Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Psychoanalytic theory evaluation
Behaviourism philosophy
Behaviourism philosophy
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Psychoanalytic theory evaluation
Psychology is a multifaceted science that embraces both conscious and unconscious parts of the human mind that includes a lot of sub-fields, such as human development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior and cognitive processes. Throughout the years, there have developed many theoretical approaches in order to categorise these fields, and create a structured field of research for psychology. Some of these approaches include behaviourism, psychoanalysis, cognitive and humanism. Although these approaches are the dominant viewpoints in psychology and have been praised for their main concepts and ideas, they have been met with various criticisms over the years. The behaviourist approach assumes that behaviour is a byproduct of …show more content…
This approach studies each person as a unique individual and on a personal level, also called idiographic, by focusing on their own thought process that led to a reaction or behaviour. In addition, it is a holistic approach, meaning it believes that psychology should study a person as a whole (class notes, 2016). It was developed as an argument against, and an answer to the criticisms that the psychodynamic and behaviourist approach faced (McLeod, 2015). It also focuses on personal responsibility, free will and the individual’s striving for personal growth and development, and uses a technique called phenomenology that involves reporting direct experience and avoiding interpreting it (class notes, 2016). Moreover, it completely rejected the two approaches due to their deterministic nature, and has been deemed dehumanising by various humanistic psychologists (McLeod, 2015). One of the internal approaches within this perspective is the person-centred approach, which is named as such because of the approach’s focus on a person’s subjective experience and subjective point of view (Pennington et al., 2003). Due to this outlook, the theory rejects the importance of objective reality and puts an emphasis on subjective perceptions and understanding, and psychology laboratories are often rejected for research on human and animal subjects (McLeod, 2015). In order to measure individual perceptions in depth, humanism also rejects scientific methodologies, and instead focuses on diary accounts, open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and unstructured observations, also known as qualitative research (McLeod, 2015). Because of this, it has been met with criticisms for its
Psychology comprises of two words originally used by the ‘Greeks’, ‘psyche’, defining the mind, soul or spirit and lastly ‘logos’ being study. Both words define together the ‘study of the mind’. Psychology perspectives evaluate the normal and abnormal behaviour and how persons’ deal with different concepts of issues and problems. Psychology theories’ are based on ‘common sense’, but its scientific structure, everything needs to be evaluated and tested, therefore, promoting different psychological theories’.
The birth of psychology was in December of 1879, at Germanys University of Leipzig (Myers, 2014, p.2). In 1960, Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener defines psychology as “the science of mental health” (Myers, 2014, p.4). However, two provocative American psychologists, John Watson and B.F Skinner, redefined psychology in 1920. They redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behavior” (Myers, 2014, p.4). The problem arose when psychologists realized people could not observe feeling or thought so they needed to come up with a new definition for psychology. We define psychology today as “the science of behavior and mental processes” (Myers, 2014, p.4). Psychology includes many subfields such as human development, social behavior,
Psychology can be broadly defined as the scientific and systematic study of people’s behavior and mental processes.
The development of psychology like all other sciences started with great minds debating unknown topics and searching for unknown answers. Early philosophers and psychologists such as Sir Francis Bacon and Charles Darwin took a scientific approach to psychology by introducing the ideas of measurement and biology into the way an indi...
The study of psychology began as a theoretical subject a branch of ancient philosophy, and later as a part of biological sciences and physiology. However, over the years, it has grown into a rigorous science and a separate discipline, with its own sets of guidance and experimental techniques. This paper aims to study the various stages that the science of psychology passed through to reach its contemporary status, and their effects on its development. It begins with an overview of the historical and philosophical basis of psychology, discusses the development of the various schools of thought, and highlights their effects on contemporary personal and professional decision-making.
In this assignment I am going to introduce and unpack cognitive behavioural theory and psychodynamic theory. This will include the history of each theory and the theorists that discovered and developed both. I am going to link each theory to where they fit in Payne’s Triangle of Social Work as well as compare and contrast each theory. Both Cognitive behavioural theory and psychodynamic theory both support the purposes of social work in which I will cover beneath. This assignment will also include criticisms of both theories as well.
The term psychology has many meanings to different people, even to those who work within the psychological field. The word psychology derives from two Greek roots; 'psyche' refers to 'soul' or 'mind' and logo refers to 'the study of'. A more update definition of the word psychology can be found from Atkinson, et al (1991) “The scientific study of behaviours and mental processes.” However on Google Definitions the definition of psychology is “the mental characteristics and attitudes of a person” [accessed 16 September 2011], which gives somewhat of a contradiction. In this assignment I will be outlining and evaluating four key psychological perspectives. The psychological perspectives I have chosen are the behavioural approach, biological approach, cognitive approach and the psychodynamic approach.
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior. In psychology, and all of the other sciences, relying on opinions is abandoned in order to find out which explanations best fit the evidence or data given. Science continually forces us to question our findings and conclusions. Over time, psychology has advanced greatly and a main reason for such progressiveness is because of the change in the research model used.
The following essay is an attempt to critically compare and contrast these two approaches from various aspects, and deduce which one is more encompassing.
Introduction When most laymen think about psychology, a version of the psychodynamic theory is surely what comes to mind. Most people have heard of Freud and the somewhat ridiculous notions that he brought about over a century ago. What many people may not understand is just how advanced the psychodynamic theory was at the time it came about. Although this theory definitely has some flaws, it has some astonishingly valid aspects to it as well. An analysis of this Freudian theory shows that there are both strengths and weaknesses to the psychodynamic theory, and that it can still be applicable to modern-day social work.
ID, ego and superego. He said you were born with ID which was in your
Psychoanalysis gives an understanding of the unconscious mind of human beings while behaviorism is the study of behaviors of individuals in different environments. The theory of humanistic theory emphasizes on the potential of every person and focuses on the benefits of self-actualization and growth. The humanistic theory focuses on the belief that individuals are internally good and that social and mental problems are because of deviations from the norm (Arnaud & Vanheule, 2013).
The British Psychological Society states that ‘Psychology is the scientific study of people, the mind and behaviour’ (BPS). In this essay I will be discussing what is actually meant by this and whether psychology fits into both the traditional views of a science, as well as more contemporary perspectives. It is widely suggested that Psychology is a “coalition of specialities” meaning it is multi-disciplinary (Hewstone, Fincham and Foster 2005, page 4). I will therefore examine whether it could be considered wrong to think that all parts of the discipline should neatly fit into one view of a scientific approach.
The psychodynamic theory encompasses both Freud and Erikson. Freud believed the three components of personality were the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is responsible for all needs and urges, while the superego for ideals and moral. The ego moderates between the demands of the id, the superego, and reality. However, Erikson believed that personality progressed through a series of stages, with certain conflicts arising at each stage. Success in any stage depended upon successfully overcoming these conflicts. The advantage to psychodynamic is that it encompasses the individual, meaning that the theory looks at personality from childhood all the way into adulthood. The disadvantages of this theory are that it cannot be tested validly. Therefore,
In this essay I am looking at where Psychology as a discipline has come from and what affects these early ideas have had on psychology today, Psychology as a whole has stemmed from a number of different areas of study from Physics to Biology,