History Question

[JackD]

I've been looking through one of my text books and i realized that i don't quite understand something that i probably should. A little gap in my knowledge, if you will.

See if this sounds right. The behaviorists dominated American psychology from the 1920's-1960's. In the 1960's, the cognitive movement started, which exposed the limits of the behavioral perspective. Realizing they had problems, the behaviorists allied with the cognitive psychologists to create Behavioral-Cognitive psychology, with one of the dominate areas being social-learning theory?

Is that about right or did i just expose my ignorance of psychological history?

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[Therapist4Chnge]

There's that whole "Freud" thing......

 

[JackD]

There's that whole "Freud" thing......

Who's Freud?

Of course there was psychodynamic and humanistic and biological and sociocultural and a million other areas. If i didn't know that there are different perspectives, i would have a problem. I'm just wondering about the history of behavioral-cognitive. Is what i said about it in the original post correct? Is that how it went?

 

[JackD]

I have a different question and since no one wanted to answer the first , i'll just reuse this thread.

Is the term "psychopathology" considered out of date or is that a newer term for abnormal psychology? It just sounds really old, like what they would call mental conditions in 1890. Is it a really old term or is it modern?

 

[pingouin]

I still hear "psychopathology" used as a catch-all for "mental illness" on occasion. Something along the lines of "Her psychopathology prevents her from having the insight which is needed to blah blah blah..." My grad school course Human Behavior in the Social Environment III had originally been titled "Psychopathology". I'd say most undergrad programs do refer to it as Abnormal Psychology- which, honestly, I'm not sure I like that term any better.

What I don't hear- other than in colloquial use- are the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" as diagnostic terms.

 

[pointzerofive]

The hx goes:

Psychoanalytic (Freud) --> Behaviorist (Thorndike, Skinner) --> Humanistic (Maslow, Rogers) --> Cognitive-Behavioral (Ellis, Beck).

Albert Ellis (who recently passed) and Aaron Beck created their versions of REBT and CBT, respectively. Their theories are based on how cognitions (thoughts) influence behavior. By changing thoughts, behavior can change.

Social learning theory, commonly associated with Albert Bandura, purports that individuals learn socially through observation of others' behavior. Bandura created a method of therapy that focused on self-efficacy and seemed similar to CT. I don't recall it specifically though.

I believe the reason why cognitive and behavioral joined was to provide a means to give treatment while taking thoughts into consideration. Extreme behaviorists deny that thoughts influence behavior, so I'd imagine the acceptance of cognitions didn't come easy among the behaviorists.

 

[JackD]

Psychoanalytic (Freud) --> Behaviorist (Thorndike, Skinner) --> Humanistic (Maslow, Rogers) --> Cognitive-Behavioral (Ellis, Beck).

But the humanistic prospective was never a dominate one, right? Of course it was mainstream and had many followers but at no point was it ever the psychological prospective everyone followed. Correct?

Social learning theory, commonly associated with Albert Bandura, purports that individuals learn socially through observation of others' behavior.

I think i was a little confused about some terminology. I was mixing up cognitive-behavioral with social-learning theory. I'm not sure why . However, just to make sure, we could pretty much say that social-learning theory is an extension of the behaviorist prospective, which focuses on indirect reinforcement. It is just a lot newer than other behaviorist concepts, no?

 

[JockNerd]

But the humanistic prospective was never a dominate one, right? Of course it was mainstream and had many followers but at no point was it ever the psychological prospective everyone followed. Correct?

Sure it was, and still is one of the major forces. In non-HMO settings (college counseling centres for example), there's often a big Rogerian/Humanistic/person-centred emphasis.

 

[myelin]

most defiately. the humanistic movement brought the person back to the center of the therapeutic process. it emphasized that the client is a person with a problem, not just a problem to fix. humanistic principles such as empathy, genuiness, and unconditional positive regard have made their way into more ecclectic forms of therapy. even if a therapist isn't "humanistic," they will likely use humanistic fundamentals in building rapport and portraying to the client that they understand the problem and would like to assist the client to improve their level of functioning.

carl rogers is my homeboy.

 

[JackD]

Sure it was

What?! You lie. Stop lying your dirty liar. You are telling me, that at one point, the humanistic prospective was #1, was top dog, was the theory that the most number of experts used? No way.

 

[JockNerd]

What?! You lie. Stop lying your dirty liar. You are telling me, that at one point, the humanistic prospective was #1, was top dog, was the theory that the most number of experts used? No way.

haha.

Well, I was answering this part of the question:

"But the humanistic prospective was never a dominate one, right?" (emphasis added)

rather than this part:

"at no point was it ever the psychological prospective everyone followed." (emphasis in original)

because there's never been a theory that *everyone* used to the exclusion of all others, ever. But, client-centred was and still is an important perspective. Rogers WAS prez of the APA back in the day. You aren't likely to find "pure" Rogerian therapy outside of places like college counseling centres, but many many many clinicians in other areas appropriate aspects of it as bases of therapy.

 

[JackD]

Ah, looks like we had a communication problem.

Clearly the humanistic prospective has had a major impact. They were and still are one of the major theories. They were called the "third force" after all, so i am guessing they have been in the top three since the 1960's or so. What i was wondering, and this is something you have clearly figured out, if they were ever dominated the field. Such as how the behaviorist were dominate in the 1950's or the psychodynamic prospective was dominate in the early 20th century. From what i understand, and what i think you are confirming, is that humanistic was never quite that powerful. Which makes sense after all. In terms of solid, scientific research, it falls a bit short and by the 1960's, psychology was really becoming more scientific. I'm not harping on it. I like many humanistic ideas but in terms of objectivity based, scientific research, it isn't really want you would want to guide you.

Then again, when humanistic come into the picture, you have at least three major theories, none of which were probably attracting 51% of professional support.

 

[myelin]

Ah, looks like we had a communication problem.

Clearly the humanistic prospective has had a major impact. They were and still are one of the major theories. They were called the "third force" after all, so i am guessing they have been in the top three since the 1960's or so. What i was wondering, and this is something you have clearly figured out, if they were ever dominated the field. Such as how the behaviorist were dominate in the 1950's or the psychodynamic prospective was dominate in the early 20th century. From what i understand, and what i think you are confirming, is that humanistic was never quite that powerful. Which makes sense after all. In terms of solid, scientific research, it falls a bit short and by the 1960's, psychology was really becoming more scientific. I'm not harping on it. I like many humanistic ideas but in terms of objectivity based, scientific research, it isn't really want you would want to guide you.

Then again, when humanistic come into the picture, you have at least three major theories, none of which were probably attracting 51% of professional support.

you are correct. one of the downfalls of the humanistic approach is its lack of objectivity. but then again, can we really objectify humans? even if we claim that we can, are the measures that we use to objectify human thoughts, emotions, and behavior valid?

many individuals adhering to the humanistic approach like to use projective techniques for assessments. they provide breathing room between interpretations instead of quantifying behavior to a number that can be crunched by methods such as factor analysis. some humanistically oriented professionals don't use testing during their assessments. however this makes it difficult to receive reimbursements from insurance companies because there are no "proven" assessment techniques being used. so it may be that as some psychologists prefer to base their decisions on a number of different tests, a humanistic psychologist may indeed use testing in their assessments but place much less weight on them when determining a direction to go in treatment.

i did a presentation last semester about the humanistic movement in psychology and found the APA division 32 page (Humanistic psychology) to be helpful. there is a great history summary on their site as well.

it appears that they updated the site and made the hx into a PDF file here

http://www.apa.org/divisions/div32/pdfs/history.pdf

and here is the div. 32 website

http://www.apa.org/divisions/div32/