and neglect in childhood). So schizophrenia is an interruption of the normal developmental process towards emotional growth. The person with schizophrenia has to make a new connection with the world. Therefore, the aim of humanistic therapy is to provide the right conditions to help people return to personal growth and the path to maturity. No specific symptoms are treated because the aim of the therapy is to address the whole person and not any particular characteristic. Self-esteem and parenting According to Rogers, schizophrenia is one possible dysfunctional outcome of a lack of unconditional positive regard from parents towards their children. Harsh, abusive, neglectful parenting—or parenting that makes love conditional on behaviour—can drastically lower the child’s self- esteem, causing greater vulnerability to schizophrenia in adulthood. Research evidence Avi Assor and Karen Tal (2012) measured the self-esteem of 153 adolescent participants. They also measured the extent to which the participants perceived that their mothers offered conditional positive regard for academic achievement. That is, did the mothers use a parenting strategy in which they praised, appreciated and loved their children only when they succeeded at school? Conditional positive regard was a strong predictor of negative feelings towards the self (i.e. fragile and unstable self-esteem) in these adolescents. The researchers argue that adolescents may deal with negative feelings by using inflexible and stressful coping mechanisms that make them vulnerable to mental disorders such as schizophrenia. check your understanding 1. Explain what Rogers meant by unconditional positive regard. 2. What is the difference between the ideal self and the real self? 3. Explain how reduced self-esteem can lead to depression. 4. Outline one study into the humanistic explanation of depression. 5. Explain how schizophrenia can be seen as a form of developmental immaturity. 6. Outline the relationship between schizophrenia, self-esteem and parenting. 7. Describe one piece of research into the humanistic explanation of schizophrenia. Humanistic psychology In the 1950s a number of psychologists developed humanistic psychology as a reaction against the then dominant approaches in psychology — behaviourism and psychoanalysis. They felt that these traditional approaches overlooked the role of free will and self- determination in human behaviour. Carl Rogers was one of the founders of humanistic psychology. He is regarded as the second most important clinician (a person treating mental illness) after Sigmund Freud (Haggbloom et al. 2002). Rogers’ person- centred approach to therapy introduced the idea of counselling which underlies much of our everyday approach to helping people, from telephone helplines to most modern psychotherapies. Counselling or client-centred therapy involves the therapist summarising what the client has said, so that the client can restructure their own thinking, consider their own feelings and develop understanding of their own thoughts. This then allows them to self-actualise. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs You can assess where you are on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs here: tinyurl.com/z8dpz. Click ‘Next’ to complete the questionnaire. This questionnaire asks you a series of questions that will tell you where you stand in each level of the hierarchy. You could try this questionnaire at various points in the academic year and see if your results change. Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) Abraham Maslow was another founder of the humanistic approach in psychology. His hierarchy of needs was described as part of one of your core studies—Hancock et al. ’s study of psychopaths. Maslow (1943) claimed that we are motivated to satisfy our needs from the most primitive (physiological such as food and sex) to the most sophisticated (self-actualisation). A person with mental illness may not be able to satisfy higher-level needs because lower-level ones are not fulfilled. Carl Rogers (1902–1987) Courtesyof theRobertD.FarberUniversityArchives& SpecialCollectionsDepartment,BrandeisUniversity 39 Background: The humanistic explanation of mental illness