The humanistic approach was initially developed as a therapy and its theories are not accepted in mainstream psychology. However, it has made a marked influence on clinical psychology and counselling. It believes individuals have free will rather than being influenced by external forces. It is optimistic as it assumes that people have the choice to choose their own destiny and they endeavour to achieve their potential for psychological growth within the confines of any individual limitations. It believes that free will is a vital part of our subjective experience of ourselves. Therefore, one of the strengths of the humanistic approach is that it emphasizes individual choice and responsibility. It satisfies most people …show more content…
This is useful because the human mind and computers have some similarities: they both have inputs, outputs, memory stores and a limited capability for how much information they can process at any one time. A computer’s behaviour is determined by the information it is given and the way it’s been programmed, so a person’s behaviour is also determined by a person’s environment (how they were brought up ); how they have learned to process information and the capacities for information processing innate in the kind of brain the individual has. The cognitive approach is a reductionist as it reduces the functions of humans to that of a machine disregarding emotions and social influence. Unlike the computer which needs to be updated from time to time, people can learn, unlearn and relearn. It also does not take into account genetic factors even though it studies the effects of brain injury and neurological illnesses. This approach is nomothetic as it aims to ascertain universal rules which applies to all individuals by using the computer analogy.
Cognitive approach looks at inborn cognitive abilities so it can be said to be on the nature side of the debate, but it also acknowledges that experience shapes these …show more content…
An instance of the interaction between language and memory. In this study 45 students were shown 7 traffic accidents clips and were asked to answer specific questions about the accident. Loftus and Palmer tried to demonstrate that the memory is not an actual footage of an event and that memories can become inaccurate due to other information which occurs after the event. This is a weakness, given that the experiment was conducted in a controlled and artificial environment, also the type of questions and words used could have influenced their memory of the event. Cognitive therapies have also proved to be useful as they help clients recognize errors in thinking and encourages them to change them to positive thinking especially in cases of depression, unlike drugs they have no side effects. Aaron beck suggests that negative thinking produces negatives moods which could lead to depression (Haralambos &