The Pastor and Developmental Psychology

Psychology generally has been described as a "discipline with a long past but a very short history" (Schlesinger et al., 1976, p.8). This popular aphorism is meant to convey two meanings. Firstly psychological problems date back to antiquity and secondly the subject, in the sense of being an independent academic discipline is a recent development. The discipline is however a collection of subfields. Although each has its unique characteristics and requirements, some are intertwined, interrelated or interwoven, the sum total of which might reasonably be called psychological studies rather than psychology (Dandoff, 1987).

Although many will argue that clinical or counseling psychology should be a must for pastors, it would be farfetched to state that I am sinking in the quick sand of subjectivity to present a case for development psychology "a branch of psychology which examines the biological, social and intellectual development of people from before birth throughout the life-course" (Cambridge Encyclopedia, p.339). A notable strength of developmental psychology is that it cuts across several areas like attachment, educational psychology or Piagetian psychology.

Top Psychology Careers

Psychologists are important professionals in the health service field that plays a major role in providing mental health care to patients in hospitals, clinics or private settings. They use scientific methods to study the human mind and work mainly with people who are mentally ill. They help people find ways of functioning better, for example- guide and train people to handle stress in the workplace.

Psychologists work in many different settings. The primary employment settings are academic (university and college), educational (elementary and secondary schools, business and industry, and other human service settings. There many psychologists who work individually with clients, while other treats patients with a team of professionals.

Classes to Take in Psychology

So you've decided to make your career in Psychology? Here are the different psychology classes and courses you need to take to meet your psychology degree requirements.

The preparation for taking a psychology degree begins from before you apply to the different universities for your admission into graduate school. When the graduate admissions committees consider applications for students, they are really interested in students who have taken certain courses while at the undergraduate level.

What is Psychology?

Having a good grasp of what psychology is all about is essential for anybody wanting to explore the topic in greater depth. Now this may sound like a really obvious thing to state but psychology is one of those terms that is often banded around without any real consideration as to its actual meaning.

 

A classic case in point being the usual response you get from people when you tell them that you teach psychology; namely, "I better be careful what I say", or "so do you know what I'm thinking then?" I know I shouldn't but my stock reply to these reactions tends to be "Absolutely" and "Not at all...but then I would say that, wouldn't I"

Psyche and Logos

From two Greek words: psyche, which means the mind or the soul and logos, which means study, the science of Psychology has been studied and defined by many people throughout the ages. Hilgard, Morgan, Silverman, and Schlesinger are just a few.

A careful analysis of their foregoing definitions of psychology reveals common points: Psychology is the scientific study of the behaviors of living organisms; the term behavior must not be solely attributed to man's physical reactions and observable behavior; and thoughts, feelings, and attitudes are also connected to the term behavior.

You Can Study at Home - Psychology and Counselling

Introduction - Present Scenario

With the type of hectic life we all are living, the tension related with our work seems to be escalating and leading to frustrations at the end of it. Every next person is addicted or depressed of something. Though the living standards have improved but many people are still not happy and living constant stressful life.

 
The rise in these types of situations has ultimately shown an increase in demand of psychologists and counselors. In fact in many countries the requirement for psychologists has boomed and expected to boost considerably in coming years.

Psychology For Christian Homeschool Students?

Type the phrase "Christian Psychology" into a search engine. I just did. Of the first 10 sites listed, 5 condemned psychology as "psycho-heresy," "psychobabble," or "the most deadly form of modernism to ever confront the Church." The other sites accept psychology as an important academic discipline, consistent with a Christian worldview, and worthy of study. The Internet reflects that psychology is one of the most controversial and divisive academic subjects among Christians today.

The Advantages of Getting an Online Psychology Degree

If you are a professional in human resources, counseling, social work, market research, advertising, sales or any job fields which need a lot of interaction with people and you need to enhance your psychology background in order to do a better job or enhance your job professionalism, a degree in psychology definitely can help you to achieve your goal.

But, you may not want to on hold your current job in order to go back to college or university to earn your psychology degree. Then, you need to look for online psychology degree. The advantages of acquiring an online psychology degree is that you can acquire a degree in psychology without attending a regular class, you need not leave your job to enhance your knowledge in the field of psychology. You can even specialize in any field in psychology.

What Is Forensic Psychology?

When my students arrived for their first lecture, I would always start by giving them 10 minutes to write down an answer to this question.

