Chrysalis module four behaviourism Essay

Behaviourists explain maladjustive deportment in terms of the learnedness principles that sustain and brinytain it. discourse this statement and show how a behavioristics approach to therapy is in stark soulfulnessal credit line to a psychoanalytic one In this try I give first of wholly explain the main principles and theories that substantiate the behaviorist approach to psychology. I will posterior on outline how doingsist speculation flock provide healers with nearly insight into both(prenominal) the causes of maladaptive behavior and how that deportment might be sustained and maintained. Having discussed the main behaviorist principles and how they relate to maladaptive demeanor, I will then comp ar and strain the behavioural approach with the psychoanalytic (Freudian) approach. I will also colour on ethical issues especi totallyy as they relate to behaviourism and roughly of the experiments on which the surmise is founded. Behaviourism is a school of psychology that emphasises the scientific study of observ fit behaviours especially as they relate to the process of learning. It was exceedingly influential and dominated psychological theory for some thirty old age between the early 1920s and 1950s.The early formulation of behaviourist theory was in the die of an American psychologist John B Watson. In some respects, his search was a resolution to the prevailing psychoanalytic approaches to therapy at the magazine. In his litigate Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviourist published in 1929, Watson believed that behaviourism, Attempted to make a fresh, clean start in psychology, shift with current theories and with traditional concepts and terminology (www.britannica.com). His vision was one of psychology seemly a purely objective branch of natural science, where the only admittible conclusions were those that could be obtained by independent observers of the same object or dismantlet, as would be the case in scie ntific experiments. Behaviourism is concerned with explaining how behaviour arises and is maintained. Also to identify and characterise influences on behaviour and to explain how, infra true conditions, behaviour can change. The grow of behaviourist theory can be found in the work of Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist.He questioned what is cognize as reflex, an automatic reaction to a ill-tempered stimulus. Specifically, his research looked at the reflex that stimulates the production of saliva in dogs when given sum total. The meat is the stimulus for the reflex, but what Pavlov noticed was that the dogs in his experiments would start to salivate even atthe sight of the person who regularly fed them. In his noteworthy and now easily- known experiment, Pavlov then introduced the sound of a gong each time the food was presented. He found that just the sound of the bell would produce the same reaction in the dogs even if in that location was no food. He concluded that the do gs had learned that the bell signalled food. Watson brought Pavlovs findings to the attention of curse psychologists and then conducted his own experiment involving a young boy, Albert. This came to be known as the Little Albert experiment. Watson initially presented Albert with a tame rat and notice his response at that stage the boy had no fear of the rat. Watson subsequently observed Alberts reaction to a shattering noise when it was do behind his head.Not surprisingly, the child cried at the sound and tried to touch away from it. Watson then presented the rat to Albert just before making the loud sound. This time the child reacted by moving away from the rat in that respectby demonstrating to Watson a change in behaviour as a ensue and linking the rat to the loud noise. Watsons experiment showed that Albert had learned to show a defensive reflex reaction. This came to be known as classical condition and this approach to understanding behaviour was described as stimulus re sponse psychology. These days the ethics of this experiment would be highly questionable however, subjecting a child to fear in this way and conditioning his response as a publication would not acceptable. Several contemporaries of Watson were also functional in this atomic number 18a of behavioural research. The work of Edward Thorndike and B.F. skinner made a huge contribution to behaviourist psychology. Thorndike pioneered the study of animal behaviour with his bilk box into which he dis state of affairs a hungry drift. Food was placed outside the box and he found that the cat learned to hold the door catch to get out of the box to obtain the food. strange Pavlovs dogs, the cat in his study had some element of cut back given that being able to get the food was conditional on the cat spring the door. The consequences of the cats behaviour (getting the food), Thorndike argued, altered the cat because it learned to open the door. As the cat was instru amiable in opening th e door he called this instrumental conditioning. Skinner, who was influenced by Thorndikes work, argued that learning by and through fortifyment is common to all species not just animals. Much of his work haved studying the behaviour of rats and pigeons. He conducted several experiments using a special device he designed called the Skinnerbox. This provided a controlled environment in which animal behaviour could be observed in a systematic way. His experiments were designed to shed light on how behaviour is initiated, maintained and how under certain conditions it can be changed as a result of consequences of the behaviour. He argued that behaviour takes a embark onicular form because it has consequences that both give rise to it and maintain it. When the consequences change, so does the behaviour he said.Skinner placed a hungry rat in the box where it had to n selfciate a maze to find the food. At first the rat would pull back up blind alleys in the maze but with experience it bit by bit learned how to negotiate the maze to find the food to a greater extent quickly. Behaviourists like Skinner believed that the principles involved in these learning processes were applicable to masses and bear complex human behaviour. Skinner proposed that behaviour changes as a result of its consequences and that behaviour is also honord by reward. Behaviour that is