Please read chapter 13. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
What were three (3) things from the chapter that you found interesting? Why were they interesting to you? What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
What topic would you like to learn more about? Why ?
What ideas did you have while reading the chapter?
One thing that I had found very interesting in this chapter is the “close-up” section discussing the history and procedure of lobotomies, because I had never learned about the origin of lobotomies as well as the technique of carrying them out. I knew how they were generally performed and vague details about them, but I thought that the specifics were very interesting; including how one man who adapted and adjusted the original procedure is responsible for the negativity surrounding the term lobotomies.
The whole idea of lobotomies stemmed from an experiment conducted by Jacobsen and Fulton that had used chimpanzees as their subjects. They had found that by implementing surgical damage to their frontal lobes, these previously aggressive chimps completed a 360 and significantly calmed down. The procedure consisted of severing the connections between their frontal lobes and their lower brain centers. These lower brain centers were involved their emotional behavior, and their calmer personality resulted in the severed connections. A neuropsychiatrist named Egas Moniz believed that this same idea could be applied to seriously disturbed patients.
Moniz had tried this with several disturbed patients that were serious enough to be considered suicidal or dangerous, and had discovered that the procedure was for the most part successful. This procedure resulted in the patients becoming emotionally passive, therefore advocating this procedure to be done ONLY on patients that were extreme cases and all other options fell through. However, Freeman and Watt were two American neurologists that thought otherwise. They believed this procedure to be miraculous and performed as many lobotomies as they could. They had also created a new technique that enabled the surgery to be a lot quicker, but it also increased the risk of severing a major artery within the patient. Freeman continued to advocate and perform lobotomies without on his own after Watt, as well as many others, grew weary of his intentions and the surgery in general. Lobotomies didn’t just calm the patients, but completely altered their personality creating “virtual zombies” in some cases. Thankfully, lobotomies were a short lived surgery and started to disappear in the mid 1950s. I would like to learn more about lobotomies, and the different opinions that other leading contributors of psychology though of the procedure. I would also like to see a factual case profile of somebody that had underwent a lobotomy, as opposed to the dramaticized accounts I’ve seen on movies and tv.
Another topic that is interesting to me is Humanistic psychology, especially client-centered therapy. I found this interesting, because this type of therapy is genuinely about trying to understand and help the patient, as opposed to conditioning a person or judging them based on their past and past experiences instead of the troubled person now. In both of these therapies the therapist is trying to change them, instead of allowing the patient to change themselves. Carl Rodgers was the founder of client-centered therapy who didn’t like the foundations of psychoanalysis and believed that the client needed to be able to take control of their own life through the concept called “self-actualization,” or living up to one’s potential. Rogers emphasized the importance of creating good rapport while conducting a session, which he was able to do using three fundamental components. First, the therapist needs to be genuine; second, it’s essential for the therapist to be accepting of the person and ignore any potential labels; and lastly the therapist needs to show empathy for the client and understand how they view things. All three of these components are examples that indicate that the focus of this therapy is on the client here and now as well as changing the idea that the therapist plays the controlling role.
The last topic I found interesting was the Hawthorne studies and how there were other underlying factors that could’ve contributed to worker productivity besides the Hawthorne Effect. This was interesting because I have previously learned about the Hawthorne studies and the Hawthorne Effect, but none of my other classes ever discussed the possibility of other variables having an effect besides the fact that they were being watched and studied. The Hawthorne studies were originally to measure the effect of lighting on worker productivity, but were later proven to be unrelated. The Relay Assembly Test Room was a part of the Hawthorne study that used six female workers to study worker productivity, and came to the conclusion that their productivity was influenced by the fact that they knew they were being watched.
However, there were other alternative explanations that I have never learned from learning about the Hawthorne studies prior to this class. First, in contrary to accounts of the study stating that the women were exciting about being in the special testing room, five of the original subjects had to be removed because their output wasn’t high enough. They instead replaced them, and one replacement was exceptionally talented and had already held a record for fast assembly. This in turn, skewed the original output and productivity level.
There was also a statistical problem in interpreting the data. During the most infamous period of this study, they had changed the time frame of what they were measuring. Instead of staying consistent and measuring the output per hour they measured the output per week, as well as working 6 extra hours per week. If they were to stay consistent with the rest of their experiment, the results would’ve indicated that productivity declined slightly instead of booming which was portrayed. Feedback of performance and rewards for productivity were also other variables that were likely to have played a role in determining worker productivity.
The concept that I found least interesting was the brief discussion of engineering psychology. I just don’t have any desire to learn or to understand the relationship between humans and machines. I have no interest in machines and can’t really grasp the concept of developing a relationship with an inanimate object. Because every person is different, how can a person develop a machine that is to be most efficient for humans to use? They may be able to conduct experiments to incorporate their results with a machine, but, especially in the case of military equipment as discussed in the chapter, the sample size would be relatively small that I wouldn’t think the results would be generalizeable.
