Question 1. Discuss aspects of Maslow's life or theory. How did his life impact his theory? Why is his "hierarchy" so popular do you think?
Question 2. I confess, Rogers is one of my favorites. He's a little different than other theorists. How? What does he mean by congruence? unconditional positive regard? What would this look like?
Question 3. Choose one:
1. What do we mean by existential psychology? How is it different from humanistic psychology?
2. How is this poem humanistic or existential?
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Oliver, M. (1992). New and Selected Poems. Boston: Beacon.
Question 4. Read the quote and Write 200 words comment on the quote (must be 200 words, no exception). From Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (1961):
"I have used the term congruence to refer to this accurate matching of experience with awareness...Unless this congruence is present to a considerable degree it is unlikely that significant learning can occur....I believe all of us recognize it in an intuitive and commonsense way in individuals with whom we deal.
With one individual we recognize that he not only means exactly what he says, but that his deepest feelings also match what he is expressing. Thus whether he is angry or affectionate or ashamed or enthusiastic, we sense that he is the same at all levels -- in what he is experiencing at an organismic level, in his awareness at the conscious level, and in his words and communications....We say of such a person that we know "exactly where he stands." We tend to feel comfortable and secure in such a relationship.
With another person we recognize that what he is saying is almost certainly a front or a facade. We wonder what he really feels, what he is really experiencing behind this facade. We may also wonder if HE knows what he really feels, recognizing that he may be quite unaware of the feelings he is actually experiencing. With such a person we tend to be cautious and wary. It is not the kind of relationship in which defenses can be dropped or in which significant learning and change can occur...
(A congruent person) is freely, deeply, and acceptantly himself, with his actual experience of his feelings and reactions matched by an accurate awareness of these feelings and reactions as they occur and as they change" (p. 282).
Question 5. Differentiate between the various humanistic and existential personality theories.
Question 6. Explain the strengths and limitations of humanistic and existential personality theories.
Question 7. Analyze individual personality characteristics using humanistic and existential personality theories.
Question 8. Explain interpersonal relations using humanistic and existential personality theories.