Compare and Contrast Key Perspectives in Psychology Essay

Psychology liter in ally means the study of the consciousness, translated from Ancient Greek as psyche, meaning mind or soul and logia, meaning study. The most accurate description of psychological science is that it is the science of mind and behaviour (Collin et al, 2011). Psychology evolved from philosophy and quite a little be dated back to the time of Ancient Greek philosophers, such(prenominal) as Plato and Aristotle (325 BCE). Studying the nature of subjects such as the memory, thoughts and the consciousness, did not confine psychology a standalone science, instead it was viewed as a form of philosophic speculations. Psychology became a separate, scientific discipline in the late nineteenth century.The domains first experigenial laboratory of psychology was founded in 1879 by Wundt. As numerous philosophers and scientists tried to explain the inner world of a individual (psyche) since ancient times, numerous an(prenominal) key perspectives of modern psychology appea rgond as a result. These key perspectives include Psychodynamic, Behavioural, Cognitive, Humanistic, Evolutionary, Biological and Cross-Cultural (Cherry, 2014). This bear witness will explore and compare two of these perspectives, behaviourism and Psychodynamic, and their crop on modern psychology.The psychodynamic approach is base on the theories of Freud, Adler, Erikson and Jung. Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis. Together with Breuer, Freud positive psychological treatment, cognise as lecture therapies, believing that many forms of psychic illness, such as irrational affrights, hysteria, disquiet and imagined pains, were the results of a traumatic bonk acquired by the patient in the past. Freud believed that people store their ideas, memories and impulses in the unconscious when they become likewise overwhelming for the conscious mind to bear, this is k presentlyn as repression. He believed that the conscious mind is just the surface (likening it to an iceberg) of a interlinking psychic realm, which included the egotism, superego and id. The id is driven only by the fulfilment of introductory drives, for example food, comfort, warmth and sex, and obeys the Pleasure Principle, meaning that each impulse essential be gratified immediately.The ego, one the separate hand, accepts the Reality Principle, which says we heapnot view as everything we desire. The ego negotiates with the id and whitethorn be compared to the moderator between id and superego (Collin et al, page.111). Thesuperego is the internal voice, influenced by our parents and the societys moral code, it is a judging voice of our conscience, which tells us what we should and should not do, and whitethorn lots become the source of guilt and shame (Collin et al, 2011, pp.94-99). In Freuds opinion, the difference between conscious and unconscious thoughts creates psychic tension, and that this is how many mental problems originate. Repressed and unprocessed emotions build up a nd then become revealed in anger, depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse and so on. These problems lot be helped by relinquish them and confronting them during the process of psychoanalysis. Freud tried to handsome his patients from repressed memories and ease their mental pain. stargaze Analysis was a method which in Freuds opinion allowed to find and encode messages sent by the unconscious. De offend all of this, even Breuer criticised Freud for concentrating too much on the sexual origins of neuroses (Collin et al, 2011, p.95). The humanistic approach criticised psychodynamics of excluding the thought of free will (McLeod, 2007). Further more, today Freuds interpretation of dreams appears unreasonable to many. In spite of all the criticisms, many accept that Freud highlighted the importance of childhood experiences and his methods inspired many famous psych otherwiseapists to develop new types of treatment. unity example includes Virginia Satire, who stresses the importance of t he family surroundings (Collin et al, 2011, pp.146-147). Freud to a fault introduced the idea of defence mechanisms which is widely use today in different therapies. Denial, repression and displacement are some examples of defence mechanisms (Cherry, 2014).In addition, psychodynamics also made the case study method popular in psychology. One of Freuds eminent theories was about the Oedipus Complex. Freud used his case study known as Little Hans to support this theory. Hans was 5 years old at the time and had a phobia of horses. Hans father, who was Freuds friend, wanted Freud to cure Hans from his phobia. Freud was in the main interested in how the phobia was triggered and how it could be linked to his idea of the Oedipus Complex. By analysing Hans