Evaluate and Compare Two of the the Five Major Approaches to Psychology

Author: Ciarán O 'Sullivan
Five Pages 1205 Words

In this essay I hope to give a brief outline of the history & critiques levelled at the
Psychodynamic and the Behaviourist approaches to psychology and then attempt to offer a comparison. Psychodynamic.
Sigmund Freud 's early work in psychoanalysis was the precursor to the psychodynamic approach. His theories were later modified by others including Alfred Adler and Carl Jung.
The psychodynamic approach includes all the theories in psychology that see human functioning as based upon the interaction of drives and forces within the person, particularly unconscious conflict between the different structures of the personality.
(Barker, 2003)
Freud posited that the mind consisted of three areas the conscious, the unconscious and the preconscious and that within that framework the personality of a person existed. Freud further divided the personality into three parts. The ID a selfish unconscious area that operates on the pleasure principal, the Ego a conscious area that operates on the reality principle and the
Superego where a persons concept of right and wrong exist. Freud used Dream analysis and Free association (Talking therapy) as a means to gain access to a patients unconscious thought.
Freud believed that the personality has five 'Psychosexual Stages ' of development that must be experienced and resolved in order to avoid later neuroses. “Failure to resolve the oral stage would lead to oral fixation (such as smoking, excessive drinking, or eating disorders), and failure to resolve the anal stage would lead to excessive control and hoarding (obsessive compulsive disorder).” (Field, 2003).
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When parts of the personality conflict Ego Defence Mechanisms are unconsciously employed to protect the self from anxiety. For example, “we speak of people as 'repressed ' if they appear not to show their emotions and as 'in denial ' if they refuse to accept unpalatable facts.” (Jarvis, 2003)
While Freud is where psychodynamic theory originated other theorists have added to it and modified aspects based on their own observations. Alfred Adler saw birth order as being important in the development of a person’s personality. Jung had the theory of a collective unconscious based on the experiences of our ancestors and reflected in cultural myths and symbols. Jung also saw people as being born with an ‘introvert’ or ‘extravert’ personality type.
Criticism has been levelled at how data is gathered by practitioners of the psychodynamic approach. That it is based on qualitative rather then quantitative data, primarily single case studies and the analysts own interpretation of each case rather then large scale recreatable experiments making it unfalsifiable or not rigorously scientific. But despite these issues, the approaches and terminology used in psychodynamic theory have entered the public arena and is regarded by many, weather right or wrong, as the common sense approach to therapy.
Behaviourism.
The ground work for the field of Behaviourism was developed simultaneously by Ivan Pavlov and John Watson at the beginning of the 20th Century. The basic assumption of the behaviourist is that the mind is a black box that can not be studied and all that can be studied is a subject’s observable response to a stimulus.
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In
1913 Watson in his so called “Behaviourist Manifesto” printed as the article “Psychology as the behaviourist views it.” laid out the framework for the future behaviourist. This document stated that: l Psychology must be purely objective, excluding all subjective data or interpretations in terms of conscious experience. l The Goals of psychology should be to predict and control behaviour. l Human behaviour is simply a more complex form of the behaviour of other species. (Gross, 2005)
While giving an address to the American Psychological Association in 1915, Watson discussed his recent 'discovery ' of Ivan Pavlov and his work on reflex responses, or classical conditioning.
While studying gastric reflex in dogs, Pavlov discovered that a salivary response could be activated in the dogs by a conditioned stimulus (CS) such as a bell ringing, if this stimulus was linked to a previously unconditioned stimulus (UCS) like the presentation of food. When the dogs where given food they naturally produced a salivary response this is the unconditioned response (UCR). With the linking of the UCS to the CS the dogs learned to expect food when the bell rang. They would start to salivate at the hearing of the bell even if no food was produced this is called the conditioned response (CR).
While Watson and Pavlov where concerned with reflex responses another area of study for behaviourists is operant conditioning or voluntary behaviour. This theory of behaviour was arrived at by Burrhus Frederic Skinner and is an evolution of Edward Thorndike’s (1913) “Law of effect”. Thorndike used his 'Puzzle Box ' to show that behaviour was formed through “trial and error learning” (Malin & Birch, 1998). Skinner used a similar method namely his 'Skinner
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Box ' to show that rats could be trained to act in specific way for reward. These experiments showed that the behaviour of the rats could be shaped, to press a lever, when a suitable reward, food, was used as a positive reinforcer. Conversely he found rats could also be trained to stop a negative action occurring. The Rats learned that to stop receiving an electrical shock they had to press a lever, this being a negative reinforcement.
While behaviourism improved psychology’s status among the scientific community for its laboratory experiments and clearly defined theory 's. It is regarded by many as being limited in its application, it does not describe how spontaneous or creative behaviour is produced. It completely ignores internal mental processes as irrelevant regarding the mind as an impenetrable 'black box ' . Also its reliance on animal research has been questioned in terms of how accurate it is to say animal behaviour can be related to human behaviour when there are innate differences such as language.
While behaviourism developed as an opposing response to psychodynamics and that psychodynamic theory focuses on internal mental behaviour and behaviourism on external viewable behaviour. They can still be seen to have things in common. Both approaches believe that current behaviour is a product of past experience. The psychodynamic approach believes that what happened to you in your formative years gets suppressed into the unconscious and can effect your attitudes and behaviours in later life. Behaviourism believes that you act the way you do from past experiences through conditional learning. You learned that a particular behaviour has positive or negative consequences so you act accordingly in a given situation.
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Both approaches stem from the deterministic standpoint that uncontrollable forces are the cause of behaviour. The ID in psychodynamic theory is the manifestation of biological determinism and behaviourism comes from environmental determinism which states that local environments and available learning opportunities can explain current and predict future behaviour.
I chose to evaluate and compare these two areas of psychology because in the 20th century these two areas of psychology where the guiding force in a new era of modern psychology. I felt that
I would not have been able to explain humanist or cognitive psychology 's for example without referring in some way to these areas of study. OK my conclusion sucks and will be amended but the fact that I 've finally reached some semblance of a final article is moderately relieving despite the amount of re writes it took.... Try not to be too harsh I 'm very breakable :)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Malin, T. & Birch, A. (1998). Introductory Psychology. London: Macmillan Press Ltd.
Barker, M. (2003).Introductory Psychology: History, Themes and Perspectives. Exeter: Crucial.
Field, A. P. (2003). Clinical Psychology. Exeter: Crucial.
Jarvis, M. (2003). Psychodynamic Psychology: Classical Theory and Contemporary Research.
London: Thomson Learning .
Gross, R.. (2005). Psychology: the science of mind and behaviour. 5th ed. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
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Bibliography: Malin, T. & Birch, A. (1998). Introductory Psychology. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. Barker, M. (2003).Introductory Psychology: History, Themes and Perspectives. Exeter: Crucial. Field, A. P. (2003). Clinical Psychology. Exeter: Crucial. Jarvis, M. (2003). Psychodynamic Psychology: Classical Theory and Contemporary Research. London: Thomson Learning . Gross, R.. (2005). Psychology: the science of mind and behaviour. 5th ed. London: Hodder and Stoughton. V