History of Psychology

Luis Arce/ History and Systems of Psychology/Dr. Keating

What is your view on Loftus' position statement that researching suppressed memories does more harm than good? I believe completely the antithesis of Loftus that researching suppressed memories does more harm than good. There are elements of denial in seeking different avenues to confronting the problems of everyday life head on. A person has to be slowly introduced to perhaps repressed memories from early traumatic experiences to slowly, but surely, have the person moving in the right direction of personal disclosure for an issue that could be taking preeminence in their life. Just like in shock therapy, it might be painful or hurtful to uncover the past and all it comes with to do the correct thing and disentangling the web, many times, we create out of fear to see what we find out about ourselves. Therefore, I disagree wholeheartedly with the notion that merely probing the psyche for what is considered a "suppressed memory", has devastating effects on a person's image appraisal and schema orientations based on their supposed " traumatic events". How can a person come to understand whether or not, what they are feeling is really disconcerting or not. Yet again, one must consider empathy in its truest form in that the manner that a person approaches a needing other, has immense ramifications to how much they are willing to reveal about themselves, which is everything because, when a person starts opening up to you, then real in roads of improvement can take place for their self-image and self-esteem issues. For Loftus to stake out a position like he did, especially when dealing with the human psyche, runs contrary to the expected dimension most psychologist would investigate. The cascading domino effect of past memories usually manifest themselves in overt facial gestures expressing discomfort to a thought or incident, and that is it when a psychologist must intercede and pose poignant questions or positions to garner rapport with your friend, the patient. Too many times, in our society of fast paced interviews to have efficient client to treatment ratio standards of therapy, does make a person seeking help, feel as nothing more than a meat bag coming down the assembly line of dysfunction to just be given the rubber stamp care treatment, once labeled, and neatly packaged with their prescriptions, they are free to be a part of the market within the real world. Human beings are being measured with cold instruments and tools of analysis, the least we could do, is to try to thaw the hearts of those we speak to by understanding the perspectives from where they see the world, and there is nothing wrong with that. Actually, I think the opposite is true, when a person does not probe suppressed thoughts and feelings, they remain bottled up until the pressure is too much, and the person eventually blows their top off mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Critically discuss catharsis and cathexis and defend your views on the topics. Some modern therapeutic modalities emphasize the value of expression of repressed emotions and use catharsis as the essential tool for the positive therapeutic change. While the supporters of cognitive-behavioral approaches dominate the field of psychology, most of the contemporary schools underestimate the importance of catharsis. I think the regulation is the primary goal, therefore leaving full emotional release in the periphery or often perceiving it as a negative direction. The confusion occurs because of a lack of careful definition and agreement as to what constitutes catharsis. I think the complexity of the phenomenon of catharsis involves experiencing repressed emotional traumas within safe and supportive environment, involving emotional discharge, as well as appropriate cognitive processing and insight.

