UPI Study › Courses › Psychology of Personality › Free lessons › Lesson 12.1 Free with a free account
Humanistic-Existential Model and Abnormal Psychological Functioning
Psychology of Personality · Chapter 12: Humanistic Psychology: Applications and CritiquesSection 12.1 · lesson 72 of 83video coming soon
← Evaluating the Humanistic-Existential Model: Strengths and WeaknessesNext lesson: The Five-Factor Model of Dispositional Traits: Overview and Relevance →
In this lesson
Symptoms read as obstruction rather than as disease.
- Describe the combined humanistic-existential model
- Explain how Rogers accounts for the origin of distress
- Define incongruence and why it produces anxiety
- Contrast this reading of symptoms with a medical model
Free study notes
Get this lesson's notes by email
The key points and 4 practice questions with answers, in your inbox. One email, free.
One email. Unsubscribe in one click.
Transcript
Everything said in the video, section by section (887 words). Read along, or search it.
Humanistic Psychology: Applications and Critiques
The Humanistic-Existential Model and Abnormal Functioning
A talented student finishes a demanding degree, and lands the career their parent wanted. Every external measure says this is going well. And they feel chronic emptiness, and anxiety. A medical model looks for what has gone wrong inside them. The humanistic-existential model asks a different question. What has been blocked, and by what? This section works through that account of abnormal functioning.
The Combination
Two Traditions, One Model
The humanistic-existential model approaches functioning through meaning, choice, and growth. It is a combination, and each half contributes something the other lacks. The humanistic half comes from Rogers and Maslow. They emphasise the innate drive toward self-actualization. The realisation of one's full potential. The existential half stresses something less comfortable. The responsibility each person bears for creating a meaningful life. In the face of freedom, and of uncertainty. So one half supplies the direction. The other supplies the demand. Growth is assumed to be innate. Making a life out of it is not.
Health
What Healthy Functioning Looks Like Here
Within this combined model, healthy functioning has three marks. Authenticity. Living in accordance with one's true self. Congruence between the self-concept and lived experience. And the courageous acceptance of personal responsibility. Underneath those is a claim about what the clinician is even looking at. The person is not viewed as a bundle of symptoms. They are viewed as a whole, purpose-seeking individual. One capable of change, and of self-direction. That framing is settled before any assessment begins.
The Core Claim
Abnormal Functioning Is Blocked Growth
From this perspective, abnormal functioning arises when growth is blocked. Rogers gave a specific account of how that happens. Distress develops when there is incongruence between the real self and the ideal self. And often the cause is external in origin. The person has internalised conditions of worth imposed by others. Living to meet external expectations, rather than authentic needs. That produces anxiety, and a fragile self-concept. The fragility has a source worth naming. The self-concept was built to satisfy somebody else.
The Existential Addition
Avoided Choice, Unfound Meaning
Existential thinkers add two further sources of distress. The first is avoided responsibility. Distress can stem from avoiding the responsibility of choice. The second is a failure to find meaning. That one is sometimes called existential anxiety. These are not the same problem as incongruence, and it is worth keeping them apart. Rogers' account describes a gap inside the self. The existential account describes a relationship with freedom, and with meaning.
Five Sources
Where the Distress Comes From
Put the sources of distress together, and five appear. Incongruence, between the real self and the ideal self. Conditions of worth, internalised from other people. Avoided responsibility, where choice is refused. Absent meaning, producing existential anxiety. And blocked growth, where self-actualization has stalled. Notice what none of these is. None of them is located in a disease process.
The Reframe
Symptoms as Signals
That has a direct consequence for how symptoms are read. Rather than labelling people with rigid diagnoses. The model interprets symptoms as signals. Signals that a person's movement toward authenticity has been obstructed. And obstructed movement toward self-actualization. So the symptom points at an obstruction. Rather than at a fixed disease sitting inside the person. Which changes the first question a clinician asks. Not, which category does this fit? But, what has been blocked, and by what?
