Limitation of the Humanistic Approach: Unscientific

Last time, we saw a major strength of the humanistic approach, which is…

Last time, we saw a major strength of the humanistic approach, which is the applications of client-centred therapy.

But, there are also some limitations of the humanistic approach… 

Now, we’ve seen that the humanistic approach to psychology involves concepts like…

The humanistic approach to psychology involves concepts like self-actualisation, and congruence of the self-concept and ideal self.

But… what do these actually look like?

For instance, Maslow’s concept of self-actualisation involves things like…

Maslow’s concept of self-actualisation involves things like the need for creative expression; knowledge and understanding; and experiencing beauty.

But… it’s not clear how we would turn any of these into variables that we can measure… in other words, there’s no way to… 

It’s not clear how we would turn any of these [the s-a needs] into variables that we can measure…in other words, there’s no way to operationalise self-actualisation…

And there’s also no way to directly observe self-actualisation

For instance, how can we tell which of these two people [graphics from the ao1 section] is more self-actualised? 

We can’t! Because self-actualisation is an entirely subjective experience.

So…self-actualisation isn’t something that we can directly measure. 

And since we can’t measure self-actualisation, or directly observe it, this means that we can’t test the claims made about self-actualisation at all! 

And so…

So, it’s not possible to study self-actualisation scientifically. 

And, therefore, we can’t make any predictions involving self-actualisation.

Now, it’s the same with congruence. Congruence occurs when… 

Congruence occurs when the self-concept matches the ideal self. But…these [selves] are both entirely subjective, and will be different for every person. So…

The self-concept and ideal self are both entirely subjective, and will be different for every person. 

So, we can’t operationalise them, we can’t test the claims, and we can’t use these concepts to make predictions at all.

So, we can’t study congruence scientifically, either.

And this is a major limitation of the humanistic approach: it claims that it can help people achieve happiness and self-actualisation, but its theories don’t lend themselves to scientific study.

This makes it hard to test the theories, and find out whether the claims are correct or not!!

So, to sum up, the first limitation of the humanistic approach is that…

The first limitation of the humanistic approach is that its methods aren’t scientific, because they are based on abstract, vague concepts.

For instance, concepts like self-actualisation and congruence can’t be operationalised, which means…

Concepts like self-actualisation and congruence can’t be operationalised, which means we can’t test these theories, or use them to make predictions about behaviour.