Namaskar.
In this course positive psychology, the first
class is on introduction to psychology and
historical background of positive psychology.
In this class, I will cover introduction to
psychology, its branches, perspectives of
psychology and then humanistic perspective
in detail as historical background of positive
psychology.
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior
and mind or sometimes what we call cognitive
processes.
Psychology is the scientific study of human
thoughts, feelings and behavior and in this
field we study how people act, how people
think and how people feel.
So broadly, psychology deals with human behavior,
internal as well as external behavior.
So, if we say internal behavior, then mind
and cognitive processes and if we say overt
behavior, then the observable behavior of
an individual.
Different psychologists have addressed this
behavior and cognitive processes differently.
There are various schools in psychology in
which they had unique style to address behavior
and cognitive processes.
Let us take some examples.
For example, first perspective in psychology
is structuralism.
Important contributors of this school are
Titchener, Wilhelm Wundt and their associates.
It aims to identify the basic elements or
structures of psychological experiences.
Another school is functionalism.
They focus more on functions of mind.
William James is important contributor as
well as he had various associates who have
explored functionalism with him.
It attempts to understand why animals and
humans have developed the particular psychological
aspects that they currently posses.
So, broadly function of conscious experiences
are being studied under this perspective.
Another perspective is psychoanalysis or psychodynamic.
It focuses on the role of our unconscious
thoughts, feelings and memories and our early
childhood experiences in determining behavior.
There are various important contributors in
this field like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung,
Adler, Erik Erikson and their associates.
Another perspective is cognitive which focuses
more on thinking process.
Main focus is on the study of mental processes
including perception, thinking, memory and
judgment and Hermann Ebbinghaus and Piaget
have been main contributors of this field.
Behaviorism is another perspective, which
focuses more on over behavior rather on cognitive
processes.
Watson and Skinner are important contributors
along with their associates and this approach
is only concerned with observable stimulus-response
behaviors and it states all behaviors are
learned through interaction with the environment.
Another perspective is trait perspective and
trait theorists are primarily interested in
the measurement of traits which can be defined
as habitual patterns of behavior, thoughts
and emotions.
Allport, Cattell, Eysenck and various other
scholars have worked under this perspective.
So, if just revisit all the perspectives,
these perspectives are saying that our behavior
is determined by certain factors.
Like, psychodynamic or psychoanalysis perspective
says that our behavior is mainly determined
by our childhood experiences.
Cognitive psychologists said our behavior
is mainly contributed by our thinking process
and behaviorist is saying that it is learned
behavior in terms of stimulus response and
they have given importance to environmental
factors.
On the other hand, trait psychologist is saying
that our personality is composition of certain
traits and these traits are habitual patterns
of behavior thoughts and emotions.
So, to some extent, we can consider that our
behavior is determined by certain factors,
which are described differently by different
perspectives.
Contrary to all previous perspectives, humanistic
perspective focuses on the free will.
Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow have been main
contributors of this school along with some
other associates.
They believe that you are essentially good
and that you are motivated to realize your
potential.
So humanistic perspective as I mentioned earlier
also, it is actually focusing on free will
and they are saying that we are programmed
to grow.
So, let us know a little bit more about these
perspectives.
So that in next classes whenever I give reference,
one could easily understand what does it mean.
So, if we just talk about basic unit, basic
unit as per these perspectives are:
Behaviourism - learnt behaviour and here we
study stimulus response connections, cognitive
processes, thinking processes but our main
focus in S-O-R series is on O. O means organismic
process or cognitive processes.
Psychoanalysis/psychodynamics, they focus
mainly on unconscious mind which is contributed
by our childhood experiences.
For type and trait psychologist, basic unit
for studying human behavior is traits and
as I mentioned humanistic perspective saying
that we have free will and we are programmed
to grow.
If we just count some other factors along
with these basic units, I think we can understand
a little bit more about these perspectives.
If we just count how did they define normal
behavior, how did they define abnormal behavior,
what was their methodological processes and
which psychotherapies they proposed to study
human behaviour.
In next slide, I will discuss these perspectives
in terms of how they defined normal behaviour,
abnormal behaviour, the research methodology
as well as psychotherapies which were proposed
by these different schools; however, Indian
perspective is also important but it will
be discussed later in detail.
So, when we say as per these perspectives
what is normal behaviour, what is abnormal
behaviour and what are the therapies proposed
by these schools as well as their research
methods.