A key concept, "cathexis" refers to the process that attaches psychic energy, essentially libido, to an object, whether this is the representation of a person, body part, or psychic element. Implicit in Freud's early works, the idea of cathexis stems directly from the hypothesis of psychic energy. The term first appeared in 1895 in Studies on Hysteria, as well as in "Project for a Scientific Psychology". It then recurs throughout Freud's works. The term is used to designate various psychic impulses in energic terms. As a result, "cathexis" is also used to refer to organizational psychic impulses, the interplay of symptoms and regressions, and the workings of attention and pain. Freud used it to describe major and modulated quantitative phenomena in symptoms and psychic processes. The constant interplay between a stimulus-like response that is cathexis, in where a drive/impulse energy moves a person to center psychic energy, but catharsis in the other hand, is the relieving mediatory center for unfulfilled drives responding to blocked expressions of cathexis. I think they both exist as coping tools to balance an individual's frustrations and aggressions.
What is your position on the work of Karen Horney in regard to her view of cultural rather than biological causes of mental disorders? I believe Karen Horney is correct on how culture is a driving force in promoting many of the mental illnesses in the world today. Cultures that stress more individualism versus collectivism, often create different conflicts. Horney is often described as a neo-Freudian, but her view of neurosis is markedly different from Freud's. She became convinced that neurosis was much more a normal component of life than it was in Freud's universe. Where Freud perceived neurotics made sick by forces beyond their control in the subconscious, Horney saw people termed neurotic attempting to make their lives bearable. She called their symptoms a means of "interpersonal and intra-psychic control and coping." Where Freud viewed culture as the necessary bulwark for survival pitted against the primitive desires of the id, Horney saw culture as the problem, like I do. Culture provides bad environments that causes frustration of people's emotional needs and creates hostility, fear, and insecurity, leading to neurosis. Furthermore, I think there are defense mechanisms recognizing a non-compatible behavior or feeling in isolated situations but not at the same time, for example: being aggressive and ruthless toward business associate, but loving at home. The parent-child environment that is created is important in the personality development of a child. Many problems could be resolved if a child is raised in home warmth, love, security, trust, respect, and tolerance. The relationship with people are directly or indirectly linked to drive gratification. I think that People suffering from mental illness could take responsibility for the illness and help themselves. The concept that people dealing with minor problems caused by neurosis could be their own psychologists was far from a popular view among the providers of mental care. Though the concept of self-help is not consistently given credence by mental health professionals today, self-help programs for a wide variety of emotional, social, and physical problems have become a standard facet of treatment. The major negative comment I might make about Horney is that her theory is limited to the neurotic. Besides leaving out psychotics and other problems, she leaves out the truly healthy person. Nevertheless, since she does put neurosis and health on a single continuum, she does speak to the neurotic in all of us. Discuss the contributions of Dix and Rush focused on their contributions to the treatment of the mentally ill. The following information was retrieved as references on December 6, 2010 from http://www.socialpsychology.org/history.htm and http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Benjamin_Rush#cite_note-8

Often working hand-in-hand with prison reform was the movement to help the mentally ill. The common belief during this era was that the mentally ill were willfully crazy or that they were no better than animals. As a result, thousands were treated as criminals and thrown into prisons. The leader of the reform cause was Dorothea Dix, who compiled a comprehensive report on the state of the mentally ill in Massachusetts. The report claimed that hundreds of insane women were chained like beasts in stalls and cages. Dix’s findings convinced state legislators to establish one of the first asylums devoted entirely to caring for the mentally ill. By the outbreak of the Civil War, nearly thirty states had built similar institutions.

