Schools of psychology

The Psychodynamic Approach
The psychodynamic approach was developed by Sigmund Freud around 1890. Freud was a neurologist at the university of Vienna, by 1885 Freud was a given a scholarship to work alongside Charcot who specialised in treating patients with unsolved physical symptoms (McLeod, 2007). Freud was influenced by Charcot’s work on traumatic hysteria which looked at how traumatic experiences affected the unconscious mind (Cherry, 2013). Freud also found a lot of interest in Breuer’s case study on Anne'O, 1880. Anne'O was a 21 year old woman who suffered from headaches, hallucinations, paralyses, and inability to drink after her father died who she looked after for years. Breuer diagnosed Anne'O as a case of hysteria and developed a form of therapy where he would put her under a type of hypnosis which influenced Freud’s development of talk therapy (Kendra, 2013). Freud came up with a series of theories which developed the psychodynamic approach, his theories are based on the responses from his patients suffering from depression or anxiety related disorders during therapy. The psychodynamic approach looks at how our behaviour and feelings are strongly affected by unconscious motives. The theory also involves how our childhood experiences effect the behaviour and feelings in adulthood and that personality is shaped by different conflicts at different times in childhood (McLeod, 2007). The case study of little Hans by Freud supported the theory of child development, Little Hans had a fear of horses so his father wrote to Freud explaining Hans’s phobia. Freud concluded that Hans had sexual feelings for his mother after finding out Hans had fantasies of marrying his mother, Freud also concluded that horses symbolised Hans father as the black marks on the horses face symbolised his father’s moustache and the blinkers on the horse represented his father’s glasses and his father would castrate Hans if he found out about Hans secret. In conclusion Hans placed his fear onto horses that reminded him of his father (Freud, 1909). The psychodynamic approach looks at 3 parts of the personality, the id, ego, and superego that develop at different times in life. The id demands satisfaction and when it gets what it wants, that is when we experience pleasure but if it doesn’t we experience pain, the ego is developed to referee between the unrealistic id and external reality, the superego is developed to implant values and norms of society learned from the parents (McLeod, 2013). A strength of the psychodynamic approach is that it looks at how important early childhood experiences are on the development of adult personality, with the case of little Hans to support this. Another strength of the psychodynamic approach is that it looks at the nature and nurture, with Freud’s theory on childhood development as nature and the Id, ego, and superego as nurture to support. A weakness of the psychodynamic approach has been criticised as it is untestable so it can’t be scientifically measured or proven wrong. Another weakness of the psychodynamic approach is that it is deterministic where behaviour is predictable and that everyone goes through the same stages (Trip, 2013).
The Behaviourist Approach
The behaviourist approach was born in the early 20th century which focused on behaviour rather than the conscience and unconscious (McLeod, 2007). Ivan Pavlov done the earliest research on the salivation in dogs in response to being fed. Pavlov came up with the classical conditioning process where behaviours could be learned through conditioned association. In Pavlov’s experiment he measured how much the dog would salivate when presented food which is a natural response from the dog, this reflex is hard-wired into the dog, Pavlov labelled this as an unconditioned response. He noticed the dog would salivate when his assistant would enter the room which the dog learnt to associate with food this is when he realised he made a scientific discovery. Pavlov used an unconditioned stimulus (food) and a conditioned stimulus (bell) where the dogs was presented with food while a bell rang, this was done over time, eventually the bell was the only stimulus resulting in the dog salivating (McLeod, 2007). The results show that the dog learned to associate the ring of the bell to food. Making the classical conditioning Famous. B.F Skinner introduced the operant conditioning where changing of behaviour occurred after the use of reinforcement which are given after the desired response. Skinner came up with three types of responses; neutral operant where responses from the environment neither increase or decrease the chances of the behaviour being repeated, Reinforcers where responses from the environment increases the chances of the behaviour being repeated and punishers where responses from the environment decrease the chances of the behaviour being repeated. Behavioural therapy use techniques based on classical conditioning which involve reflex behaviour. The aim is to get rid of maladaptive behaviours and replace them with desirable ones. Systematic desensitisation is a type of treatment usually used to remove phobias, the patient who is suffering from the phobia would be taught to relax, the feared object would then gradually be introduced in a step by step procedure until the patient could have comfortable contact with the object without anxiety (Mcleod, 2007).
The behaviourist approach is very influential and has a vast range of evidence to support this theory, it is also simplistic as it is straight the point and only use the classical and operant conditionings to explain behaviour. However a weakness of the behaviourist approach are the use of animals, it has been criticised as you can’t compare the behaviour of a human to an animals, also the use of laboratory experiments lack ecological validity (Trip, 2013).
