Give two evaluations of the humanistic approach

An obvious criticism of the humanistic approach is that it is less scientific than other approaches in psychology. In viewing the person as more than the sum of their subjective experiences, humanism is unable to break down a person into simple parts of cause and effect. This means that the meaningful causal conclusions of the scientific method are not possible and so instead only theories that do not necessarily hold much meaning are produced. This subjective way in which people are viewed also goes against the scientific method as this aims to be objective in its measurements. As such, humanistic psychology cannot claim to be a science in the way the subject aims to be. To counter this criticism, some psychologists (such as Carl Rogers) have created objective measures for humanistic theories to try and make it more scientific (such as the use of the Q-Sort in measuring congruence). This adds to the credibility of the approach.Other approaches are also criticised for 'losing sense of the person' because of their reductionism, but humanistic psychology prides itself on its holism. By looking at a person holistically, it views people as the experts on themselves and their experiences and also sees them as unique individuals because of them. As such, humanistic treatments (such as client-centred therapy) may be more effective as they are tailored to everyone's specific needs. Therefore, its holistic approach can be praised for its usefulness in treatments.