Psychological Perspectives of Understanding the Development of a Child’s Behavior
Introduction
This booklet will introduce you to the main psychological perspectives to the understanding of a child’s behaviour development. Each perspective will be described in as much detail as possible, and the theorist that are linked to them. The main perspectives are; * Psychodynamic * Freud * Behaviourist * Skinner * Cognitive * Piget * Humanist * Rogers, Maslow, Cooley and mead * Social learning
The psychodynamic perspective
This perspective is very much based on the early work of Sigmund Freud. It is believed that behaviour is made from a child’s subconscious feelings, which all come from life experiences. It is viewed as a child’s problem as an outward and visible symptom of invisible conflicts. All the conflicts may come from trauma, loss, or from a strained/troubled relationship with parents or carers. Children do not have any inner resources that help them understand their feelings completely so they may be shown in inappropriate and difficult behaviour.
Sigmund Freud said that “when a child’s too painful or too difficult feelings are left untalked about, they leak out in difficult and challenging behaviour or in neurotic symptoms.”
The source of a painful feeling is buried under a defensive mechanism that is very hard to find in a child; because of this most children do not understand why they are behaving this way. A psychodynamic assessments are always carried out by psychiatrist as they use techniques that are designed to provide an insight into their past. To do this they use the response of the child to make inferences about sub-conscious motives for behaviour. Once they have understood the child’s behaviour the psychologists will start an intervention which will help the child express their feelings instead of it coming through their behaviour. These can be done through the following; * Build a supportive relationship with a significant adult * Help the child to talk about what they
This booklet will introduce you to the main psychological perspectives to the understanding of a child’s behaviour development. Each perspective will be described in as much detail as possible, and the theorist that are linked to them. The main perspectives are; * Psychodynamic * Freud * Behaviourist * Skinner * Cognitive * Piget * Humanist * Rogers, Maslow, Cooley and mead * Social learning
The psychodynamic perspective
This perspective is very much based on the early work of Sigmund Freud. It is believed that behaviour is made from a child’s subconscious feelings, which all come from life experiences. It is viewed as a child’s problem as an outward and visible symptom of invisible conflicts. All the conflicts may come from trauma, loss, or from a strained/troubled relationship with parents or carers. Children do not have any inner resources that help them understand their feelings completely so they may be shown in inappropriate and difficult behaviour.
Sigmund Freud said that “when a child’s too painful or too difficult feelings are left untalked about, they leak out in difficult and challenging behaviour or in neurotic symptoms.”
The source of a painful feeling is buried under a defensive mechanism that is very hard to find in a child; because of this most children do not understand why they are behaving this way. A psychodynamic assessments are always carried out by psychiatrist as they use techniques that are designed to provide an insight into their past. To do this they use the response of the child to make inferences about sub-conscious motives for behaviour. Once they have understood the child’s behaviour the psychologists will start an intervention which will help the child express their feelings instead of it coming through their behaviour. These can be done through the following; * Build a supportive relationship with a significant adult * Help the child to talk about what they