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Four Forces In Psychology

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In this assignment I will be summarising the theoretical thrust of the four forces in psychology which are natural sciences, psychoanalysis, transpersonal psychology and existentialism, phenomenology and humanistic psychology. I then chose to do the historical development and key principles of natural science otherwise known as behaviourism.

Theoretical Thrust
Natural sciences Natural science was about observing and experiencing. The way to understand experience was through colours, tastes, degrees of brightness, and contours but this was later on said to be wrong by Gestalt psychologists. Behaviourism was influenced by an article written by John. B. Watson. He stated that psychology must reject all reference to consciousness. Behaviourism …show more content…
The theoretical thrust behind Psychoanalysis was the talking cure. He worked with a colleague named Joseph Breuer on a patient named Anna O. Anna experienced emotional conflicts that would lead to her temporarily going blind or paralysed. Freud helped her remember traumatic experiences from her childhood that brought up feelings of jealousy and guilt. Just by talking about this, Anna O was cured. Freud realised that by letting patients speak freely about whatever is on their mind, whether their thoughts were strange and disturbing, he would help them understand the roots of these thoughts and help them accept them. (Louw, D. & Edwards, D., 1998)
Existentialism, phenomenology and humanistic psychology
Existentialism. It started with a man named Soren Kierkegaard, it focuses on the deepest concerns of human life. He said that if we began with complexity and depth of human experience, only then will we be able to really understand human nature. (Louw, D. & Edwards, D., 1998)
Phenomenology. Phenomenology produces a technique that takes these deepest concerns of human life seriously. A German philosopher named Edmund Husserl said that through studying things as they appear and as they are experienced, then can we understand human experience. (Louw, D. & Edwards, D., …show more content…
Behaviourism used key principles from that of natural sciences because natural science was mainly focused on sensory processes, reaction time, attention, and memory. Behaviourism is basically the scientific study of human behaviour and is different from all four other forces. It is based on observable behaviour. The founder of behaviourism, John. B. Watson, suggested that the study of consciousness be abandoned altogether because mental processes are personal and one cannot see or touch another’s thoughts. (Weiten, W. 2016)
Key Principles The key principle to behaviourism is behaviour. According to J. B Watson , 1919 (as cited in Buckham, J.W. 1924) Behaviour can be defined as the individual reactions one makes to his environment and these reactions depend on muscle and gland changes that follow upon a given stimulus. The way we behave consists of different responses such as implicit or explicit, habitual or hereditary

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