So, let us take one by one for understanding
a little bit more about each perspective.
Cognitive perspective as I mentioned earlier
also, they mainly focus on thinking process.
So as per this perspective, what is normal
behavior?
If we have adaptive thinking processes, then
we have normal behaviour.
Then what is abnormal behaviour as per this
school?
As per this school, abnormal behaviour is
maladaptive thinking processes and they have
proposed cognitive therapy also.
Counselors design the therapy to correct maladaptive
thinking process.
They have used various methods to collect
data to define human behaviour like interview,
psychological testing, case studies, etc.
Let us take another perspective, you will
find totally different style here to define
human behaviour in terms of normal as well
as abnormal and the therapies are quite unique
as compared to previous perspective.
Psychoanalysis/psychodynamic - they have focused
on unconscious mind and they are saying that
causes of normal and abnormal behaviour are
mainly in our childhood experiences.
Childhood experiences - if we had normal,
then we have normal lifestyle.
However, in some cases, we may have traumatic
childhood experiences.
Suppose in some situations, childhood was
filled with anxiety, conflicts, unfulfilled
desires, traumas, etc., which is reflecting
in our unconscious mind, that is cause of
abnormal behaviour as per this school.
For therapies, they are mainly focused on
hypnotism and dream analysis.
In methods, they had hypnotism, dream analysis,
projective techniques, and case studies, etc.
They counted that dream analysis is the royal
road of unconscious mind.
Another perspective to define human behaviour
is behavioral perspective and they have mainly
focused on learnt behaviour.
So, what are normal behaviours as per this
perspective, what are abnormal behaviours
and way of treating abnormal behaviour that
is again a unique style.
For example, for normal behaviour, they said
conditioning results in reward and punishment
and S-R connections.
So, if we have normal S-R connections or we
have adaptive conditioning, so in that case,
actually we have normal behaviour.
But in some settings, some wrong things are
reinforced and that is why we have faulty
conditioning style, so that is why we have
faulty learnt behaviour that is cause of abnormal
behaviour.
Deconditioning of faulty conditioning style
and establishing adaptive conditioning style
by using reinforcement is subject matter of
their therapies.
So, in their therapies, first of all, they
identify faulty conditioning style, then they
decondition this style and then they establish
adaptive conditioning style by using some
reinforcement strategies.
They used experimental method and verbal reports.
They outrightly rejected subjective views
of collecting data or subjective way of getting
data to define human behaviour.
They outrightly focused on experimental method,
I think it is most scientific research method
in psychology and that is why we are able
to say psychology is a science.
You know experimental method is very important
to have reliable, valid, universal studies
and very very objective results we get through
experimental method.
Another perspective is type and trait psychology
perspective and they have mainly focused on
traits, and traits define our personality.
Then as per this perspective what is normal
and abnormal behavior?
Normal personality traits as per this perspective
are causes of normal behavior and these traits
are actually result of heredity and environment
and their interaction.
So, then what are the causes of abnormal behaviour?
As per this school, we may have abnormal behavioral
traits and there are individual differences.
They also focus on physiological reactions
for example strong versus weak sympathetic
nervous system.
Some of us have very strong sympathetic nervous
system that is why emotionally stable patterns
we have.
On the other hand, some of us have weak sympathetic
nervous system and due to this weak sympathetic
nervous system, we have higher emotional reactions.
However, they have considered that the triggers
of a normal behaviour are in the environment
and we have some environmental situations
which are triggering our emotional reactions
and some of us are more emotionally unstable,
that is why more reactions we have towards
depression, anxiety, stress, etc.
Then what are the ways of treating abnormal
behavior?
Because they rely more on heredity that is
why they said least chance of changing someone’s
behaviour.
However, they observed that there are some
environmental causes of abnormal behaviour
and accordingly we can borrow certain therapies
from different perspectives.
For example, they said for treating faulty
conditioning style, conditioning strategies
can be used.
If we observe learnt behaviour is the cause
of abnormal behaviour, then behavioural therapies
can be borrowed from behavioural psychologist.
On the other hand, if we find causes of abnormal
behaviour are in childhood experiences, then
psychoanalytic therapies can be borrowed.
Cattell also proposed psychotherapy by structured
learning theory.
However, one cannot understand this therapy
without knowing his theory in detail.
