psychology

Table of Contents

Psychology is the study of human’s behaviour, thought processes and emotions. It can help with our understanding of ourselves and our understanding with other people, if it applied in an informed way. Psychologist help people to overcome depression, stress, trauma or phobias. The growing area of expertise and opportunity lies within the health and social care setting. Significantly within family safeguarding and child protection as part of multidisciplinary team approach. Psychologists explore behaviours and mental processes, including attention, emotion, brain functioning and personality’s. While psychological knowledge is often applied to the assessment and treatment of mental health problems, it is also directed towards understanding and solving problems in several spheres of human actives. There are different branches of psychology. They include Clinical psychology, Cognitive psychology, Memory and intelligence, Developmental psychology, Evolution psychology, Forensic, Health neuropsychology, Operational and social psychology. Seven of the major psychological perspectives are psychoanalytic, behaviourist, humanist, cognitive, neuroscientific/bio psychological, evolutionary and sociocultural.Most health psychologists focus on prevention research and actions taken to design to promote healthier lifestyles and try to find ways to encourage people to improve their health and wellbeing. For example, they may help people tackle obesity and advice on stop smoking. Health psychologists may also use their skills to try to make the healthcare system. For example, they may guide doctors about better ways to communicate with their patients. Health psychology began to emerge psychology in the United States in the 1970s. Psychologists investigate how disease affects individuals’ psychological well-being. An individual who becomes seriously ill or injured faces many different practical distress. These stressors include problems meeting medical and other bills, problems obtaining proper care when home from the hospital, obstacles to caring for dependents, the experience of having one’s sense of self-reliance compromised, gaining a new and unwanted identity as that of a sick person. Each of the following grand theories provides an overarching framework within which most psychological research is conducted. Each of these theories has a different point of emphasis when approaching the core psychological questions of why, how, and what. A lot of research and theory is based on one or more of these grand theories. Biological focuses on the biological underpinnings of behavior and the effects of evolution and genetics. The premise is that behavior and mental processes can be explained by understanding human physiology and anatomy. Biological psychologists focus mostly on the brain and the nervous system. Psychoanalytic emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes and early child-development issues as they relate to childish impulses, childish wishes, immature desires, and the demands of reality. Behaviorism emphasizes the role of previous learning experiences in shaping behavior. Behaviorists don’t traditionally focus on mental processes because they believe that mental processes are too difficult to observe and measure objectively. Behaviorism is involved in the ongoing controversy of the influence of television and video game violence on children. Cognitive focuses on the mental processing of information, including the specific functions of reasoning, problem solving, and memory. Cognitive psychologists are interested in the mental plans and thoughts that guide and cause behavior. Humanistic and existential emphasize the uniqueness of each individual person and our ability and responsibility to make choices in our lives. Humanists believe that a person’s free choice, free will, and understanding of the meaning of events in his or her life are the most important things to study. Feminism focuses on the political, economic, and social rights of women and how these forces influence both men’s and women’s behavior. The feminist perspective originated in the women’s movement of the 1960s. Postmodernism questions the very core of psychological science, challenging its approach to truth and its focus on the individual. Postmodernists propose, for example, that in order to understand human thinking and reason, we need to look at the social and communal processes involved in thinking and reason. They make the argument that people in powerful positions have too much to say about what is “real” and “true” in psychology. They advocate a social constructionist view of reality, which states that the concepts of “reality” and “truth” are defined, or constructed, by society. These concepts have no meaning apart from the meanings that society and its “experts” assign to them.Nursing is a career that requires a lot of different skills combined with a consistent level of quality care for a patient. To do this, a nurse may incorporate practices from other professions, such as psychology, in order to do their job effectively. Although it may not be obvious to outsiders, the importance of psychology in the nursing profession is almost natural for nurses. If a nurse has ever needed to try an analyze how their patient thinks and feels in order to better understand how to care for them effectively, the application of psychology in nursing is evident. Psychology and nursing careers go hand-in-hand, and this approach allows the healthcare professional to build a trusting relationship with the patient to provide the appropriate care. Nurses who study psychology extensively are trained to understand