Lesson 6 Psychodynamic & Behaviouristic Approaches PDF

**[Lesson 06]** **[Theoretical Perspectives II]** **[Topic: 22-25]** **Psychodynamic & Behavioristic Perspective** **[Topic 21: Psychodynamic Perspective]** Psychodynamic model IS the oldest and most famous of the modern psychological models. Psychodynamic theorists believe that a person's beha...

**[Lesson 06]** **[Theoretical Perspectives II]** **[Topic: 22-25]** **Psychodynamic & Behavioristic Perspective** **[Topic 21: Psychodynamic Perspective]** Psychodynamic model IS the oldest and most famous of the modern psychological models. Psychodynamic theorists believe that a person's behavior, whether normal or abnormal, is determined largely by underlying psychological forces of which he or she is not consciously aware. These internal forces are described as dynamic that is, they interact with one another and their interaction gives rise to behavior, thoughts, and emotions. Abnormal symptoms are viewed as the result of conflicts between these forces. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was the founder of Psychodynamic theory and psychoanalytic therapy **Freud's Three Levels of Mind:** According to Freud there are three parts of mind each with their own roles and functions **Conscious**: Conscious mind is comprised of all of the thoughts, memories, feelings, and wishes of which we are aware at any given moment. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally.  **Preconscious/Subconscious**: This past consists of consists of anything that could potentially be brought into the conscious mind. **Unconscious Mind: **This is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness. The unconscious contains contents that are unacceptable by the society or unpleasant, for example feelings of pain, anxiety, sexual urges or conflicts etc. **Structure of Personality:** **Id:** According to Freud, the psychological force that produces instinctual needs, drives, and impulses. The Id (instinctual Drives) unconsciously strive to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. It operates on the pleasure principle, demanding gratification. **Ego:** According to Freud, the psychological force that employs reason and operates in accordance with the reality principle. It functions as the "executive" and mediates the demands of the id and super ego. **Superego:** According to Freud, the psychological force that represents a person's values and ideals is superego. The superego provided standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations. According to Freud, these three parts of the personality the id, the ego, and the superego---are often in some degree of conflict. A healthy personality is one in which an effective working relationship, an acceptable compromise, has formed among the three forces. If the id, ego, and superego are in excessive conflict, the person's behavior may show signs of dysfunction **Development of Personality:** Freud believed that personality forms during the first few years of life, divided into psychosexual stages. According to him the personality develops in first three stages, and no substantial changes occur later. Freud proposed that at each stage of development, from infancy to maturity, new events challenge individuals and require adjustments in their id, ego, and superego. If the adjustments are successful, they lead to personal growth. If not, the person may become fixated, or stuck, at an early stage of development. Then all subsequent development suffers, and the individual may well be headed for abnormal functioning in the future. During these stages, the id's pleasure seeking energies focus on pleasure sensitive body areas called erogenous zones. **Psychosexual Stages of Development:** - **Oral Stage: 0-18 months:** In this stage, pleasure centers on the mouth, sucking, biting chewing etc. - **Anal Stage: (18-36 months):** Pleasure focuses upon bowel and bladder elimination and it helps coping with demands of control. - **Phallic Stage (3-6 years):** Pleasure zone is genitals, coping with incestuous sexual feelings. Electra and Oedipus complex are salient features of this stage. - **Latency Stage:** (6 to puberty): No further psychosexual development takes place during this stage and sexual feeling is dormant. Most sexual impulses are repressed during the latent stage, and sexual energy can be sublimated into other social activities.  - **Genital:** (Puberty to onwards): Maturation of sexual interests occurs in this stage. [**Topic 23**: **Defense Mechanisms**] According to psychoanalytic theory, strategies developed by the ego to control unacceptable id impulses and to avoid or reduce the anxiety they arouse are known as defense mechanisms. These are ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.  Following are few mechanisms: **Repression:** It reduces anxiety arousing thoughts feelings and memories from consciousness. Person avoids anxiety by simply not allowing painful or dangerous thoughts to become conscious. For example, an executive's desire to run amok and attack his boss and colleagues at a board meeting is denied access to his awareness. **Regression:** It leads to an infantile stage. Person retreats from an upsetting conflict to an early developmental stage in which no one is expected to behave maturely or responsibly for example, a boy who cannot cope with the anger he feels toward his rejecting mother regresses to infantile behavior, soiling his clothes and no longer taking care of his basic needs. **Reaction Formation:** It causes the ego to unconsciously switch unacceptable impulses into their opposites. For example, treating someone you strongly dislike in an excessively friendly manner in order to hide your true feelings. **Projection:** It leads people to disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. Person attributes his or her own unacceptable impulses, motives, or desires to other individuals. For example; the executive who repressed his destructive desires may project his anger onto his boss and claim that it is actually the boss who is hostile. **Rationalization:** It offers self-justifying explanation. Person creates a socially acceptable reason for an action that actually reflects unacceptable motives. A student explains away poor grades by citing the importance of the "total experience" of going to college and claiming that too much emphasis on grades would actually interfere with a well-rounded education. **Displacement: **It shifts sexual or aggressive** **impulses towards a more acceptable object. Person displaces hostility away from a dangerous object and onto a safer substitute. For example; after a perfect parking spot is taken by a person who cuts in front of your car, you release your pent-up anger by starting an argument with your roommate. **Normal/Abnormal Functioning:** According to Freud, a healthy personality is one in which compromise exists among the three forces i.e. Id, ego and super ego. If id, ego and superego are in excessive conflict, the person's behavior may show signs of dysfunction. [**Topic 24**: **Therapeutic Techniques of Psychoanalytic Therapy**] Psychodynamic therapies range from Freudian psychoanalysis to modern therapies based on self-theory or object relations theory. Psychodynamic therapists seek to uncover past traumas and the inner conflicts that have resulted from them. They try to help clients resolve, or settle, those conflicts and to resume personal development. According to most psychodynamic therapists, therapists must subtly guide therapy discussions so that the patients discover their underlying problems for themselves. Following techniques are employed in psychoanalysis: **Free Association:** In psychodynamic therapies, the patient is responsible for starting and leading each discussion. The therapist tells the patient to describe any thought, feeling, or image that comes to mind, even if it seems unimportant. This practice is known as free association. The therapist expects that the patient's associations will eventually uncover unconscious events.  **Resistance**: Sometime it happens that during speaking sometimes there comes a blockade, or client takes more time, or resists to share some information. According to Freud, that particular area might be problematic and it must be analyzed. **Transference: **Transference is client's unconscious positive or negative feeling redirection toward the therapist.** ** **Dream Interpretation: **Dreams, according to Freud, were a royal road to unconscious.** **He believed that through the analysis of dreams, we can gain some insight into a person\'s motivations and wishes. Manifest content of dreams and latent content of dreams both are analyzed while interpreting a dream.  **Catharsis: **Catharsis is the reliving of past repressed feelings in order to settle internal conflicts and overcome problems. **Post Freudians:** After Freud there were many other psychologists who contributed in his theoretical framework. Among them, following two were the eminent psychologists.  **Carl Jung: **Worked on analytical psychology.** **Jung's prominent concepts are archetypes, collective unconscious, extraversion and introversion and Word Association test **Alfred Adler: **Adler is considered the founder of** **Individual Psychology**. **Inferiority complex** and b**irth order are two distinctive concepts of his theory.  [**Topic 25**: **Behavioral Perspective**] ** Basic Concepts** Behaviorists believe actions and behavior are determined largely by experiences in life and our experience is again determined by the environmental factors. Whatever happens around us, or the consequences of our own behavior determine how we will behave in future. Many learned behaviors help people to cope with daily challenges and to lead happy, productive lives. However, abnormal behaviors also can be learned. All explanations of behavior and treatment strategies of this school of thought are based on principles of learning. **Conditioning:** Learning principles are based on conditioning. Theorists have identified several forms of conditioning, and each may produce abnormal behavior as well as normal behavior. Following three have been discussed in this regard: **Classical Conditioning:** It is a process of learning by temporal association in which two events that repeatedly occur close together in time become fused in a person's mind and produce the same response. Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) is considered the father of classical conditioning. When two events occur close together in time, they become fused in the person's mind and subsequently, the person responds in the same way to both events.  C:\\Users\\Saeeda\\Desktop\\72ff70c6cb32a57995de5d2081132da7.jpg In classical conditioning, for example, people learn to respond to one stimulus the same way they respond to another as a result of the two stimuli repeatedly occurring together close in time. If, say, a physician wears a white lab coat whenever she gives painful allergy shots to a little boy, the child may learn to fear not only injection needles, but also white lab coats. Many phobias are acquired by classical conditioning, **Operant Conditioning:** B.F. Skinner is the main proponent of operant conditioning. It is a process of learning in which individuals come to behave in certain ways as a result of experiencing consequences of one kind or another whenever they perform the behavior.  Following are the principles of operant conditioning: 1. **Immediacy:** The reward of a behavior must be closed in time and space. For example, it should be immediate and not be delayed after a certain behavior has been shown. 2. **Consistency: **Consistency refers that a certain type of behavior must be reinforced/punished every time. If there is not consistency in reinforcement/punishment, the behavior will not be shaped. 3. **Reinforcement:** If the consequences of a behavior are satisfying, they are called reinforcers, and they serve to increase the likelihood of the person repeating the behavior in the future, it could be either positive or negative. A consequence is reinforcing when it is pleasant (a reward, positive reinforcement) or when it removes an aversive state such as pain or fear (negative reinforcement). 4. **Punishment:** On the other hand, the consequences of a behavior are unsatisfying, they are called punishments, and they serve to decrease the likelihood of the person repeating the behavior in the future. Punishment can be positive or negative. A consequence is punishing when it is unpleasant (positive punishment) or when it takes away something pleasant (Negative punishment). **Modeling:** It is a process of learning in which an individual acquires responses by observing and imitating others. Phobias can also be acquired by modeling. If a little girl observes her father become frightened whenever a dog crosses his path, she herself may develop a phobic fear of dogs.