He said adding or dropping some new patterns
in our behaviour is just like throwing pebble
in the pond and we can easily get change in
whole personality, rather just adding or dropping
particular behavioural patterns.
For example, when we start to do yoga or meditation,
this yoga or meditation is not only one aspect
in our personality, which is added here, rather
it has reflection in all aspects of our personality.
It is just like throwing pebble in the pond,
on the other hand if someone starts to take
medicines or someone starts to take drugs,
in this case taking drugs is not only one
aspect getting added in his personality, but
it will reflect in all other aspects of his
behaviour.
Another I think very very significant contribution
of type and traits scholars is psychological
testing.
Maximum work has been done by this school
to establish psychological testing in psychology.
You know, rigorous statistical techniques
we use to develop psychological test and we
have item analysis, we do factor analysis,
we calculate reliability, validity and norms,
etc. to establish psychometric properties
of a scale.
Another perspective is humanistic perspective.
This perspective is very important for us
because it forms historical background of
positive psychology.
Here, we just know what it means when we say
normal behaviour, what are the causes of abnormal
behaviour and what is the therapy to treat
abnormal behavior and their technique.
And, in details it will be discussed later.
So normal behaviour as per this school is,
we are programmed to grow and we are growing,
but sometimes, we have incongruence between
real and ideal self - that is cause of abnormal
behaviour.
Roger has proposed Rogerian therapy to treat
abnormal behaviour and their technique is
Q sort technique, which will be discussed
later in detail.
American Psychological Association has identified
54 divisions in psychology.
I think you should know how many fields in
psychology we could have.
So, you could study 54 courses in psychology
and broadly these schools have different reasons
to have different branches.
So, these reasons may be:
First reason is basic psychology versus applied
psychology.
In some branches of psychology, we focus more
on theoretical aspects and our interest is
to understand human behaviour.
On the other hand, in other branches, we focus
more on applications.
For example, in positive psychology which
we are trying to understand concepts, how
do we assess these concepts and theoretical
interpretation of positive behaviour, on the
other hand in applied positive psychology,
our focus would be more on applications.
So, we may have various divisions in psychology
in which, we on the basis of this basic versus
applied aspects may have different branches
like positive psychology versus applied positive
psychology, social psychology versus applied
social psychology, etc.
Some psychologies are based on context and
can say contextual psychology.
We study behaviour and cognitive processes
in particular context - like behaviour and
cognitive processes in environmental setting,
so environmental psychology; in social setting,
social psychology; in cultural setting, cultural
psychology; in community setting, community
psychology; in organizational setting, organizational
psychology, so like that there are various
branches in which we study behavior in particular
context and this context is one branch of
psychology.
Another criteria could be stage, age wise
we have different branches in psychology like
child psychology, adolescent psychology, adult
psychology and in developmental psychology.
We address human behaviour as per different
stages.
Some branches are based on behavioural variation
like abnormal psychology, positive psychology,
clinical psychology, counseling psychology,
etc.
In 21st century, there are some branches which
are highlighted more as compared to others
like cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary
psychology, cultural psychology and even positive
psychology is also highlighted in 21st century
psychology.
Our next topic is humanistic perspective and
positive psychology.
In this area, we would like to know what is
the historical background of positive psychology.
Before knowing positive psychology, I think
we should know how this field has been very
important and even before its independent
initiation as positive psychology we had some
scholars who worked on positive aspects of
human personality.
So, then I think it will be easy to identify
how some of these constructs are already revealed
by psychologists before starting positive
psychology as an independent discipline.
So, self-efficacy you know self-efficacy the
mode that I can do.
So, Albert Bandura did wonderful work in this
area.
There were various prevention programs which
were already established by Albee and Cohen
and they did research on normal individuals
to improve their well being and well documented
prevention programs are there.
There are various researchers who worked on
happiness, on resilience, on optimism, and
other cognitive and emotional processes which
are highlighted now in positive psychology.
If we just talk about different perspectives,
I think humanistic psychology or Abraham Maslow
and Carl Rogers work has significant contribution
to positive psychology.
The term positive psychology was first used
in 1954 by Abraham Maslow in his Motivation
and Personality book, who complained that
psychology as practiced back then said little
about man’s potentialities, his virtues,
his achievable aspirations, or his full psychological
heights.
