Sigmund Freud was the first to challenge the view that mental disorders were caused by physical illness and proposed that psychological factors were responsible for the illness. The psychodynamic approach highlights the importance of the unconscious mind and early childhood experiences. Psychodynamic psychologist’s attempt to deal with the mental health issues of their patients by incorporating these ideas and creating therapies using these ideas. The basic concept behind psychoanalysis is that a patient that suffers from mental health problems such as depression can address any regressed feelings thus, the patient gains insight of and can learn to work through their emotional baggage. It is a generalised concept that if the cause of the symptoms were tackled it would only be logical that the symptoms would then cease.
Personality psychologists claimed that one of the most profound challenges is to account for personality development, that’s why they put this into a study whether an individual’s behavior are caused by heredity or the environment, this study is known as the “nature” and “nurture”. First, the nature suggests that human behavior is driven mostly by biology (evolution, genetics, brain chemistry, and hormones). In contrast, the nurture suggests that behavior is driven mostly by psychosocial environment (for example, how we were raised, our peers, the situations we are in at present). Both nature and nurture contribute to who an individual is, but to better comprehend the nature versus nurture debate, we should look at the essential characteristics that make up this controversy. Humans are unique and highly-intricate creatures.
The major perspectives represent fundamental assumptions that underlie the research questions and methods that are used in order to answer the questions of psychology. Most all perspectives define psychology as the discipline interested in studying human behavior and mental processes, but that covers a lot of ground and the causes of behavior and mental processes are not always clear. ("Major Perspectives in Psychology", 2011). Psychodynamic Perspective:
Human Development 101 PART 1 CHAPTER 3 OUTLINE A. Defining Heredity and Environment a. The transmission of genetic characters from parents to offspring: it is dependent upon the segregation and recombination of genes during meiosis and fertilization and results in the genesis of a new individual similar to others of its kind but exhibiting certain variations resulting from the particular mix of genes and their interactions with the environment. b. The genetic code: The genetic code by which DNA stores the genetic information consists of "condos" of three nucleotides.
Foundations of Psychology Kelly Timmons University of Phoenix General Psychology PSY 300 Alen Khudaverdyan July 31, 2011 Foundations of Psychology The purpose of this paper is to examine the mental and psychological aspects of psychology. This paper will also define what psychology is and how it relates to feelings, mental processes, and remembering. Psychology is the investigation of the processes previously mentioned and the understanding of individual cultural, psychological, and biological experiences. Identify the major schools of thought in psychology and examine their major underlying assumptions. Structuralism: The concept of structuralism is to examine the mind and its processes in regard to consciousness.
Discuss issues surrounding diagnosis and classification of phobic disorders (16 mks) Phobias are very common in today’s society and the spectrum of what someone may be phobic of is very large. However, views on how phobias are formed vary just as much. Some psychologists believe that phobias have a basis in genetics, while some believe they are learned. Because of this disparity in ideas, coupled with the fact that psychology is a very subjective science, there are a lot of issues relating to diagnosis and classification of phobic disorders. One of the main issues pertaining to diagnosis is the reliability of it.
PSY 223 Assignment 1 Theories Four major theories of human development are described, compared, and evaluated in Chapter 1. These are the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Erikson; the behaviorism of Pavlov and Skinner and the social learning theory of Bandura; Piaget’s cognitive theory; and systems theories, including Bronfenbrenner’s ecological-systems approach and the dynamic-systems theory. Although each theories is too restricted to account solely for the tremendous diversity in human development, each has made an important contribution to developmental psychology. To help clarify your understanding of the major developmental theories, this exercise asks you to focus on the similar, contradictory, and complementary aspects of the five theories. · Which of the major developmental theories are stage theories?
In Erikson’s view he sees these conflicts centered around developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. Erikson’s theory is stage theory based on the assumption that development is universal and although there may be individual differences in terms of when and how it is experienced everyone in the end should develop and go through the same stages. In our world today, Erikson’s theory is often questioned due to the growing cross-cultural evidence that people in different cultures develop and go through different experiences and stages in life. Erikson’s fifth stage of his theory is the most controversial and fought over stage. This stage in Identity vs. Confusion and concerns adolescence children and the way they explore their independence and develop a sense of self.
So, behaviourists such as Guthrie, Skinner and Spencer set out to discover how people learn (as cited in McLeod, 2008, pg. 132-133). In this essay I shall compare and contrast how the psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural model of counselling understands the person. Firstly, the psychodynamic approach is based on Sigmund Freud’s practice. Psychodynamic counselling places a great emphasis in exploring the types of feelings and dilemmas that have caused difficulties in a person’s everyday life.
While Piaget believed in the universal stages and set cognitive development within those stages, Vygotsky really placed a great deal of the responsibility for development on the culture to which the child is exposed, and he also placed a great amount of importance on social factors. (simplypsychology) Critics of Piaget feel that he greatly underestimated the effects of social factors on cognitive development. Research has refuted the claims by Piaget that his learning stages were fixed and that certain learning could not take place until a child reached that particular stage of development (Slavin, 2009, p.40) Through research, it is now widely accepted that children are more competent than Piaget deduced. Piaget also believed in self-initiated discovery while Vygotsky placed emphasis on social contributions to learning such as cooperative learning. Another main controversy is with Piaget’s broad grouping of the stages affecting cognitive tasks.