ETHICS AND PSYCHOLOGY

Approaches and Ethics & Abnormal and Clinical Psychology



Approaches and Ethics & Abnormal and Clinical Psychology

Introduction

This assignment is illustrating two named studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung. The overall assignment is explained under the practices of these two psychologists.

Sigmund Freud in his practice of psychoanalysis in his mature years (1907-1939) used both unpublished and published resources. Freud's published recommendations concerning neutrality, confidentiality and anonymity.

Carl Gustav Jung was a pioneer of depth psychology by emphasizing the link between the structure of the psyche and its productions and cultural events. He introduced his method in notions of humanities drawn from the fields as diverse as knowledge of anthropology, the alchemy, the study of dreams, the mythology and religion, which enabled him to grasp the “reality of the soul."

Behaviourism

Too narrow in its description of human personality - ignores the role of emotion and heredity, there is too little thought given to biological influences on behaviour

Human beings are more complex than laboratory animals used in behavioural research

Behaviour therapists tend to interpret problems into observable behaviours, which is reductionist seeing that there are many aspects of problems that cannot be translated into behaviour. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not a problem (Gazzaniga, 2006, 67).

Psycho-dynamics

In human thermodynamics, psycho-dynamics is the study of mental processes, namely conscious and sub conscious dynamics according to the first and second law of thermodynamics. Psycho-dynamics is defined as:

“The dynamic view is propositions concerning psychological energy or psychological forces; concepts such as conservation of energy, entropy, direction and magnitude of forces, in conjunction with a principle of inertia (Gwen, 1999, 41).”

Strengths and weaknesses of Psychodynamics

Strength of the Psycho-dynamic Approach is the amount of information that therapists can obtain during therapy. This is because they spend a lot of time with their clients and are able to build up a complete picture of what their client is like and what is exactly bothering them.

Other strength of the Psycho-dynamic Approach is the Assumptions of the Approach. One of these is that the Psycho-dynamic Approach recognises the importance that childhood has on the developed adult.

A weakness of the Psycho-dynamic Approach is that it is reductionist. Reductionism can be explained by saying that only one single explanation may be offered to explain something, and other possible explanations are ignored (Gillian, 2004, 145).

Another weakness is that the Psycho-dynamic Approach is affected by subjectivity; this means that the person that is doing the interpretation or explanation has the most important voice. Also, the Psycho-dynamic Approach is not easily tested in a scientific, objective way.

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. The term can mean several things, for example:

A cultural movement based on the study of classical works.

An educational approach that focuses on the humanities to inform students.

A secular ideology which espouses ethics, reason and justice, while specifically rejecting supernatural and religious dogma as a basis of morality and decision making (Champlin, 1989, ...