dreams, Freud ruled out that they boys phobia of horses was caused through and through the idolise of being castrated by his father because he had sexual desires for his mother. Freud talk over Hans father to reassure his son that he would not castrate him and in the end the boys phobia resolved.Despite curing Hans phobia, Freuds emphasis on the phobia being caused by an underlying alarm of his father seems farfetched,especially when it is known that Hans witnessed how a horse died on the street, an caseful which traumatised him. This would seem a more plausible reason for the childs horse phobia, moreover instead Freud emphasised that this case study was a perfect example of the Oedipus Complex. In addition, Freud didnt work directly with Hans, approximately all of his investigation of the case and all therapeutic work occurred through correspondence with Hans father, who was Freuds admirer and friend. (McLeod, 2008). Therefore, this doubts the authenticity of the study.Later, it became obvious that Freud sometimes reprobate his patients case histories to fit with his theories (Sulloway, 1991). In 1960, Beck exposed the weaknesses of traditional psychoanalysis and proposed cognitive therapy as he could no t find any reliable studies proving the victory rates of psychoanalysis only anecdotal evidence of case reports. Furthermore, many psychoanalysts objected scientific examination (Collin et al, 2011, pp.175-177), which brings up the contrasting approach of behaviourism.Behaviourism is found on the works of Darwin, Thorndike, Watson, Pavlov and Skinner. The behaviourism approach suggested that psychology should be inured as a science and must be found on observations, research and experiments (Collin et al, 2011). Is it possible to judge behaviour? Behaviourism stated that it is. In order to do this, behaviourists experimented firstly on animals. Therefore, physiology has had a lot of influence on this approach. In 1890 Pavlov, essential the concept of definitive instruct (Collin et al, 2011). Pavlov introduced such terms as unconditioned and conditioned reflex, response and stimulant in physiology and psychology. Later some behaviourists switched to experimenting on human s. Yet, it cannot be said that these azoic experiments on humans were very ethical. With this in mind, one example is that of a case study known as Little Albert, carried out by Watson (1920), on a nine month old baby, Albert B. forthwith his method would arguably be come acrossed unethical and even cruel. However, Watson thought that the experiment was a logical continuation of previous animal studies. The aim of Watsons experiment was to find out if it was possible to teach an infant to fear an animal by repeatedly presenting it at the same time with a loud, scare noise, or a stimulus. Watson put the baby on a mattress and then showed hima dog, a rat, a rabbit and a monkey. Albert showed no fear and his natural instinct was to touch the animals. In this case, the animals were used as a neutral stimulus. In Watsons opinion, this was a baseline, from which he could measure any change in Alberts behaviour. Then, Watson started to frighten the child with a loud noise, an unconditio ned stimulus, by striking a metal contain with a hammer. Watson then paired the sighting of an animal with a frightening noise, and as a result, each time Albert saw an animal he burst into tears, because his natural response to the noise fear and distress had now become associated with animals.All that was very good from the point of view of Pavlovs classical conditioning, however today it may be argued that Watsons experimentation method was unethical. Nevertheless, Watsons experiment show that human emotions are hypersensitised to classical conditioning. This was his new input on Pavlovs theory, because previous stimulus-response experiments had pore on studying behaviour, not emotions. Later, Skinner published The Behaviour of Organisms (1938) and developed the concept of operative conditioning. Operant conditioning is a form of conditioning in which the outcome depends upon an animal operating upon its environment, such as mechanical press a lever to obtain food (Collin et al, 2011, p.342). Skinner carried out triplex experiments on animals, studying satisfaction and discomfort. He used positive and prejudicial reinforcers, working with rats and pigeons as well as primary and secondary reinforcers (Jarvis and Russell, 2002). through with(predicate) his experiments, Skinner proved that behaviour is often shaped not by a preceding stimulus, how it was stated previously in classical conditioning, but instead by the consequences of that behaviour (Collin et al, 2011, p.59). Today, Skinners ideas are used in workplace psychology, for example they influenced the method of rewards