reinforced will also increase in frequency Skinner stired. Similarly, he argued, prejudicious reinforcement works in the same way as confirmative re inforcement. For example, if a loud noise is made every time a rat pokes its nose through its cage, the rat would stop doing it.He promoted the idea that as piece be just another species, boastful praise for desirable behaviour in a child would reinforce that behaviour in the same way that getting food by pressing a lever in a box would reinforce behaviour in a rat. Skinner went further by suggesting that there is no such thing as free will he called it the principle of determinism, the assertion that all human behaviour is determined by what went before. Skinners hypotheses created widespread debate amongst psychologists and not surprisingly, his critics pointed out that humans are very different to animals and that results from experiments conducted on rats in a laboratory couldnt just be applied to human behaviour. Behaviourist critics healthy that human behaviour is immeasurably more sophisticated than animal behaviour, grow in language and operating in spite of appearance complex cultures. Humans take away insight into their behaviour and stir conscious awareness, they contended and therefore are able to make conscious choices.Skinner fell out of favour in the 1970s following the publication of his book Beyond Freedom and dignity where he urged society to reject the self-reliance that free will is the main determinant of behaviour. In contrast to the psychoanalytic school of psychology, behaviourists regardall behav iour as a response to stimuli, with the underlying assumption that what we do is determined by the environment we are in that provides stimuli to which we respond. Also that the environments we bring been in in the past, caused us to learn to respond to stimuli in particular slipway. Behaviourists are unique amongst psychologists in believing that it is unnecessary to speculate just about internal mental processes when explaining behaviour (psychlotron.org.uk). Behaviourists believe that people are born(p) with some innate reflexes such as fear and rage which do not need to be learned, but that all of a persons complex behaviours are as a result of learning through interaction with the environment.It is therefore assumed that the private plays no part in choosing their own actions and behaviour. Today only a few psychologists would try themselves as behaviourists and the arguments about free will and conscious choices still continue. However, studies since the 1950s concur i n fact brought an increasing recognition that conditioning likely occurs more widely than was previously understood. It is prize for example that dose or alcohol use can be triggered by environmental cues places and situations where drug taking or alcohol consumption is present. Contemporary therapy for some pillow slips of psychological di tenor owes much to insight derived from behaviourism. Children who self -harm can be handle with techniques of re inforcement for non- harming behaviours for example.Apparently one of the techniques used for treating people with obsessional and psychoneurotic disorders involves identifying and removing reinforcement for behaviour that is excessive and reinforcing the more positive behaviour with praise. The behaviourist approach is also relevant in understanding addiction and public behaviour whether it be smoking, drugs, alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex etc. With this character reference of maladaptive behaviour there is a strong and fa irly contiguous positive reinforcing consequence of the behaviour. Whereas the unpleasant consequences of the behaviour are delayed i.e. authorisation serious illness in terms of smoking for instance. It is also recognised that someone who regularly exhibits violent or aggressive tendencies may well have grown up in a violent nursing home where violent behaviour was workled and reinforced. The psychoanalytic approach to counselling and psychotherapy has its grow in Freudian theory which essentially espouses that it is repressed memories and sexual wishes that are the root of psychological problems.In thepsychoanalytic approach there is an assumption that leaf nodes fractiousies have their ultimate origin in puerility experiences and that the lymph node is not usually aware of the motives or impulses behind their actions. previous to Watson and Skinners experiments, psychology had almost entirely been based on a psychoanalytic approach the study of what happens in peoples mi nds. In therapy, people would report what was on their mind and this was documented and analysed by psychologists such as Freud. This approach to understanding peoples behaviour was considered highly subjective and unscientific by behaviourists. Freud espoused a range of theories to name for maladaptive behaviour he argued that in early childhood leash phases of psycho sexual development set the stage for a serial of conflicts between the child and its environment, its family and most fundamentally its parent. He proposed that that the way in which parents responded to the child would have a in good order influence on the later personality of the child and a probatory impact on pornographic births.Psychological problems according to Freud arise because a persons impulses and drives are driven underground and continue to influence the person subconsciously. There is significant emphasis in psychoanalytic theory on the attribute of the human relationship between child and p arents. The fundamental beliefpoint shared by all psychoanalytic counsellors and therapists is that in order to understand the personality of an adult knob it is necessary to understand the development of their personality through childhood. Freud did not suggest however that that childhood experiences directly influence adult personality he stated that the influence occurred in a particular way through the operation of the unconscious(p) mind. This is perhaps where there is the most stark contrast between the behaviourist and psychoanalytic approaches. Behaviourists concern themselves with actual, observable behaviour instead than internal thoughts processes.Freud however not only advanced the idea of the unconscious mind, he also developed a complex theoretical model explaining the