Essay Unit 8

Submitted By 07nikkiweall
Words: 1024
Pages: 5

Unit 8 Brief 2

There are six different psychological approaches within the psychology sector. I have talked about all six of these in my previous assignment P1. I am now going to explain the different psychological approaches involved in a health practice. The six different psychological approaches are; Behaviourist Perspective, Social Learning Theory, Psychodynamic Perspective, Humanistic Perspective, Cognitive Perspective and finally the Biological Perspective.

The Behaviorist Perspective is mainly about believing that learning has occurred when you can visually see the changes in behaviour. The behavioural learning model is the result of 'Conditioning'. Conditioning suggests that a reward following a desirable response acts as a reinforcer which therefore increases the likelihood that the desirable response will more than likely be repeated. Reinforcement is the most vital part of the behaviourist approach. A dental nurse in a health care setting provides reinforcement through each step of the process. For example, when the child is having work done on their teeth she will talk to them to keep them feeling reassured. Afterwards the nurse will give the patient positive reinforcement either by granting him or her with a sticker or a treat. This could possibly make the patient not as scared on their next visit.

Cognitive learning theorists believe that learning is an internal process in which information is integrated into a cognitive structure. Learning occurs through internal processing of information. One example of how cognitive learning is used within healthcare settings includes nurses and doctors learning how to take the patients blood pressure, this is a complex task when you first try to learn it. The nurse or doctor must learn how to physically manipulate the blood pressure manometer, learn how to hear blood pressure sounds, and understand the meaning of the sounds. Each of these tasks can be practiced as a separate activity, then combined to be able to complete the task altogether. In the last phase of learning, the automatic phase, this would suggest that the nurse or doctor gains increasing confidence and competence in repeating the same procedure on different patients.

The social learning theory suggests that people learn new behaviors through observation of factors in their environment, by taking note of other’s behavior and the consequence of that behavior. Observing a desired result makes the learner more likely to adopt a behavior to seek that result. This does not necessarily mean that the learner needs a direct experience to learn, but rather just taking notice of another’s behavior they can learn by what happens to that person. Albert Bandura, a Canadian psychologist, is known as the originator of the social learning theory. During his early research, Bandura examined the foundations of human learning and the tendency of children and adults to model their own behavior on behavior observed in others. He found that “learning is often a social process, and other individuals, especially significant others, provide compelling examples or role models for how to think, feel, and act”- He termed this as “role modeling''. In health care setting, The Social Learning Theory has been applied to nursing education, to addressing psycological problems , and to maximising the use of support groups. Nurses have applied social learning principles successfully when working with teenage mothers and in addressing alcoholism among older adults. A major difficulty is that this theory is complex and not easily operationalized, measured, and assessed.

The essence of the Psychodynamic Approach is to explain behaviour in terms of itsforces that drive it. The best known example of this approach is Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality, although there are many other Psychodynamic theories based on Freud’s ideas (such as Jung’s theory).Sigmund Freud was the first to challenge the view that mental disorders