So, he himself realized that we are focusing
more on negative aspects and somehow, we are
skipping the study of potentialities of an
individual, his virtues, his achievable aspirations
or his full psychological heights where we
should focus more on.
So even before Seligman, which will be discussed
in the next class, other scholars realized
that we are comparatively focusing less on
positive aspects of human behaviour.
Abraham Maslow was highly influenced by William
James.
William James became increasingly interested
in how to awaken human potential.
He was convinced that we use only a tiny fraction
of our full range of emotional and cognitive
capabilities in daily life.
In James’ most influential book, The Variety
of Religious Experiences, he stated spiritual
and mystical experiences are providing important
clues to the height of human personality.
This viewpoint influenced Abraham Maslow and
the founding of humanistic psychology.
Even today, humanistic psychologists focus
more on positive aspects of human behaviour
and study what is healthy, adaptive, creative,
and addresses the full range of human potential.
Positive psychology shares ideas with humanistic
psychology.
The positive instinct to fulfill human potential,
I think is common in positive psychology and
humanistic psychology; strong motivational
force to do good, be the best that they could
be, self-actualization, client-centered therapy
etc.
So, work which is done under humanistic psychology
is still relevant in positive psychology.
Let us know little bit more about humanistic
theories because that is historical background
and highly connected with positive psychology
studies.
If we consider humanistic theories in reference
to other theories, then it is counted as third
force.
First force is counted as psychodynamic theory
and second force is counted as behavioral
theories.
On the other hand, this is third one that
is called humanistic theory.
As I discussed earlier also, that humanistic
theories or humanistic perspective, observed
that human dignity is missing in previous
approaches - when we are saying our behaviour
is determined by childhood experiences, our
behaviour is determined by environmental factors,
our behaviour is determined by heredity and
environmental factors, our 
behaviour is determined by childhood experiences.
So, in all these cases, we are saying that
our behaviour is determined by certain factors
and we can’t do anything.
So, if we go with this approach, somewhere
human dignity is missing in these perspectives,
and that is why just opposite to all previous
perspectives which are saying that our behaviour
is determined by different factors - this
perspective saying that it is not so and we
are responsible for our action.
Responding to the situation is our own choice.
So how do we respond for the given situation
that is our own choice rather than it is behavior
determined by certain factors.
They emphasized on individuality and personal
expression.
They said we have our personal responsibility
and as per personal responsibility, we select
behaviour.
We have choices for behaviour and sometimes
actually that is cause of abnormal behaviour.
In some situations, we may have conditional
environment and that is cause of abnormal
behaviour also.
Sometimes from social, cultural pressures,
our situation is you have to and that is cause
of abnormal behaviour.
So, they said we should have not to and not
in conditional environment.
So, then we have our own choices and we are
active shapers of our life.
There main motto is the ‘here and now’
- don’t focus on the past, don’t focus
on the future, be in present, this you know,
in next classes I will discuss.
It is mindfulness exercises.
We have personal growth; we are programmed
to grow.
Let us know a little bit more Carl Rogers’
self theory and it is very important to understand
why do we have normal and abnormal behaviour.
He has used various terms.
So, first of all I think we should know all
these terms to understand his theory.
First term here is the phenomenology of the
individual.
It means structure of conscious experience
as experienced from the first-person point
of view or we can say that is our subjective
world.
How do we think within our self or in our
mind, how do we feel in our mind that is our
phenomenological world.
He also talked about actualizing tendency
and organismic valuing processes.
He said however we have certain needs and
want to fulfill those needs, but for those
needs, actually we have certain values and
that is called actualizing tendency or organismic
valuing process.
So, it means when we are hungry, we need food,
but this is not just any food, but food that
tastes, that’s value is good, so we have
values for certain things and for fulfilling
our needs, we take into account those values,
those tastes which are really important for
us.
He also discussed about another term that
is called conditions of worth and he said
conditions of worth is very important for
having positive regard as well as positive
self-regard.
Let us know what does it mean.
As we grow up, our parents, teachers, peers,
and the media and others only give us what
we need when we show we are worthy rather
than just because we need it.
It means we don’t get the things whichever
we want to get, but we have to show worthiness
for those things that we deserve to have those
things.
For example, we get a drink when we finish
our class, we get something sweet when we
finish our vegetables, it means everywhere
we have conditions.
First you do this, then only you can do next
activity, most importantly we get love and
affection if and only if we behave in particular
conditional manners.