The woman who stood before the all-male audience seemed unlikely to provoke controversy. Tiny and timid, she rose to the platform of the Massachusetts Legislature to speak. Thus, her crusade for humane hospitals for the insane, which she began in 1841, was reaching a climax. After touring prisons, workhouses, almshouses, and private homes to gather evidence of appalling abuses, she made her case for state-supported care. Ultimately, she not only helped establish five hospitals in America, but also went to Europe where she successfully pleaded for human rights to Queen Victoria and the Pope. Rush was far ahead of his time in the treatment of mental illness. In fact, he is considered the "Father of American Psychiatry", publishing the first textbook on the subject in the United States, Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind (1812). He undertook to classify different forms of mental illness and to theorize as to their causes and possible cures. Rush believed (incorrectly) that many mental illnesses were caused by disruptions of the blood circulation, and treated them with devices meant to improve circulation to the brain such as a restraining chair and a centrifugal spinning board. After seeing mental patients in appalling conditions in the Pennsylvania Hospital, Rush led a successful campaign in 1792 for the state to build a separate mental ward where the patients could be kept in more humane conditions.
Why is Witmer so often cited as the founder of clinical psychology? By the second half of the 1800s, the scientific study of psychology was becoming well established in university laboratories. Although there were a few scattered voices calling for an applied psychology, the general field looked down upon this idea and insisted on "pure" science as the only respectable practice. This changed when Lightner Witmer (1867–1956), a past student of Wundt and head of the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, agreed to treat a young boy who had trouble with spelling. His successful treatment was soon to lead to Witmer's opening of the first psychological clinic at Penn in 1896, dedicated to helping children with learning disabilities. Ten years later in 1907, Witmer was to found the first journal of this new field, The Psychological Clinic, where he coined the term "clinical psychology", defined as "the study of individuals, by observation or experimentation, with the intention of promoting change". The field was slow to follow Witmer's example, but by 1914, there were 26 similar clinics in the U.S. Even as clinical psychology was growing, working with issues of serious mental distress remained the domain of psychiatrists and neurologists. However, clinical psychologists continued to make inroads into this area due to their increasing skill at psychological assessment. Psychologists' reputation as assessment experts became solidified during World War I with the development of two intelligence tests, Army Alpha and Army Beta (testing verbal and nonverbal skills, respectively), which could be used with large groups of recruits. Due in large part to the success of these tests, assessment was to become the core discipline of clinical psychology for the next quarter century, when another war would propel the field into treatment.
Read and discuss the Chomsky and Skinner debate over Skinner's book Verbal Behavior- what is my position in the argument. Chomsky's refusal to acknowledge the review's errors or its aggressive tone is consistent with his polemical style but comes at a minor cost in consistency and plausibility. However, his remarks about the place of Skinner's work in science reveal misunderstandings so great that they undercut the credibility of the review substantially. The gradual growth in the influence of Skinner's book suggests that its legacy will endure. From the perspective of most Skinner's Verbal Behavior was a kind of ill-conceived dam in the progress of science, a rhetorically effective but conceptually flawed document that would eventually be overborne. But from the perspective of behavior analysts, Chomsky's review of most cognitive scientists, it served just the opposite purpose: The review was the dynamite that destroyed the obstructions that behaviorists had placed in the way of free-flowing scientific inquiry. The flood of work in cognitive science that followed the review seemed to support that view, for some remarkably parched intellectual provinces began to blossom. Who was right? Even after half a century it is too early to say, but ultimately debate is irrelevant: The river will eventually find its own way regardless of what we believe.

Nevertheless, I think the present interview with Chomsky will help the prognosticator, for it reveals something about the context in which the review was written and therefore helps make sense of it. (The meaning of behavior is to be found not in its structure but in the independent variables of which it is a function.) For behaviorists, it helps to dispel puzzlement and annoyance—two reactions commonly occasioned by the review. Among other things, the interview underscores how alien to Chomsky was Skinner's enterprise and how stereotyped was his view of its conceptual and empirical foundations.

Compare and contrast between Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology.