human mind as comprising three regions which he labelled the id the ego and the superego. The id being a reservoir of primitive instincts and impulses that are the ultimate motives for the behaviour the ego which is the conscious rational part of the mind that makes decisions and deals with external globe and the superego a sort of store house of rules and taboos, mainly an internalisation of maternal attitudes. Conflicts betweenthese elements can lead to stress in Freudian theory. An individuals behaviour can be understood according to Freud, as being under the control of forces such as repressed memories, childhood fantasies which a person cannot acknowledge. The role of the psychoanalytic therapist is to look for ways of getting beneath the surface of what the client is saying and what is immediately observable. wizard could of course explain the forces mentioned above in behaviourist terms that a person has simply been conditioned to do, act, say things in a certain way.A child repeatedly subject to madness or witnessing violence may well be more prone to aggressive behaviour in adulthood for example. But in Freud, I feel there is a richness not found in behaviourism. P eople and relationships are complex and therefore some emotional problems equally complex. In my view a psychoanalytic approach attempts at least to reflect this complexity where therapy push backs to enable clients to become more aware of their inner emotional feeling and therefore be more able to control feelings in an portion manner and gain the freedom to behave differently. A key aim of psychoanalysis is to achieve client insight into the true nature of their issues/ problems. echt insight usually being attained as result of the character of the relationship between client and therapist.There is little reference to the quality relationship between client and therapist in the behaviourist approach. In the psychoanalytic approach there is as much emphasis on what the client doesnt say as on what he or she does say about his or her problem Freud wrote about what he termed falsifying mechanisms, which seek to protect an individual from emotionally disturbing or minacious unconscious impulses. These defence mechanisms might include such things as repression , denial, project ones unacceptable thoughts and feelings to another person or displacement, where an individual might channel impulses to a different target or lapsing where an individual responding to internal feelings triggered by an external threat, might revert to juvenile behaviour from an earlier stage of development. This aspect of Freuds theory provides powerful insight I feel into certain maladaptive behaviours. Of course the work of the proponents of behaviourism such as Watson and Skinner and Freuds psychoanalytic theories have been developed and redefined over the years.In my opinion both approaches can have a valuable role to play in understanding maladaptive behaviour in spite oftheir very different emphases, depending on the type of behaviour being treated. Behaviourism was the precursor to friendly learning theory developed by Albert Banduras and this emphasises both the social and physical context people find themselves in and how children in particular learn by notice and then imitating others who effectively act as models. This is more complex than elementary stimulus response theory and it can be very important and enlightening for a therapist to understand the current and past social contexts of a client and its authority impact on their behaviour. Equally important, in my view, is the recognition that people have a complex inner mental life and an emotional inner world and responses that sometimes cant be explained by environmental factors alone. In the same way that behaviour theory has developed, psychoanalytic theory has also advanced.The work of psychologist Melanie Klein for example, who researched the early relationship between mother and child, concluded that human beings are motivated by the need to establish and maintain relationships. This suggests to me that the quality of relationship between client and therapist is of significant imp ortance. This thinking has little or no place in behaviourist approaches to therapy. Even contemporary cognitive behaviour therapy, which has its roots in behaviourism, places less emphasis on the relationship between client and therapist. Whereas the psychoanalytic counsellor would emphasise exploration and understanding, the CBT approach would be more orientated towards demonstrable action to produce change. It would seem sensible, in treating stress and anxiety to try to combine both approaches.A client paroxysm from anxiety is more likely to respond positively to a therapist with whom they have a trusting relationship without that it would be very difficult for a client to face fears that may be buried in their subconscious. And for the therapist, it would be necessary to be able to establish/ understand the potential environmental and social triggers or stimuli (both current and historic) for the clients anxiety. This could involve exploring the clients past in terms of their relationship with their parents perhaps and also distinct for other relevant information about the situations that provide the cues for the clients anxiety.In conclusion, although the assumptions made by early behaviourist psychologists seem too simplistic nowadays , this work laid the foundations for more extensive research that has advanced our knowledgeabout social learning and how this can propel behaviour. Although behaviour modification therapy doesnt necessarily sit easily within a collaborative counselling relationship, some of the principles of behaviourism can be applied and adapted to understanding maladaptive behaviour. Behaviour modification therapy has been shown to be very effective with certain types of disorder such as psychoneurotic compulsive disorder, eating disorders, addiction, anxiety disorders, fears and phobias.SourcesMcleod J. (2008) Introduction to Counselling, third ed, Open University Furnham A. 50 Psychology Ideas You Really Need to Know, Quercus Pu blishing Hayes N. (2010) empathise Psychology, Hodder Education Ltd Chrysalis Year Two, Module Four course notes.www.britannica.com 17/11/2014www.wikipedia.org/behaviourism 17/11/2014www.psychlotron.or.uk 17/11/2014