Before reading on, why not quickly write down what you think forensic psychology is.

The reason I did this was because despite the fact that every single undergraduate psychology student (about 180 of them) chose to do the forensic psychology course form a list of optional courses; not one of them came to see me in advance to ask what the course was about.

Now bear in mind students chose their optional courses well in advance of the start date, and in order to make an informed choice they were all strongly advised to speak to the lecturer running the courses they were interested in before making a final decision.

Philosophy and Psychology - Uneasy Siblings

Most of us who work in some aspect of philosophy have had the experience of trying to explain to someone that philosophy is not psychology. To those members of the philosophical set, the distinction may seem obvious, but any attempt to spell it out requires some careful thought and reflection, which is what I attempt to do in this exercise.

Is Psychology a sibling of Philosophy? Surely in the past they were close siblings, members of the same family, philosophy. Today the relationship between the two is more problematic. Does work in philosophy have any relation to the student's psychological state? The answer also is not a clear-cut one. Philosophy can help a person psychologically, but this is not central to the function of philosophy.

The Place of Spirituality in Psychology

The field of psychology encompasses many aspects that must be dealt with on a daily basis. Psychologists and others working in the field are often faced with moral dilemmas that may cause them to question the place of morals and spirituality in psychology.

Those who practice some form of religion may use their specific values and morals when it comes to finding resolutions in these situations. There still lies the question of whether religion has a place in the day-to-day practice of psychology and if so, where to draw the line.

An Introduction to Yoga Psychology

One of the more beautifully developed sciences of spiritual-based psychology is yoga psychology, the study of human psyche in relation to life and the larger dimensions of existence. This science, matriculated from the ancient tradition of yoga, seeks to explain and explore the potentials of the human life, uncovering the hidden mysteries behind life's purpose, existence, and relationship to the world in which we live.

While there are many systems of psychology available to modern man, yoga psychology is unique in that is seeks to merge modern science with ancient philosophy. Through its distinct methods of treating and transforming the mind to its open and holistic approach to life, yoga psychology is an effective science for providing a healthy, balanced, and individually sensitive approach the mental health and wellness.

Psychology - The Study of the Human Mind

Why are children stubborn? Why do some people become addicted to alcohol or gambling? How do you help an abused child? All of these are difficult and challenging questions that the field of psychology is trying to answer.

So, then what exactly is psychology? There are many misperceptions created by television and movies today, but the basic answer is that psychology is both an applied and academic science that studies the human mind and behavior. Research in psychology seeks to understand and explain thought, emotion, and behavior. Psychology is applied to individuals via mental health treatment, performance enhancement, self-help, ergonomics, and many other areas affecting health and daily life.

List of psychological schools

Various schools of thought have argued for a particular model to be used as a guiding theory by which all, or the majority, of human behavior can be explained. The popularity of these has waxed and waned over time. Some psychologists may think of themselves as adherents to a particular school of thought and reject the others, although most consider each as an approach to understanding the mind, and not necessarily as mutually exclusive theories. On the basis of Tinbergen's four questions a framework of reference of all fields of psychological research can be established (including anthropological research and humanities).

Cognitive psychology

Noam Chomsky helped to ignite a "cognitive revolution" in psychology when he criticized the behaviorists' notions of "stimulus", "response", and "reinforcement", arguing that such ideas—which Skinner had borrowed from animal experiments in the laboratory—could be applied to complex human behavior, most notably language acquisition, in only a vague and superficial manner. Chomsky emphasized that research and analysis must not ignore the innate contribution of the child to such behavior,  while social learning theorists such as Albert Bandura argued that the child's environment could make contributions of its own to the behaviors of an observant subject. The notion that behavior could be precipitated only by the functioning of an internal device or by the perception of external surroundings posed a challenge to the behaviorist position that behavior is contingent upon the prior associations that individuals have made between behavioral responses and pleasurable or painful stimuli.

Noam Chomsky

Humanistic psychology

Humanistic psychology was developed in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis. By using phenomenology, intersubjectivity and first-person categories, the humanistic approach sought to glimpse the whole person—not just the fragmented parts of the personality or cognitive functioning.  Humanism focused on fundamentally and uniquely human issues, such as self-identity, death, aloneness, freedom, and meaning. The humanistic approach was distinguished by its emphasis on subjective meaning, rejection of determinism, and concern for positive growth rather than pathology. Some of the founders of this school of thought were American psychologists Abraham Maslow, who formulated a hierarchy of human needs, and Carl Rogers, who created and developed client-centered therapy; and German-American psychiatrist Fritz Perls, who co-founded Gestalt therapy. It became so influential as to be called the "third force" within psychology, along with behaviorism and psychoanalysis.  Later, positive psychology opened up humanistic themes to scientific modes of exploration.