The Cognitive Approach
The cognitive approach came into light in the 1950s, it is the study of cognition which 'is the mental act or process by which knowledge is acquired'. World War II had a massive influence on the development of the approach, where soldiers were analysed on their perception and attention so that they could be trained to use the technology effectively that were used back then such as radars and radio (Gross,2010). The cognitive approach is interested in variables that have a relationship between a stimulus and a response. Cognitive psychologists look at the internal processes which include language, perception and thinking. The cognitive approach rejected the ideology of the behaviourist approach as it over-emphasises on the external behaviour and ignores the internal processes (McLeod, 2007). There is no leading figure in the cognitive approach although there a few names that are associated to the approach such as Chomsky whose theory looks at the linguistic process and that the structure of language are biologically determined in the human mind and genetically transmitted, Piaget who looked at cognitive child development, with his detailed observational studies and simple tests it lead to the development of the improvement of experimental behaviour, other names that associate with the cognitive approach are miller and brier. With the introduction of the computer it helped psychologist to understand the complexities of human cognition and thought processes by comparing it with computers that are much simpler and easier to understand (McLeod, 2007). A strength of the cognitive theory is that it is interested in the thought process such as memory, attention and perception which is ignored by other approaches such as the behaviourist approach. Another strength of the cognitive approach are the cognitive therapies which are very effective, such as Rational Emotive Therapy, where irrational thoughts are changed to rational thoughts, research done by Ellis discovered that Rational Emotive Therapy is successful 90% of the time. The Cognitive approach has been criticised for being reductionist as it looks at individual processes that predict human behaviour where actually the human body works together as a whole. Another weakness of the cognitive approach is how it compares human process to computer process and that they are similar, where humans actually have emotions that can effect human behaviour (Trip, 2013).
The Biological Approach
The biological approach looks at the physiology and structure of the brain and how this influences behaviour. The biological approach developed from physiology originated from the Greeks, with bio meaning life and logo meaning study (McLeod). Charles Darwin was one of the first to demonstrate the biological approach in 1859. His ideas involved genetics and evolution influencing human behaviour, leading to the birth of the biological approach in psychology. The biological approach looks at the chemical activity within the brain. The biological approach are interested in genetic influences and that genes are inherited from parent child and how they predict behaviour and physical characteristics (Harvey). The brain is divided into different areas and structures which all affect our behaviour for example the two areas of the cerebral cortex controls our language, the Broca’s area controls the production of speech and Wernicke’s area controls comprehension of speech (Sammons, 2009). The biological approach are interested in brain damage as they believe the slightest damage to the brain can cause a major change in an individual’s behaviour. The most famous of cases is the case of Phineas Gage who was involved in a devastating accident that left Phineas suffering from a traumatic brain injury where a giant iron rod shot through his whole skull damaging most of his frontal lobe. Phineas managed to survive the whole ordeal but resulting in him becoming a different man. Before the accident Phineas was a hardworking and friendly man but reports shown said after the accident he became aggressive, had a drinking problem and couldn’t hold down a job. The case of Phineas Gage had a massive influence on neurology and that different parts of the brain have certain functions in behaviour. Today psychologist now understand the frontal lobal is heavily involved with personality (Cherry). The biological approach believes that psychological disorders are causedf4om biological causes such as biochemical processes, structural abnormalities in the brain and genetics. Biological treatment aim to change the functioning of the brain with either chemical or physical treatment. Psychopharmacology is treatment with the use of drugs that targets directly at the brain, the three main drugs used are anti-psychotic, anti-depressant, and anti-anxiety. Biomedical psychosurgery is surgery on the brain to alleviate psychological disorders. Electroconvulsive Therapy is a complex treatment and only used for last resort situations, it consists of an electric current being applied to the patients temples which change the brains chemical and electrical activity (Annenburg learner). The biological approach is strong as it is very scientific as the experiments can be measured and can be repeated for reliability. Another strength of the biological approach is that it is deterministic, this is strong as it can help provide an explanation of the behaviour and help treat people suffering from abnormal behaviour. A weakness of the biological approach is that it only concentrates on the nature side of the nature and nurture debate as it argues that behaviour is caused by genetics, hormones and neurotransmitters. A study done on twins to see if schizophrenia was genetic and found the study showed that it wasn’t completely genetic and that the environment can cause effect. The biological approach has also been criticised on being nomothetic, as it ignores that humans are unique (Trip, 2013).

Aiden Sammons (2009), The Biological approach: The Basics, psychlotron.org.uk, available at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NmrfqJoLpZQJ:www.psychlotron.org.uk/newResources/approaches/AS_AQB_approaches_BiopsychologyBasics.pdf+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
Annenburg learner (2001), Approaches in practice, Annenburg Learner, available at: http://www.learner.org/series/discoveringpsychology/therapeutic/biological.html
Saul McLeod (2007), Skinner- Operant Conditioning, Simply Psychology, Available at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html