So, it means, certain ideal behaviours are
expected and if we do those experiences or
those behaviours or we show those behaviours,
then only we are able to get this condition
of worth, and if it is so, then conditional
positive regard we will be getting.
So, if we are doing as per these conditions
of worth, then we will be getting positive
regard.
So, if we do conditions of worth, then only
conditional positive regard we will be getting.
So, getting positive regard ‘on condition’
it is, and Rogers calls it conditional positive
regard.
Conditional positive self-regard is connected
with conditional positive regard.
If we have conditional positive regard, then
only we would be having conditional positive
self-regard.
Over time, this conditioning leads us to have
conditional positive self-regard as well and
as per the result of these two, conditional
positive regard and conditioning positive
self-regard, we have positive regard as well
as positive self-regard.
Positive regard like love, affection, attention,
nurturance, and so on we get from others when
we fulfill conditions of worth.
So here it is conditional, if we will fulfill
these conditions of worth, then only we would
be getting love, affection, attention, nurturance,
etc. in terms of positive regard.
If we have positive regard, then this is connected
with positive self-regard.
Then we would be having self-esteem, self-worth,
a positive self-image, etc.
So, it means good little boy or girl.
Ideal-self means from societal message may
not be a healthy, or happy boy or girl, that
is real-self.
So broadly we can say there are two selves,
one is from our personal side that is called
real-self and another one is from societal
side or societal message which can be an ideal
self.
Let us know this theory in terms of a model.
So broadly, you could easily identify there
are 2 parallel things, one is related to your
subjective style, and another is from society’s
side.
When we say from our side, so first is the
actualization, and actualization leads to
organismic valuing, we give more value to
certain things as compared to others and it
leads to positive regard, this positive regard
leads to positive self-regard and that is
our real self.
On the other hand, society, from society’s
side, you have certain conditions of worth,
if you fulfill those worth, then conditional
positive regard you will be having which is
interacting with positive regard also.
And it is then conditional positive self-regard,
which is connected with positive self-regard
and it connects with ideal self.
So, from personal side, we have real-self
and from societal message side, we have ideal-self.
Sometimes for normal behaviour we have match
between real-self and ideal-self or can say
congruence in one’s real, and in you know
in one’s ideal self.
On the other hand, in some cases, we have
incongruence and these two are mismatched
– real-self versus ideal-self.
Let us take a simple example here.
For example, a student has capacity to achieve
or to gain 60% marks, but societal message
is one should get 80% marks, so this is discrepancy
and that is why he has ideal self of 80%.
So, his real self level is 60%, on the other
hand ideal-self says 80%, so this discrepancy
is cause of incongruence and that is why we
have neurosis.
Here, neurosis and psychosis are little bit
different from abnormal psychology.
So, let us understand how he has defined this
neurosis and psychosis in his theory.
He is saying that this incongruence between
real-self and ideal-self is cause of neurosis
and that is why we have threatening situation.
So, if we have this threatening situation,
then we have anxiety, we may have stress,
we may have tension and because of this we
are in trouble.
For reducing this trouble, we may use some
defenses.
If you know psychology, then you can easily
connect it with psychoanalysis where Freud
discussed about defense mechanisms.
He said id, ego, super ego these are 3 components
and the id has its own demands, super ego
has its own demands, which are related to
morality and id is related to pleasure principle.
Ego’s role is to balance which is based
on reality principle and its role is to balance
between id, superego, environmental forces,
and then balance all those things.
In some situations, it is able to, but not
in all situations.
If it is not able to, then we have anxiety,
we have tension, stress, etc. and it hurts
ego, so for avoiding this situation, we start
to use defenses.
Defenses broadly means we distort the situation.
So, similar concept has been borrowed by Carl
Rogers to describe his theory and he said
we use certain defenses, but due to these
defenses, we go away from reality and it increases
our incongruence and shatters self and that
is why we have psychosis.
So just to understand a little bit more about
it, basic human needs are need for self-actualization.
So, then if you have need for self-actualization,
its response is unconditional positive regard,
and if we have this unconditional positive
regard, then we have self-actualization.
So that is in positive direction.
On the other hand, another basic need is need
for positive regard, which is from society’s
side and here we have conditional positive
regard.
So, this conditional positive regard leads
to in turn resultant self-discrepancy between
real self and ideal self and that is cause
of abnormal behaviour in some settings.
