The four common goals of psychologists are to describe, explain, predict, and control what happens. Although all psychologists share this purpose, the way different psychologists approach problems vary greatly. There are several different theoretical approaches to psychology. These approaches, referred to as the frameworks of psychology, have evolved psychology into the science it is today. A few examples of psychological approaches include behaviorism, cognitivism, and structuralism. How do different approaches to psychology differ a patient’s treatment? To answer this question, let’s take a look at our example Jake, who has just been diagnosed with anxiety disorder.
The behavioral approach to Jake’s anxiety disorder would deal with Jake’s observable behavior. A behaviorist would notice cues such as Jake’s shortness of breath, sleep deprivation, and chewed fingernails to diagnose Jake with anxiety. Behaviorists would claim that Jake’s
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Cognitive psychology is based upon the concept of how we think. While some behaviorists have acknowledged thinking, they view thinking as a form of behavior. Supporters of the cognitive approach would argue the opposite and claim that thinking controls our behavior. In Jake’s scenario, a cognitive approach to an anxiety disorder would rely heavily on the mental processes involved in Jake’s thinking. Supporters of cognitive psychology would claim that Jake’s anxiety is formed through things such as his learning and memory. Perhaps Jake has anxiety because he knows he isn’t prepared for his exams. Cognitive psychologists may try to target Jake’s thoughts and alter them to treat his anxiety. Nowadays, cognitive psychology is thriving. A new field of cognitive psychology has recently been developed called cognitive neuroscience. Psychologists today would still rely heavily on cognitive psychology to treat
The cognitive approach involves the development of a person’s thought process. This involves things like memory, thinking, perception, and problem solving (Myers, 2014). The cognitive therapy approach teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions (Myers, 2014). In other words, the harmful or negative thought patterns are identified and examined, and better, less threatening alternative thinking patterns are created to replace the negative thought patterns. This is, especially useful, as the compulsive actions are a response to the negative thought patterns that cause
Cognitions are the thoughts, beliefs, and the internal messages that individuals have about events within their lives (Gladding, 2005). This is the basis of cognitive theory and what counselors assist their clients in modifying. To execute this properly in helping clients professional counselors must know the major principles of cognitive theory, cognitive interventions, who may benefit from cognitive interventions, and examine case studies to identify and treat cognitive distortions that inhibit individuals.
The field of psychology is a discipline, originated from many branches of science. It has applications from within a complete scope of avenues, from psychotherapy to professional decision-making. The flexibility and versatility of this field reflects its importance and demands in-depth analysis. Psychology was a division of philosophy until it developed independent scientific disciplines. The history of psychology was a scholarly study of the mind and behavior that dates back to the beginning of civilization. There are important details from previous theory psychologist, research have contributed to behaviorism approaches and have contributed towards specific current behavioral practices. Contemporary behavior therapy began to emerge into distinct practical and core learning theories concerning the needs and knowledge engaging cultural and professional differences.
Cognition has traditionally been equated to conscious thought, and as such clinicians have relied upon questionnaires and interviews in order to study the cognitive aspects of emotional disorders such as PTSD.
Whilst evaluating the cognitive approach to psychology there are many strengths such as that the cognitive approach takes an understanding of the influence from mental processes on one’s behaviour, focusing on an individual’s thinking patterns and their perception. This approach also relates to many known functions and operations that the human body performs such as memory and problem solving.
Several acheivements occurred in the development of cognitive psychology. The study of neuroscience brings us to what we know about cognition today. Cognitive psychology came from the criticisms and flaws of behaviorism. The focus of behaviorism is on observable behaviors, although cognitive psychology became a means to studying mental processes. Cognitive psychology can answer the questions behaviorism could not provide. Behavioral observations are key factors in cognitive psychology, and help with interpreting mental processes and behaviors. Through studying mental processes cognitive psychologists’ expanded psychology through and beyond observations. Behavioral observations helps researchers test cognitive theories. Behaviorists study observable behavior and cognitive psychologists study the mental processes. When studying these processes, researchers attempt to explain how unobservable processes interact with the observable behaviors and helping cognitive psychologists test their theories in
Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy has its foundations in two distinctive therapeutic theories, Cognitive Therapy and Behavioural Therapy. Cognitive Therapy (CT) believes that thoughts, feelings and behaviour are connected. CT states and an individual with help; can identify an issue that is causing a behavioural or an emotional response and correcting that thinking to achieve a desired outcome. Behavioural Therapy believes that individual’s behaviour is due to conditioning during the early years of life and as such can be altered with conscious awareness. Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy is a combination of both of these theories and is based on an individual’s own history of thought an...
