Psychology to me is about the observation of the human behavior. It brings a lot of special techniques along with personal stories and their individual integration into the environment. I noticed this last time I went to therapy, the psychologists would give me really questionable glances every time I would try to answer her questions. She would be really attentive to my gestures as if she was trying to decipher something from it. At the end of the session, I was very curious so I asked her why she looked at me like she was trying to understand something and she explained to me that observation is one of the biggest methods they use to collect enough data for their research. Which kind of answered my question to what psychology is about.
People usually think psychology and psychiatry are the same thing, which is what I thought as well when I was younger but as I got older I realized I was wrong. They are often confused simply by the fact that both are applied in the field of mental health. And maybe they work very similarly, but the differences are a lot. A big example, the academic journey of each profession. Psychologists and psychiatrists have a very different journey when talking about education. First they get their bachelor’s degree and University degrees in Psychology and then they specialize in clinical psychology, while psychiatrists move on to medical school to then specialize in psychiatry. Psychiatrists have more knowledge of the human body as an organism, while psychologists are more based in social sciences and cultural dynamics.
Psychodynamic perspective is one of the oldest ones and is very uncommon nowadays. It makes sure to investigate about the patient’s childhood because Freud, the founder of this theory, believed that maybe something the patient went through in their childhood has an impact in their life as an adult. Psychosexual development, another one of Freud’s theories, is a good example of this because it shows how early childhood experiences affect personalities after they are grown up. However, this theory has been criticized because it makes sexuality look so important.
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Behavioral perspective is the second oldest field and is very influential. Behavioral perspective is more different to any other approach because they view people as well as animals. Behaviorism sees us as the result of what we’ve learned from the environment. Unlike psychodynamic perspective, this perspective doesn’t really go into anything related to sex. Humanistic perspective, also known as the third force, studies the person as a whole. From my perspective, this psychologists tends to make their patients feel better by finding what’s missing to make them feel better about themselves.
Cognitive perspective is more about wanting to know what’s going on in the patient’s brain. They don’t ask about childhood stories or try to think like their patient. If a cognitive psychologist wants to find out what’s making you do what you’re doing, they would want to know what is in your mind while you’re doing it. Very smart move to help someone, in my opinion. Sociocultural perspective is aware of circumstances and how their patient’s behavior might be affected by their surroundings.
So maybe is a little similar to Behavioral perspective do to the fact that they both think our surroundings might be affecting our behavior, but sociocultural is more about social and cultural. However, biopsychological perspective is very close to behavioral perspective. Both of these perspectives study animal and human behavior but biopsychological perspective tends to focus more on the physical bases. Evolutionary perspective is very different from the rest in my opinion because it focuses on how evolution formed our minds and behavior.
I think out of those perspectives, of them would fit me the best. Those two would be Humanistic. Humanistic, because even now when a friend comes to me because they’re down and need motivation, before saying anything, I try to put myself in their shoes and think about their personality. “If I was them, what would I like to do to feel better?” or “What can I say to them to make them feel better?”. I would try to do encourage them or try to determine what is missing to make them feel better.
