Humanistic Psychology

This background paper focusses on the methodologies of humanistic psychology, mainly focussing on humanism’s contribution to clinical psychology approaches. Key features of humanistic approaches are; qualitative research, idiographic approach, congruence, self-concept, and holism. These key features brought about qualitative methods, case studies, informal interviews, Q-sort Method, open-ended questionnaires, coaching psychology, and inter-rater/coder reliability (McLeod, 2015). Moreover, humanism’s contributions to the field of psychology are significant as it contests the traditionally-held idea, by the behavioural sciences, that the only legitimate research method is an experimental test employing quantified data. However, for humanists

Qualitative research methodologies which humanism promoted included open-ended questionnaires. Open-ended questionnaires were, and remain to be, a reliable method for collecting in-depth responses from participants. Additionally, open-ended questions permit people to express what they think in their own words without the interviewer influencing their response. In addition, humanism brought about informal interview techniques which aide to build rapport and gain an understanding or perspective of the participant. Another concept related to these methods is Q-methodology. Q-methodology is the structured study of participant viewpoints and perspectives. Additionally, Q-methodology is used to investigate the opinions of participants who represent various stances on issues, by having participants rank and sort a collection of

Behaviourists, primarily, were focussed on the displayed behaviours of individuals, making them very limited in their scope of knowledge. Moreover, behaviourists adhered to a highly scientific approach and employed experimentation as means of understanding behaviour; an approach thought to be objective. Humanists expanded beyond the external behaviour, and encompassed the individual as a whole. In doing so, they formed new methodologies to address the phenomenon they wished to investigate. While many consider their approaches to be subjective, it is hard to argue that the understanding of humans could be approached objectively. Furthermore, humanists created the concept of inter-rater/coder reliability to account for this subjectivity aspect. Inter-rater/coder reliability is simply a test-retest method to assess the external consistency of a test; the degrees to which different raters give consistent estimates of the same behaviour. This test negates any agreement that humanists are purely subjective, and that qualitative data has no benefit. Rather, qualitative data also for new phenomenon to be investigated, and new methods to be created when there is a need for them; when going beyond external behaviour to more comprehensive