Foundations of Psy

Kasheca Carter

PSY/300

September 2, 2011

Carlton Bowden

Foundations of Psychology Paper

In the foundations of psychology there are four major schools of thought that make up the foundation. The four schools of thoughts are Evolutionary, Psychodynamic, Cognitive and Behavioral, along with the biological foundations and biopsychology. Each different in their own way with different theorists that have either came up with one of the school of thoughts or are just continuing in someone else's footsteps.

Sigmund Freud originated his theory in response to patients whose symptoms that were real but not based on physiological malfunctioning (Kowalski and Western, 2005).   He was also working initially in close collaboration with Joseph Breuer; Freud elaborated the theory that the mind is a complex energy-system, the structural investigation of which is proper province of psychology. He articulated and refined the concepts of the unconscious, of infantile sexuality, of repression, and proposed a tripartite account of the mind’s structure, all as part of a radically new conceptual and therapeutic frame of reference for the understanding of human psychological development and the treatment of abnormal mental conditions. Notwithstanding the multiple manifestations of psychoanalysis as it exists today, it can in almost all fundamental respects be traced directly back to Freud’s original work (Thorton, 2005). Thus, the psychodynamic school of thought proposes that people's actions reflect the way thoughts, feelings and wishes are associated in their minds, as in when the loved one dies they feel guilt or pain. The primary method in psychodynamic thought has been to analyze case studies of interpreting the meaning as to why people feel the guilt when loved ones pass, psychologists are using the experimental methods more and more though to...