and incentives. The attractiveness of the reinforcer (incentive) can increase the productivity of workers and it is widely used in different industries. Similarly, operant conditioning has an application in todays clinical psychology. For example, in the study of depression. Also, self-harming addictions are explained in terms of operant conditioning, which is now often called behaviour modification. Behaviour modification is used in treating mental disorders and in programmed learning. Ghosh and Chattopadhyay used behaviour modification techniques when treating children with ADHD (Jarvis and Russell, 2002).TheBehaviourists approach has its strengths as it is scientific, their theories are supported by experiments. Behaviourism focuses on observable behaviour that can be measured (McLeod, 2007). On the other hand, behaviourism does not consider emotion and thinking. Watson denied the inheritance of capacity, talent, temperament and mental constitution (Collin et al, 2011, p.28). Not all human behaviour can be explained by operant conditioning, which is wherefore Skinners ideas are no longer popular with many psychologists today.Behaviourism does not explain complex mental processes, for example that humans often learn by the observation others, not just by punishment and rewards. Furthermore, operant conditioning does not explain the aspects of how horm ones and genetic predispositions run into and shape behaviour. However, because Pavlov and Watson successfully trained animals and childrens new behaviours through stimulus-response patterns, other researchers understood that if behaviour could be learned, it can also be unlearned. For example, based on that mechanism, Wolpe created treatments for war neurosis and phobias (Collin et al, 2011, p.87).How are these two perspectives viewed and applied in psychology today? Behaviourism was always considered as a more scientific, objective approach as compared to psychodynamics. Modern psychology is based on much more empirical, objective evidence than before, due to the efforts of behaviourists. Behaviourists introduced modern methodology, which includes businesslike ways to observe, collect data and carry out credible experiments. Watson demonstrated that human behaviour can be predicted, controlled and modified. Unlike behaviourism, Freuds ideas were based on observation case histori es rather than on experimental research. Behaviourism and psychodynamics are similar in their rejection to free will (McLeod, 2007) and their belief that everyone is born(p) tabula rasa, or as a blank slate (Collin et al, 2011, p.29). Despite this, behaviourists criticised psychoanalysts and fault versa. Freud criticised behaviourism as it did not consider the unconscious. However, Watson criticised Freuds idea of unconscious as not provable, because it is unconscious and therefore difficult to access. (Collin et al, 2011, p.94)On the other hand, some of Watsons methods are now dismissed as unethical. For example, Watson advocated retiring parenting, which he thought would be beneficial tochildren, but later he was largely criticised for his ideas, even by the mother of his own children. Watson grew up with an deluge father, and was not shown much attention as a child. Consequently, Watson did not suck much empathy to children himself. Virginia Satire later stressed the importa nce of affection and commiseration in creating a healthy family and shaping a successful person (Collin et al, 2011, p.146). Also, behaviourism does not recognise a difference between animals and humans. In contrast, due to Freud, more than 22 different schools of psychoanalysis have evolved from his method.It may be argued now that Freuds theories were not as scientific as the behaviourist approach, but nobody else influenced 20th century psychotherapy in general as much as he did. Freud started what is now called talking therapies (Collin et al, 2011, p.99) For example, Freuds ideas influenced cognitive therapy and humanistic psychotherapy (Collin et al, 2011, p.91). By the mid-20th century both behaviourism and psychodynamics were being critically examined.Finally, at the end of the 20th century, subsequently all the criticism and controversy, the best of psychodynamics and behaviourism joined together and gave deport to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). It happened when Wo lpes behavioural therapy merged with Becks cognitive therapy. There is strong empirical evidence for the success of CBT as compared with classical psychoanalysis (Collin et al, 2011, p.176). CBT is widely used today for the treatment of different anxiety and mood disorders (Mnsson et al, 2013). To conclude, it would be fair to say that both the behaviourism and psychodynamic perspectives have had a vast influence on modern Psychology.