¶ … Psychology
Throughout its history, psychology has undergone a number of evolutions. As the study of mind, the discipline has necessarily been subject to change as new research revealed information about the functions of the mind and its effect upon behavior. Relatively simple conclusions drawn by those who are currently considered the founding fathers of psychology have been challenged and modified to become the various subdisciplines in psychology that we know today. Along with what can be considered the "mental" trends in psychology such as the behaviorist, psychoanalytic, the cognitive, and the evolutionary approaches, it has also been recognized that psychology has a firm basis in physiology.
In about 1913, the focus of psychology up-to-date profoundly changed as a result of work by the American psychologist John B. Watson. In an effort to bring more scientific merit to psychology, Watson advocated that the study of behavior should be used to draw conclusions regarding psychological processes. As such behaviorism focused on the assumption that behavior was the result of automatic responses to environmental stimuli (ThinkQuest, 2011). After Watson, B.F. Skinner became the leader of behaviorism. It was also Skinner who developed the view that operant conditioning was the mechanism for learning.
Psychoanalytic theory had its basis in Europe. It was developed by probably the most well-known psychologist in history, Sigmund Freud. For Freud, behavior was not at the heart of psychology, but rather the...
Psychology The Field of Psychology: An Overview of Foundations, Influence and Pertinence in Today's World One of the most fascinating and complex fields of study in today's scientific world is psychology, the scientific examination of human behavior. Psychologists, as professionals, can prove to be an extremely useful resource, especially since mental disorders tend to be just as complicated as physical disorders, and, often, much less apparent. The field of psychology has grown tremendously
Therapeutic communities are important and valuable tools, but certainly not for all patients. Often, the community is made up of a certain ward or unit of the hospital, rather than the entire facility. Clearly, some patients, such as those suffering from serious debilitating diseases such as dementia or severe schizophrenia might not be physically or mentally able to exist in such a facility. However, for others, who have specific issues
There's an understood supposition of opposing causal agency at work. No matter what pressures and factors came to bear, the addict could have done something else, but simply decided not to (Choice and Free Will: Beyond the Disease Model of Addiction, 2010). A more behavioral approach to understanding addiction is the social learning model, which suggests that people learn how to behave by watching others in their environment and by
" (Wikopedia, n.d.) The social scientists moved from Freud to the idea of Pramatism. "Theodore Porter argued in "The Rise of Statistical Thinking" that the effort to provide a synthetic social science is a matter of both administration and discovery combined, and that the rise of social science was, therefore, marked by both pragmatic needs as much as by theoretical purity." (Wikopedia n.d.) An example of how the social science movement continues
Silence and Withdrawal - where the man "punishes" the woman for her "behavior" by becoming silent and withdrawn. Lack of Emotional Connection - where the woman reaches out for support and empathy, and the man withholds it (Chang 73-81). It is easy to see how these conditions of verbal and mental abuse could lead to feelings of low self-esteem and depression in women. Author Chang quotes a woman stuck in a mentally
history of behaviorism and psychoanalysis. The writer explores the changes the field has undergone since its inception as well as some of the people who were important to those changes. There were six sources used to complete this paper. Throughout the last fifty years there have been massive changes in the field of therapy. Two of the most common approaches to therapy are behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Each of the approaches
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