Question

You have examined the schools of thought that make up the history of psychology and the theories that were or are held by those schools. What school of thought did you think made the most sense to you when trying to explain the behavior of the individual?

You can be eclectic and take some of one school and some of another, but be careful, sometimes when good things are taken out of their original context they do not work the same as before! There are no right or wrong ideas for this discussion but do defend why you selected the theory(ies) that you did. Have fun with this!

Answer 1

Psychoanalytical school of thought made the most sense to me of all the schools of thoughts that make up the history of psychology. Sigmund Freud in his theory of psychoanalysis explained the causes of a certain behaviour. The person himself may be unaware of the reason of the behaviour exhibited. Freud proposed the topographical model of the mind. Freud suggested that the human mind functions at three levels of awareness. The conscious mind, subconscious and the unconscious. Every individual goes through stressful situations in life. However, Freud suggested that every individual exercises different defense mechanisms which suit them the best to cope up with those stressful events. One of the defense mechanisms executed by most people is repression. Repression includes repressing or pushing down the feelings and thoughts that you make feel miserable. The repressed thoughts, feelings and memories are said to be embedded in the unconscious. Those thoughts or traumatic experiences are not forgotten whereas they are repressed in unconscious. The material repressed in the unconscious is the major cause behind individuals developing anxiety disorders. The reason to their anxiety is unknown to them. Repression of traumatic experiences like, losing a loved love, natural disasters, sexual assault and etcetera causes an individual to develop neurotic disorders.

The material from the unconscious mind cannot be recollected or remembered. It does not surface to the conscious mind on it's own. Various techniques and ways are used to reveal the material from the unconscious mind. It includes, psychotherapy, dream analysis, free association, hypnosis and projective techniques. All of these techniques help reveal the thoughts and feelings that perhaps even an individual himself would be unaware of holding within.

Frued not only explained the causes of certain behaviour but also his psychoanalytical theory goes to understand the development of one's personality. Freud suggested that an individual's personality goes through stages. He argued that personality develops through psychosexual stages.

Freud's stages of development include:

Oral stage(birth-24months), an infant at this stage receives pleasure through oral gratification like sucking, nibbling and tasting. If the infant at this stage is let to suck too much or too little, they may develop a fixation. Fixation at any point results in problems in development of one's personality. A person who is fixated at the oral stage due to reasons, develops an oral behaviour like eating too much, or smoking and chewing.

Anal stage (12 moths-18months), in this stage an infant has control over their anal expulsions. At this stage the child receives gratification through either holding or expelling feces. If the child is forcefully taught to be potty trained, he is likely to detest authority and will be the expelling types. Indulging in expulsion reflects aggression. It may result in a person being aggressive as and when he grows old. On the other hand, if a child holds and does not let go off, this would result in a person being very stubborn later in life.

Phallic stage (Age 2-4), at this stage according to Freud, a boy develops the Oedipus complex which means that he is jealous of his father and may feel sexually attracted to his mother and in girls, he calls it Electra complex. Children at this stage are jealous of their same sex parent as they want their opposite sex parent to give them all the attention and love and not to their other parent. They try to copy their same sex parent in the quest of trying to lure their opposite sex parent to be more attracted to them.

Latency stage (4-12), at this stage the child is more involved in understanding the world around them. Their curious little minds are busy learning things about the world and it's existence. They interact a lot with the same sex instead of opposite sex.

Genital stage (after puberty), this is the last stage of development once the child hits puberty, he begins to focus on pleasures received through his genitals. This is the time when a adolescent indulges in sexual activities and begins to look for romantic love in opposite sex. However, it is at this stage, if a person does not figure out his/her sexual preference, it may result in being confused about one's identity and who they are attracted to, whether it's the opposite sex or the same sex.

Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis helps understand the underlying cause of a certain behaviour which gets me completely sold onto it.