Although sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists do share the same basic evolutionary theory in its modern instantiation as inclusive fitness theory, they depart in ways that are crucial for psychology. Specifically, sociobiologists believe that the main goal of humans is to increase reproductive success, to be "fitness maximizers." However, evolutionary psychologists believe humans to be "adaptation executors" or "mechanism activators." They believe the main goal of human beings is to solve the problems of survival that aid in reproduction and improve fitness. Notice this is very different from the sociobiologist who argues that humanity's main goal is reproduction. Evolutionary psychology is best regarded as a theory about origins, rather than the content of human nature. Evolutionary psychologists specifically examine the causal processes that create specific mechanisms and not the mechanisms themselves. In 1975, E O Wilson built upon the works of Lorenz and Tinbergen by combining studies of animal behavior, social behavior and evolutionary theory in his book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Wilson included a chapter on human behavior. The specific chapter caused considerable controversy as it reignited the nature versus nurture debate. E O Wilson argues that the field of evolutionary psychology is essentially the same as sociobiology. According to Wilson, the heated controversies surrounding Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, significantly stigmatized the term "sociobiology". Evolutionary psychology emerged as a more acceptable term in the 1980s that was not tainted by earlier controversies, and also emphasized that organisms are "adaptation executors" rather than "fitness maximizers" (which can help to explain maladaptive behaviors due to "fitness lags" given novel environmental changes). In addition, rather than focus primarily on overt behavior, EP attempts to identify underlying psychological adaptations (including emotional, motivational and cognitive mechanisms), and how these mechanisms interact with the developmental and current environmental influences to produce behavior.
Why does the APA oppose the accreditation of Humanistic doctoral programs in psychology? An article by Baker, McFall, and Shoham (2009) criticized the accreditation of graduate programs in clinical psychology, and advocated instead for an APS-based accreditation process, stating: "The Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System is designed to recognize only graduate programs that deliver high-quality, science-based, doctoral clinical training. This system, which we are all working with, is intended to 'brand' clinical psychologists so that the public, licensing boards and others can identify those who have been trained to use scientifically validated treatments" (Baker et al., 2009, Washingtonpost.com). In this symposium, licensed clinical psychologists and leading researchers respond to the charges of these authors, and recommend ways for the field of psychotherapy to respond. They will make the case that a properly scientific approach to psychotherapy research demands open-mindedness, including an appreciation for the diverse research cultures that have arisen from different forms of research practice. They will contend that statements by members of the APS demonstrate their lack of appreciation for different philosophies of psychotherapy practice and related ways of gathering and analyzing evidence. They look at how the APS has been misconstruing the ways many traditions understand the nature of psychotherapy and how the kinds of problems therapy confronts—e.g., troubled marriages, conflicted sexual identities, the trauma of war—are existential dilemmas, not bodily diseases. “Therapists are not medicos; they are experts at conducting helpful conversations about life's difficulties. The dirty little secret,” stated symposium speaker Jonathan Raskin, PhD, “is that the APS wants to take away people's ability to choose among various psychotherapies and instead insist that the one size they are selling must fit all. Given that science has clearly shown this is not so, APS's stance is little more than an economically self-serving position intended to drum up business while shutting down their APA competition (Baker et al., 2009, Washingtonpost.com). Discuss and analyze the history and systems used within society to socially engineer the exploitation of psychological paradigms to advance global initiatives. (see attached copy of "Eyes Wide Open")

Discuss George Kelly's approach to psychology. Kelly wanted to develop a theory, and an investigative technique, which would remove the influence of the observer's frame of reference on what was observed. Kelly saw that current theories of personality were so loosely defined, and difficult to test, that in many clinical cases the observer contributed more to the diagnosis than the patient. If you took your problems to a Freudian analyst, they would be analyzed in Freudian terms; a Jungian would interpret them in Jungian terms; a behaviorist would interpret them in terms of conditioning, and so on. The problem of observer bias is particularly acute in the 'soft' sciences such as psychology, sociology, economics, etc., where it is obvious that the commentators' frame of reference influences what they see, how they describe it, and what they set down. You can find explanations of schizophrenia which rely on brain chemistry at one end of the spectrum and family dynamics at the other. Some educationalists advocate streaming of bright children; some are totally against it. Some economists see government spending as a strategy to be used, and some see it as a strategy to be avoided. It's rare for them to find common ground. A satirical, but by no means inaccurate, description of the state of psychology at the time Kelly worked would identify two different methodologies by which psychology was struggling to become a science. One methodology relied on the use of large-scale correlational studies which investigated the relationships between different personality traits: if you study enough people you can prove small but statistically significant links between (say) cigarette smoking and extraversion, birth order and language skills, etc. The other methodology relied on the study of fruit flies, rats, and monkeys - presumably in the hope that a later generation of psychologists would be able to generalise from these results to human beings. Kelly was impatient with this. As a clinician, he dealt with people one at a time, or in small groups such as families. He wanted to develop a methodology which would enable him to make precise statements - and confident predictions - about the behaviour of individual people.
Kelly was also impatient with what he saw as the rather patronising attitude of most practitioners in the field - that they had 'expert' knowledge about human function and dysfunction, which they would communicate to the ignorant lay person. Kelly saw the role of the therapist as radically different, and in this he was one of the first person-centred psychotherapists: he took the view that if you want to know what's wrong with someone, ask them - they probably know. Which does not remove the need for a therapist: a therapist can ask questions which the patient might not have thought of, a therapist can reflect and re-frame and persist; but at heart Kelly believed that most people can take responsibility for how they conduct their lives, and that the prime role of the therapist is to help them to be clear about their issues and to explore with them the consequences of their choices.