Introduction to Psychology: Psychoanalytic Approach and Behavioural Approach

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
TASK I
Psychoanalytic Approach:
The psychoanalytic approach emphasizes on personality organization and the complexity
of personality development. The theory was first given by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th
century. His study focused on the influence of childhood events on an adult's mental
functioning. In psychoanalytic view, humans have sexual and aggressive drives. According to
psychoanalytic theorists, it is possible to determine human behaviour. It is shaped by instinctual
and biological drives as well as the unconscious and irrational forces. Psychoanalysis basically
helps people resolve their inner conflicts. Freud concluded that personality consists of three
elements: id, ego and superego.
The id is typically instinctual and is stimulated by basic drives and needs. The id is
impulsive is and is usually ignorant of consequences of actions. It has two main instincts, ‘Eros’
which entails sex and self-preservation which is stimulated by libido energy force. The other is
the death instinct ‘Thanatos’ whose energy is less powerful and is therefore carried away from us
in the form of violent behaviour towards other people.
Freud believes that personality development occurs through stages as the libido is
directed to various body parts. The different stages are: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital.
The most significant among them is the phallic stage when libido is directed towards the genitals.
It is at this stage that they learn a moral code of conduct and sex-appropriate behaviour. The ego
works in the most realistic way and balances id and superego. If the ego fails to resolve the
conflict, we take up defense mechanisms to lessen our anxiety. The different types of defense
mechanisms are: rationalization. repression, sublimation, reaction formation, , projection, denial
displacement, and regression. Superego is linked with morality principle and works in ways that
are socially acceptable. It helps people to sense the right and wrong. Unconscious is the portion
of the mind that a person is unknowing of.
According to Freud, it is this part of the mind that discloses true emotions and feelings of
the individual. There are various methods that are used to examine and understand unconscious

such as free association, hypnosis and dream analysis. Dreams, in Freud’s view, are the “royal
road” to unconscious. They can provide access to information that is not easily available. Dreams
consist of latent and patent content. The latent is the core meaning of the dream that may be
forgotten when an individual wakes up. The patent content is the content that the individual
remembers when he wakes up and can be examined by the psychoanalytic psychologist.
Analysing and understanding the patent/manifest content, a psychoanalytic psychologist gets to
learn about the individual’s disorders or complexes that may be affecting his/her personality.
The Behavioural Approach:
Behaviourism is different from psychoanalytic approach because they view people as
directed by their environment. This theory emphasizes on the idea that we are the product of
what we have learned from our environment. Behaviourism is concerned with ways that
environmental factors shape observable behaviour unlike psychoanalytic approach that focused
on instincts. The behaviourist approach laid down two main processes how people learn from
their environment: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is
basically learning by involvement and association, and operant conditioning is learning from the
consequences of behaviour.
The principles of classical conditioning have been applied in many therapies. These
include aversion therapy and systematic desensitization for phobias. Aversion therapy is used in
situations where associated behaviour pattern are present which are attractive for the client. B.F.
Skinner analysed Operant conditioning of involuntary and voluntary behaviour. In this theory
stimulus conditions which are undesirable for the clients are for the therapist. He believed that
some behaviour results from person's motive. He emphasized that behaviour is shaped by three
techniques: namely positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment. Behaviourist
psychologists also believe in scientific methodology such as controlled experiments. In their
opinion only observable behaviour should be examined because it can be objectively evaluated.
Behaviourism rejects the idea of psychoanalytic psychologists that people have free will.
In their view environment determines all behaviour. Social learning Theory by Albert Bandura
expands on this theory. It puts forward the idea that learning is a cognitive process. It occurs in
social context and can happen merely through direct instruction or observation, even when direct