So, this incongruence occurs when there is
a mismatch between any of these three entities.
Here real, true-self plus self-image has been
included.
So, what these 3 selves are?
The ideal-self, the person you would like
to be; self-image, the person you think you
are; and the true-self, the person you actually
are.
If these three selves are highly connected
with each other and you have congruency among
these 3, then you haven’t any problem in
your life, that will not happen in all the
cases.
Sometimes if you could see here (diagram in
slide 20), these are actually little bit connected
with each other and sharing low level of variance,
rather individuality also they have and that
is cause of incongruence.
So self esteem suffers when there is a large
difference between one’s ideal self and
self-image and we have low self-esteem in
those situations.
Anxiety and defensiveness are common when
the self-image does not match the true self,
so that is cause of anxiety and defensiveness
that we have.
So which defense mechanisms we use in that
situation?
Carl Rogers has used two defense mechanisms,
which broadly he has borrowed from Freud.
He said one situation is denial, you block
out the threatening situation altogether,
you just deny the situation.
Denial for Rogers is what Freud called repression.
If you are keeping a memory or an impulse
out of your awareness refuse to perceive it,
so that is denial.
You may be able to avoid again but for now
you have just run away from this threatening
situation.
Another defense mechanism is perceptual distortion.
It is a matter of reinterpreting the situation
so that it appears less threatening.
It is very similar to Freud’s rationalization.
For example, a student that is threatened
by tests and grades may blame the professor
for poor teaching, tricky questions, bad attitude,
etc.
So just distorting the situation so that it
could keep you away from anxiety, stress,
tension, etc.
After giving his theory’s explanation, he
also discussed about fully functioning person.
He said there are 5 factors of a fully functioning
person – one who does not have any discrepancy
between real self and ideal self.
These characteristics are openness to experience,
existential living (here-and-now), organismic
trusting, experiential freedom and creativity.
Actually, we have another chapter outrightly
based on character strengths.
So, I will compile all these positive personality
traits in that chapter and we will discuss
in detail what does it mean.
So as per this theory, life is a direction
not destination - that Carl Rogers stated
that life is a direction not destination.
In research methods, he used Q sort technique.
He had about 100 self-referent cards, for
example, I am a good person and then he had
9 piles, in 9 piles ‘least like me’ first
one, and then various other piles and at the
end ‘most like me’ that is ninth one and
one has to sort cards as per his or her responses.
So, in this case you could easily identify
someone’s real self.
In some cases, we may assess discrepancy between
real self and ideal self by manipulating instructions.
For example, if I say respond as per these
10 cards and in 9 piles when you count yourself,
you count real self.
On the other hand, in another setting when
you consider your ideal self then you respond
to all these questions.
So if there is difference between when you
are instructed to have real self and when
you are instructed to have ideal self if there
is discrepancy between the two, then that
discrepancy is between your real self and
ideal self, so that is the way to understand
human behaviour as per this perspective.
I think we should know therapy also along
with his theory.
His theory is known was non-directive therapy
or client-centered therapy or Rogerian therapy.
There are various reasons to give these names
and sometime they were criticized also.
For example, it was called a client-centered
therapy, but later on scholars realized that
there are various other therapies on which
we focus only on a particular client, so there
are various other therapies which could be
called client-centered therapies.
Another name was non-directive therapy, non-directive
because in this case actually, in the therapeutic
situation the therapist is asked to provide
unconditional environment and notion here
is one could easily understand his problem
as well as its solution when we provide unconditional
environment to this person (the client).
So here client is first talking about his
problem and then he is talking about his solutions
and here philosophical message is he knows
better than a counselor what is solution of
his problem.
So, counselor or therapist’s role is to
provide unconditional environment to this
person.
On the other hand, it has been realized that
even he is an active listener, even in this
situation, he is reflecting here.
So, reflection is the mirroring of emotional
communication.
Somehow when you are showing even facial expressions
or giving just direction, so in this case
you are actually active listener or giving
shape to his behavioural changes.
By doing this, the therapist is communicating
to the client that he is indeed listening
and cares enough to understand.
So that is why this name was not used much
- non-directive therapy - and later on it
was shifted to Rogerian therapy, named as
Carl Roger’s therapy.
