Jake's Portrayal, Humanistic, And Cognitive Approach

The three perspectives of psychology that will identify Jake’s situation are behavioral, humanistic, and cognitive approach. There are many similarities as well as differences with the behavioral, humanistic, and cognitive approaches. In relation with Jake’s situation of attaining anxiety, it begins by Jake taking a step out of his comfort zone. Jake taking difficult courses led to change in his behavior, which caused him to create a negative mindset.

The behavioral approach would mainly focus on how negative thoughts were contributing to Jake's anxiety. The behavioral perspective explains the reasons for Jake’s feelings, which is the cause of all the negative thoughts he has had in the beginning of the school year. Whether it’s him thinking he is not going to do well in the classes or thinking the courses are too challenging for him. But the truth is, that Jake is making himself believe all of that based on the way he has been thinking. According to Jake’s way of thinking, it will be easy to determine what would be the best way to help him improve his behavior. The sole purpose of the behavior approach is to understand the thought patterns of Jake.

The Humanistic Theory would focus on the ideal “perfect” Jake. He would be encouraged to look ahead on what he can accomplish and
what he can be and not let anxiety perceive how he views himself. The reason Jake is feeling the anxiety is because he needs to do well in his courses to be able to graduate. He has very high expectations for himself, he fears to become a failure.

Jake knew challenging himself would affect him positively or negatively and it was all up to him on him how that affect would take place.
The cognitive aspect would explain how Jake could potentially react and process certain situations, for example if he felt bombarded by many assignments and test coming up, that will make him become anxious and stressed out over the situation he was put in. Automatically he will think the worst, setting himself up for failure. Later on make him have a panic attack or make him fear of the unknown and potentially make him question his education, whether he wants to continue with the major he has chosen or give up because of the temporary difficult
time.

Psychologist in this time would try to understand and explain, how his behavior towards certain situations and the way he responded to them was a trigger for an anxiety attack. They would stress the importance of Jake becoming more optimistic and open minded about certain situations, instead of jumping to his own conclusions right away. They would strongly encourage Jake to think positively to avoid becoming anxious.