Psychodynamic Perspective vs Cognitive Perspective Psychology Paper

Psychodynamic and Cognitive Perspectives
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Psychodynamic and Cognitive Perspectives
The psychodynamic view comprises of psychological theories that focus on the unconscious part of humans’ minds. In other words, it involves getting in a person’s mind to understand how one thinks. The psychodynamic perspective enables a healthcare professional to know how a specific patient views his or her experiences, the world, and relationships. As such, it becomes possible for the specialist to understand sick people’s behaviors, preferences, and personalities. On the contrary, the cognitive perspective involves information processing or internal mental processes, namely language, memory, attention, perception, problem solving, consciousness, and thinking. In particular, cognition entails memory and thinking processes. Cognitive perspective enables psychologists to understand how the human brains function. For this reason, it becomes possible to develop new strategies to assist individuals with mental difficulties. The paper compares and contrasts the psychodynamic and cognitive perspectives.
Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer introduced the psychodynamic perspective when they came across a particular patient who was suffering from hysteria. One of Breuer’s patient, Bertha Pappenheim, who was given a pseudonym, Anna O., visited the physician for assistance. The individual was taking care of her drying father. Afterward, she started experiencing various symptoms, including amnesia, hallucinations, partial paralysis, blurred vision, and headaches. During that time, Freud called such symptoms hysteria. From 1880-1882, Breuer tried to treat his patient through talking. Anna O. called the treatment “talking cure.” He discovered that by talking to Anna O. about her life experiences, her symptoms were relieved. When Breuer informed Freud about what was happening, they both wrote a book known as Studies on Hysteria in 1895. In the book, Freud concluded that traumatic experiences caused hysteria and that it consisted of the things hidden from consciousness (“Freud and the Psychodynamic Perspective,” n.d.). The person came up with numerous theories based on his therapies with different patients. His psychiatric experience enabled him to introduce a technique known as the free association. The concept required patients to say everything that came into their mind without hesitation. The sick individual was expected to relax and speak out of what has been disturbing him or her. By using the free association, Freud realized that patients revived painful or traumatic memories reaching back to their childhood. The individual perceived the human mind as an iceberg, which, through the free association, enables a patient to remember things repressed in the unconscious mind. People conceal things due to the fear that recalling such experiences might cause harm. Besides, sad moments are threatening since they involve traumatic experiences that might have happened to individuals during their childhood or adulthood.
The psychodynamic perspective portrays that humans’ feelings and behaviors are significantly affected by unconscious motives. Although the unconscious part of an individual’s brain is inaccessible to the conscious part, it influences people’s decisions, judgments, and motives (Hart, 2018). Childhood events have a significant influence on adult lives. The experiences that children encounter are repressed in the unconscious mind as they grow up, particularly if they are traumatic. However, they can affect the personalities of individuals when they become adults or cause severe mental problems. The psychodynamic view depicts that all behaviors are caused by something, which might come from the unconscious part of one’s mind. Freud argued that the unconscious feelings and thoughts could be transferred to the conscious part, which is a process he called Freudian slips. In other words, when people slip their tongue, it does not happen by mistake, but it shows what is in their unconscious mind. Individuals’ personalities constitute three primary parts, namely the ego, id, and superego (McLeod, 2017). The id is the primitive component that people inherit from their parents, which include sex, thirst, and hunger. Indeed, it seeks immediate gratification and operates on a “pleasure principle.” The superego is the conscience of people. In other terms, it is the moral compass that guides individuals’ behaviors. The superego enables people to strive for perfection, and it causes pride. Children develop this component by interacting with others where they learn what is right or wrong. The ego is the self or rational part of individuals’ personalities. Freud asserted that the ego operates on a “reality principle” and it balances the superego and id. Therefore, it enables the id to satisfy its desires realistically.
On the contrary, the cognitive perspective occurred through a series of events initiated by Max Wertheimer, Donald Broadbent, Kurt Koffka, Jean Piaget, Noam Chomsky, and Wolfgang Kohle...