Roger's Humanistic Theory Analysis

Roger’s Humanist Theory believes, “That humans are innately good and that they are growth oriented,” (Nye, pg. 105, 2000). Due to the fact that this theory has the belief that individuals are inherently good, Beth’s negative behaviors are not part of her personality, but formed out of her early childhood environment. The Humanistic approach also states, to reach self-actualization, the environment surrounding an individual must be nurturing (Sougstad, Humanistic Psychology, 2018); Beth was not afforded with this type of environment, explaining her negative and harmful behaviors towards her family. In addition, the Humanistic Theory also concludes, “Humans basically need and want both personal fulfillment and close, intimate relationships with others,” (Nye, Pg. 98, 2000). Referring back to Beth’s early childhood environment again, the lack of an appropriate, intimate and caring relationship between her and her biological parents left her without the needed environment to fully develop. Also, another imperative piece to the Humanistic Theory is the idea of unconditional positive regard, or love an acceptance from others (Nye, pg. 106, 2000). The idea behind unconditional positive regard is that an individual has others in their lives

Since this theory believes that children need to be provided with a nurturing environment for successful development, encouraging a community wide intervention ensuring there are enough treatment homes/facilities within the community to accommodate abused and neglected children would align with the humanistic perspective. The social work intervention could be writing grants to help supplement monies to build such facilities, to update current facilities or for professional development for staff working within those