Abraham Maslow

Behaviorism

Founded in the early 20th century by American psychologist John B. Watson, behaviorism was embraced and extended by Americans Edward Thorndike, Clark L. Hull, Edward C. Tolman, and later B. F. Skinner. Behaviorism reflected a belief that the methodology  behind laboratory-based animal experimentation, which was increasing in popularity as physiology grew more sophisticated, could provide useful psychosocial understanding of a type that comparatively subjective inquiries, such as psychodynamic analysis as employed by Freud or introspection  as used by Wundt and James, could not.

John B. Watson

Cognitive and Comparative psychology

Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology studies cognition, the mental processes underlying mental activity. Perception, learning, problem solving, reasoning, thinking, memory, attention, language  and emotion  are areas of research.

Classical cognitive psychology is associated with a school of thought known as cognitivism, whose adherents argue for an information processing model of mental function, informed by functionalism and experimental psychology.

On a broader level, cognitive science is an interdisciplinary enterprise of cognitive psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, researchers in artificial intelligence, linguists, human–computer interaction, computational neuroscience, logicians and social scientists.

Computational models are sometimes used to simulate phenomena of interest. Computational models provide a tool for studying the functional organization of the mind whereas neuroscience provides measures of brain activity.

Biological and Clinical psychology

Psychology encompasses a vast domain, and includes many different approaches to the study of mental processes and behavior.

Biological psychology

Biological psychology or Behavioral Neuroscience is the scientific study of the biological substrates of behavior and mental states. Seeing all behavior as intertwined with the nervous system, biological psychologists feel it is sensible to study how the brain functions in order to understand behavior.

This is the approach taken in behavioral neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology. Neuropsychology is the branch of psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relate to specific behavioral and psychological processes.

Neuropsychology is particularly concerned with the understanding of brain injury in an attempt to work out normal psychological function. Cognitive neuroscientists often use neuroimaging tools, which can help them to observe which areas of the brain are active during a particular task.

MRI depicting the human brain. 

The arrow indicates the position of the hypothalamus

Psychoanalysis

From the 1890s until his death in 1939, the Austrian  physician Sigmund Freud developed a method of psychotherapy  known as psychoanalysis. Freud's understanding of the mind was largely based on interpretive methods, introspection  and clinical observations, and was focused in particular on resolving unconscious conflict, mental distress and psychopathology. Freud's theories became very well-known, largely because they tackled subjects such as sexuality, repression, and the unconscious mind as general aspects of psychological development. These were largely considered taboo subjects at the time, and Freud provided a catalyst for them to be openly discussed in polite society. Clinically, he helped to pioneer the method of free association and a therapeutic interest in dreams.

Freud had a significant influence on Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, whose analytical psychology became an alternative form of depth psychology. Other well-known psychoanalytic thinkers of the mid-twentieth century included German-American psychologist Erik Erickson, Austrian-British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, English psychoanalyst and physician D. W. Winnicott, German psychologist Karen Horney, German-born psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm, English psychiatrist John Bowlby and Sigmund Freud's daughter, psychoanalyst Anna Freud. Throughout the 20th century, psychoanalysis evolved into diverse schools of thought, most of which may be classed as Neo-Freudian.c

History of psychology

The study of psychology in philosophical  context dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, India, and Persia. Predating the prototypical clinics of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung by nearly 1000 years, psychotherapy was performed by Islamic physicians on those with mental illness in lunatic asylums built as early as the 8th century in Fez, Morocco.

Due to his formulation of a modern quantitative and empirical approach, Ibn al-Haytham is considered by some authors to have pioneered the modern scientific method, as well as psychophysics and experimental psychology. In 1802, French physiologist Pierre Cabanis sketched out the beginnings of physiological psychology with his essay, Rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme (On the relations between the physical and moral aspects of man). Cabanis interpreted the mind in light of his previous studies of biology, arguing that sensibility and soul are properties of the nervous system.

Auguste Rodin's The Thinker