a wide range and depth of emotions and what those emotions can cause in an ill or injured patient. Likewise, they can determine whether or not the emotional state of the patient is what’s causing the physical problems. Nurses also use psychology on themselves to a certain extent. They are able to perform under unthinkable stress as they attempt to navigate through all the emotions of a patient and get down to the root of the problem effectively – all while putting their own emotions on the back burner. Without psychology and nursing careers coming together, it would be hard for a nurse to do his or her job. There is a major importance of psychology in the nursing profession. Successful nurses build relationships with their patients. They use psychology in order to develop a rapport with their patients and create a sense of calm in the room. Because of psychology, nurses are often instrumental in things like getting their patients to take their prescribed medication or calming them down before inserting an IV or taking a blood test.Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies.Psychoanalytic or psychodynamic psychotherapy draws on theories and practices of analytical psychology and psychoanalysis. It is a therapeutic process which helps patients understand and resolve their problems by increasing awareness of their inner world and its influence over relationships both past and present. It differs from most other therapies in aiming for deep seated change in personality and emotional development. Sometimes people seek help for specific reasons such as eating disorders, psycho-somatic conditions, obsessional behaviour, or phobic anxieties. At other times help is sought because of more general underlying feelings of depression or anxiety, difficulties in concentrating, dissatisfaction in work or inability to form satisfactory relationships. It may benefit adults, children, and adolescents. It can help children who have emotional and behavioural difficulties which are evident at home or school. These can include personality problems, depression, learning difficulties, school phobias, eating or sleeping disorders. Whether psychotherapy is the treatment of choice for a particular individual depends on a variety of factors. It is often helpful to have one or more preliminary consultations with an experienced psychotherapist before deciding whether psychoanalytic psychotherapy is an appropriate treatment for the person concerned. Occasionally, the treatment might be of short duration but generally speaking psychoanalytic psychotherapy is best considered as a long-term treatment involving considerable commitment for both patient and therapist. Behavior Therapy This approach focuses on learning’s role in developing both normal and abnormal behaviors. Behavior therapy can benefit people with wide range of disorders. People most commonly seek behavioral therapy to treat depression, anxiety, panic disorders and anger issues. It could also help to treat conditions and disorders such as eating disorders, post traumatic stress, bipolar disorders, ADHD, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorders, self harm and substance abuse. This type of therapy can benefit both adults and children. There is different types of behavior therapy. Cognitive behavior therapy is the most popular treatment,this is centred to help someone’s beliefs and thoughts. There is also System desensitization this relies on classical conditioning it is often used to treat phobias. Lastly there is Averison therapy this is often used to treat problems like substance abuse and alcoholism. Humanistic therapy. Also known as humanism, humanistic therapy is a positive approach to psychotherapy that focuses on a person’s individual nature, rather than categorizing groups of people with similar characteristics as having the same problems. Humanistic therapy looks at the whole person, not only from the therapist’s view but from the viewpoint of individuals observing their own behavior. The emphasis is on a person’s positive traits and behaviors, and the ability to use their personal instincts to find wisdom, growth, healing, and fulfillment within themselves. Humanistic therapy is used to treat depression, anxiety, panic disorders, personality disorders, schizophrenia, addiction, and relationship issues, including family relationships. Humanistic therapy is talk therapy that encompasses a gestalt approach, exploring how a person feels in the here and now, rather than trying to identify past events that led to these feelings. Additionally, the humanistic therapist provides an atmosphere of support, empathy, and trust that allows the individual to share their feelings without fear of judgment. The therapist does not act as an authority figure; rather, the relationship between client and the therapist is one of equals.The Stanford prison experiment Zimbardo and his colleagues in 1973 were –interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards or had more to do with the prison environment. They was told to study the roles people play in prisons such as guards or prisons. Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison. When the prisoners arrived at the prison they were stripped naked, deloused, had all their personal possessions removed and locked away, and were given prison clothes and bedding. At the end of the research many said the research had felt “real”” to them. Most of the guards found it difficult to believe that they had behaved in the brutalizing ways that they had. Many said they hadn’t known this side of them existed or that they were capable of such things. The study has received many ethical criticisms