Worked Example
The Career Chosen for Someone Else
Return to the student, because both mechanisms are visible in that one case. They pursue a career only to satisfy a parent's wishes. And they feel chronic emptiness, and anxiety. Despite performing well by every external measure. Conditions of worth set the terms of acceptance in the first place. Incongruence is what results. Once the life being lived stops matching the self it belongs to. Note what has not gone wrong here. Nothing has gone wrong with their ability. The obstruction is to authentic self-direction. And success does not remove it.
Why It Hurts
The Mechanism Behind the Anxiety
Follow the mechanism step by step. First, conditions of worth are internalised. Those are standards one must meet in order to feel valued by others. Second, life gets organised around those external expectations. Rather than around authentic needs. Third, a gap opens between the real self and the ideal self. That is incongruence. And fourth, anxiety follows, and the self-concept is threatened. The gap itself is what produces the distress. Which is why the distress is proportionate to the gap, and not to failure. High achievement offers no protection at all.
Consolidate
Health and Disorder, Concept by Concept
Set health and disorder side by side, concept by concept. The self-concept is either congruent with experience, or incongruent and distorted. Worth is either unconditional self-regard, or a set of conditions of worth. Responsibility is either accepted and owned, or avoided and denied. Meaning is either actively created, or absent and unresolved. And growth is either moving toward self-actualization, or blocked and stalled. Look at the form of every one of those rows. None of them is a defect that a person has more or less of. Each describes how the person stands toward something.
Two Questions
What This Model Answers
Two questions to close on. Why does incongruence cause distress? Because a gap between the real and ideal self produces anxiety. And it threatens the self-concept. That structure is what the person relies on to know who they are. And how does the model view symptoms? As signs that growth toward authenticity has been obstructed. Not as fixed diseases. The practical consequence is that treatment aims at the obstruction. And expects the symptom to follow. Whether that expectation is well supported is what the rest of this chapter examines.
About Psychology of Personality at UPI Study
Psychology of Personality (Psychology 300) is a self-paced online course of 83 video lessons in 13 chapters, from Freud, Adler and Jung to biological, behavioral, cognitive, existential and humanistic theories, traits, personality disorders and culture. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.
Every lesson transcript is free on pages like this one, and the videos are free with a free UPI Study account. Enrolling adds a practice quiz after each lesson, the graded work and final exam that earn the credit, lifetime access, and an official transcript on completion. UPI Study has helped over 130,000 students with college credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
Enroll now → Course details Download the syllabus All Psychology and social science courses Every course with PRO →
Why take it here
Why students take Psychology of Personality with UPI Study
Where the credit goes
Universities that work with NCCRS
Psychology of Personality carries a NCCRS credit recommendation. These universities work with NCCRS; some are UPI Study's signed partners. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
Thomas Edison State UniversitySigned partner
University of the PeopleSigned partner
Charter Oak State CollegeSigned partner
Strayer UniversitySigned partner
Columbia Southern UniversitySigned partner
Indiana TechSigned partner
Penn StateWorks with NCCRS
Southern New Hampshire UniversityWorks with NCCRS
SUNYWorks with NCCRS
+many more cooperating universitiesFind my college →Find my college → Not listed? Ask Athena in the corner of this page, or book a 15-minute call.
FAQ
Questions students ask us
About Humanistic-Existential Model and Abnormal Psychological Functioning
How does the humanistic-existential model explain psychological disorders?
How do humanistic therapists view symptoms?
What is existential anxiety?
Why can a successful person still feel empty, according to humanistic psychology?
About the Psychology of Personality course
How many college credits is Psychology of Personality?
How much does Psychology of Personality cost and what is included?
Which universities accept UPI Study credits?
How long does Psychology of Personality take?
How are the exams done?
How do my credits reach my college?
Ready for the full course? Earn 3 credits in Psychology of Personality.
83 video lessons, a quiz after each one, and the graded work that earns the credit. Recommended for credit by NCCRS.
3 credits · NCCRSEnroll →