Can We Leave The Past Behind?
“Can we ever leave the past behind?”
To answer this question I will be considering the theories of Melanie Klein and Erik Erickson, as highlighted in module 2. I will be describing these stage theories of development in children, and how these theories suggest that successful or unsuccessful development of each stage may have an effect on a person in their adult life, thus supporting the notion that you can never leave the past behind you.
I will then be looking at some of the other popular theories within psychotherapy and highlighting the basic assumptions of these theories and how these all seem to have grounding in suggesting that the past is affecting the present, which would seem to support the statement that “you can never leave the past behind you”. However, as I will explore, I will argue why …show more content…
But I suppose it is the determining factors as to why each person will have different resulting behaviours that may present an argument against “we can never leave the past behind”. Genetic make-up, subsequent counterbalancing experiences, influence of others are some of the reasons why two people may respond differently. Children who have grown up in similar environments will grow into adults with very different behaviours, despite having very similar early experiences (ref).
Behaviourists who believe that behaviours are learned, and thus can be unlearned or replaced with new behaviours (ref), offer a belief that yes our learnt behaviours maybe carried forward from our past, up until a point where we decide that we want to stop or change them, and then as adults we can go about learning new ones through positive reinforcement or reward. Therefore, a behaviourist approach seems to very much see humans as adaptable, and not fixed down by their past experiences and so able to “leave the past
To answer this question I will be considering the theories of Melanie Klein and Erik Erickson, as highlighted in module 2. I will be describing these stage theories of development in children, and how these theories suggest that successful or unsuccessful development of each stage may have an effect on a person in their adult life, thus supporting the notion that you can never leave the past behind you.
I will then be looking at some of the other popular theories within psychotherapy and highlighting the basic assumptions of these theories and how these all seem to have grounding in suggesting that the past is affecting the present, which would seem to support the statement that “you can never leave the past behind you”. However, as I will explore, I will argue why …show more content…
But I suppose it is the determining factors as to why each person will have different resulting behaviours that may present an argument against “we can never leave the past behind”. Genetic make-up, subsequent counterbalancing experiences, influence of others are some of the reasons why two people may respond differently. Children who have grown up in similar environments will grow into adults with very different behaviours, despite having very similar early experiences (ref).
Behaviourists who believe that behaviours are learned, and thus can be unlearned or replaced with new behaviours (ref), offer a belief that yes our learnt behaviours maybe carried forward from our past, up until a point where we decide that we want to stop or change them, and then as adults we can go about learning new ones through positive reinforcement or reward. Therefore, a behaviourist approach seems to very much see humans as adaptable, and not fixed down by their past experiences and so able to “leave the past