The five major theoretical perspectives in psychology are biological, learning, cognitive, psychodynamic, and sociocultural perspectives. Each one of these perspectives searches for answers about behavior through different techniques and through looking for answers to different kinds of questions. Due to the different approaches, each perspective form their own assumptions and explanations. Some perspectives are widely accepted while others struggle for acceptance.
This candidate believes that the behavioral approach and the psychoanalytic approaches have a few similarities and differences, when it comes to behavior management. “Why do people behave the way they do” is a statement that this candidate has pondered upon, prior to this class. (Zirpoli,2008). The behavioral approach discusses how certain behaviors are explained through observations. The causes of these behaviors primarily is conditioned or learned from others. The psychological approach is different from behavioral, when dealing with the causes of the behavior. It supports the idea that a defect in personality is the cause of the abnormal behavior. The psychological approach, “focuses on drives, impulses, needs motives, conflicts and personality traits”.(Zirpoli, 2008). Compared to behavioral approach, states that these behaviors are learned over time.
“Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity and thinking.” The processes of cognitive psychology also utilize the aspects of other psychological disciplines including: educational, social, personality, abnormal, developmental, and economic psychology. A cognitive psychologist’s main objective is to assess a person’s mental ability. My primary interest in researching this particular field in psychology is due to the fact that I am interested in the brain and how the brain causes us to become who we are.
Without much debate, the field of psychology has continued to evolve as psychological schools of thought work hard to provide structure and guidance for successful treatment in the clinical setting. However, which schools of thought best capture the human experience? Furthermore, how are these psychological perspectives navigated through the philosophical framework? For example, cognitive psychology has heavily influenced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) by providing a valuable framework for human behavior by detecting the faulty thought processing that allows the clients to discover the necessary coping skills to address their issues. On the other hand, individual psychology (IP) has also established significant theories that have made many contributions to contemporary psychology. Therefore, it is important to critically discuss the contributions of cognitive psychology and individual psychology in order to better understand their relationship to philosophical
With the cognitive approach it is all about understanding the internal process of people’s minds. In general, cognitive psychologists study behaviour by using the laboratory experiment. Other methods used in the cognitive approach are introspection, memory psychology, observations and computer modelling. Introspection involves us examining our own inner thoughts and feelings. The cognitive approach is vastly applicable e.g. for use in therapy (McLeod, 2007).
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mind and mental function, including learning, memory, attention, perception, reasoning, language, conceptual development, and decision making. The modern study of cognition rests on the premise that the brain can be understood as a complex computing system. The cognitive approach began to revolutionize psychology in the 1950’s to the 1960’s. It became the dominant approach in psychology by the by 1970. Interest in mental processes had been gradually restored through the work of Piaget and Tolman. It was the arrival of the computer that gave cognitive psychology the terminology and metaphor it needed to investigate the human mind. The start of the use of computers allowed psychologists to try to understand the complexities of human cognition by comparing it with something simpler and better understood a artificial system such as a computer. The use of the computer as a tool for thinking how the human mind handles information is known as the computer analogy. Then computers codes information, stores information, uses information, and produces an
There are 4 approaches to the field of clinical psychology; they are in psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, and family systems. In the field of clinical psychology, applying these four major approaches contributes to the efficiency in treatment by classifying the goals of each approach. In this paper, the approaches, goals, techniques, and the overall approaches used will be broken down and described.
Cognitive psychology is the study of the mind. Its main focuses are the mind as a pathway to process information also including things such as perception, attention, language, and memory. The way these psychologists learn new information is through a scientific approach to discover the processes. However, everything we do or decide can be traced down to simple things we