Carl Rogers mentioned that we should focus
on certain qualities, certain characteristics,
or positive traits of a counselor these are
congruence, genuineness, honesty with the
client must be in the counselor or a therapist.
Empathy was another quality, the ability to
feel what the client feels, and quality of
respect, acceptance, unconditional positive
regard towards the client.
So, he said person or therapist must have
these 3 three qualities before providing Rogerian
therapy or client-centered therapy to the
clients.
He focused on growth and fulfillment of individuals.
So that is his therapy to treat abnormal behaviour
in which broadly we are saying that provide
unconditional environment instead of conditional
environment in therapeutic setting.
Let us know Maslow’s theory also, especially
which contributed to positive psychology.
He proposed theory of human motivation.
The basis of Maslow’s theory is that human
beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs
and that certain lower needs, deficiently
needs also he called them need to be satisfied
before higher needs called growth or being
needs can be satisfied and, he proposed hierarchy
of needs.
These needs can be counted in terms of ‘deficiency
need’ as well as ‘growth or being needs’.
So, in this hierarchy, first level needs are
physiological needs.
In physiological needs, basic needs are required,
hunger, thirst, sex, etc, sleep, reproduction,
shelter, etc.
Then he said if we fulfill all this at a certain
level, then we have next level need and this
next level need is safety need.
So, the safety need is personal security,
employment, resources, health, or required
level of property, etc.
So, we should feel safe.
If we have fulfilled physiological as well
as safety needs, then we think about love
and belongingness.
So, then you know friendship, intimacy, family,
sense of connections we would like to have
in our personal life and these 3 needs are
broadly counted as basic needs or deficiency
needs.
So once at certain level these needs are fulfilled,
then we think about self-esteem.
So, our self-respect, self-esteem, status,
recognition, strength, freedom, etc.
After that, we have self-actualization.
So, for self-actualization, to some extent
we can say there are certain conditions.
Our basic needs should be fulfilled, we should
not have deficiency needs and we should have
self-esteem and then only we have self-actualization.
So, if we have that level, then these self-actualized
people have certain characteristics.
Selected characteristics they have, but condition
for all these main characteristics or positive
personality traits are one should have self-actualization
level.
So selected characteristics of self-actualizing
people he has proposed.
These characteristics are efficient perception
of reality; acceptance of self and others;
spontaneity, simplicity, naturalness; focus
of problem centering; detachment, the need
of privacy; autonomy, independent of culture
and environment; peak experiences; deep interpersonal
relations; democratic values and attitude;
discrimination between means and ends, good
and evil; philosophical, unhostile sense of
humor.
He also focused on creativity, imperfection,
resolution of dichotomies.
So, these were 15 characteristics which were
identified in self-actualizing people by Abraham
Maslow.
These characteristics will be revisited in
character strengths chapter once again.
So, let us discuss in detail in future.
So, humanistic psychology if we evaluate this
perspective, some positive side as well as
negative side this perspective has or to some
extent, we can say what is borrowed by our
positive psychologist and what is limitations
of the school.
When we talk about positive side, optimist
view of human kind, which is in positive psychology
also.
Human abilities also they have focused - again
positive personality traits, character strengths,
and virtues having been focused in positive
psychology also, even growth potential where
we are focused on, ‘we are programmed to
grow’.
In positive psychology, we are talking about
healthy personality.
And pyramid of needs is required to understand
human behaviour.
Negative side of this perspective are - nonscientific.
Most of the time they proposed their ideas
on the basis of human experiences.
Some scholars identified that it is more philosophical
approach rather psychological approach, evidence
to support beliefs is required because we
do not have much data collection, studies
and objective results of these findings.
Self-actualizers are rare because preconditions
are there and we don’t have much practical
applications of this area rather just understanding
of human behaviour.
I think it is clear to us there are various
branches or roots of positive psychology in
history of psychology whether it is about
prevention and wellness programs, whether
it is about post enlightenment or moral philosophy,
ancient Greek or Aristotle’s studies in
which we are talking about eudemonia.
Allport also focused on positive aspects of
human personality which will be discussed
in character strengths chapters again.
Humanistic psychology I think is very clear
here.
Carl Rogers’ and Maslow’s work contributing
to positive psychology a lot.
If we just recap this class, you should know
what is psychology, its different branches
as well as its different perspectives, humanistic
perspective and other psychologists’ contribution
as historical background of positive psychology.
Thank you very much.