This chapter relates to the previous chapter because it kind of picks up where it left off. Chapter 12 ends with a discussion of clinical psychologists becoming professionals, which flows into the beginning of chapter 13 in discussing the different models to use in order for clinical psychologists to obtain a P.h.D. or a Psy.D.
The first thing about this chapter that I found to be interesting was the beginning of clinical psychology and how it came about from WWII. I didn't know this and it was interesting to find out that clinical psychology is one of those things that came out of a need for people to really understand it's use and value. The second thing I found interesting about this chapter was the scientist-practitioner model of training for clinical psychology. As I have been applying to grad school that term has come up quite a lot in applications and program descriptions and I always just assumed that it was a mixed between both research and practicing psychology in a clinical setting. It was interesting to learn that they actually each have a specific model to them that have steps to follow and it was nice knowing what I have to look forward to in grad school in the next couple years. The third thing i found interesting about this chapter was the part about the Hawthorne effect, now I already knew of this study before hand but I always love reading about it because it is a perfect example of how people always seem to care about what the outside world thinks of them or how they are perceived by people that they may never meet again.
One thing that I disliked about this chapter was that they put the clinical psychology movement and the humanistic part of psychology in the same chapter when in reality like in today's circumstances at least they have very little in common. I think it would have been more beneficial to put maybe the clinical and counseling parts of psychology together in this chapter.
I believe that since I am apply to most programs in clinical psychology (although some are in counseling) I think learning about the history and the start of clinical psychology and how it really got off it's feet after WWII will be the most useful to me in understanding at least my relavent part of psychology's history.
This chapter sort of took the last chapter on old clinical practices and the revolution of mental illness treatment and brought into light the subfield of psychology that mental illness falls under, clinical psychology. It also told us about humanistic and client centered psychology which relates to last chapter in which they started treatment people with mental illnesses more humanely and more like they could be cured instead of hopeless.
I am really interested in the topic of engineering psychology and how it is used today in real life situations. I would like to learn more about that because I used to take a lot of engineering classes in high school, at one point thinking I was going to double major in engineering and psych. I never knew there was a field that combined the two.
I wondered mostly about the engineering psychology and how they possibly got to a point where they could combine and use two completely different fields of science and social science and help them work together to create something new. I was always told that it would be impossible to major in both engineering and psych because they don't overlap but now the book is telling me they do and they have in certain cases. I really want to learn more about how they mix the two together.
Chapter 13
The first topic that I found interesting was the section on the Boulder Model. It is hard to believe how little overlap there was between clinical psychology and academics in the early days of psychology. Psychology began primarily as a research based science that took places in schools and psychologists were trained in research and not in clinical settings. After the end of WWII the need for clinical psychologists skyrocketed, at this time the government even began to finance the education of people that would go into clinical psychology.
I seems as though the Boulder Model developed out of need more than anything else. In 1949 71 clinical psychologists met in Boulder to form a blueprint for education that would allow a psychologists to be ready for clinical psychology. The model pointed out three main areas that a psychologist should be an expert in. Diagnosis of mental disorders, skilled in psychotherapy, and should be able to do research.
Another topic that I found to be interesting was the humanistic approach to psychology. I find this approach to be something that is important to me, because helping people is a passion. Abraham Maslow developed the self-actualization model, which describes the way in which a person can reach their full potential and be who they feel is their best possible sell. This people based focus of psychology was new in the 1940's and was a way to help people to become their best self. Carl Rogers was also a humanistic psychologist. He focused on the use of therapy guided by the patient to help them find the "cure" for their problem.
The third topic that I found to be interesting was the Hawthorne Studies. The study was a huge step in the use of psychology to help business to become more productive environments. In this study researchers found the production was hire in people when they knew that they were being studied. Despite some of the trouble of the study that are mentioned, the Hawthorne Effect can be seen as more of a milestone on the use of psychology as it relates to business
The one section of the chapter that I found to be least interesting was the section on engineering psychology. I felt like this part of the chapter was kind of irrelevant and could have made more of an impact if it had been placed elsewhere in the book. I can understand the importance of engineering psychology because it allows for use to make machines that people can function with better and make them more efficient and comfortable for human use. That respect of the field is probably why I would like to see a more well developed section on the subject.
Something that I thought about while I was reading the portion of the chapter on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs was the difference on the presentation between this psychology classes versus my business classes. In the psychology classes the point of self-actualization of the focus and helping people to become their best possible self, while in my organizational management and economics classes the formulation of business models a focused on to help the worker be as productive as possible. I would like to learn more about the development of the psy.D degree and how it became to be as well as the need for it came to be. I would also like to know if these different degrees still exist or if the degrees are more emphasis based.
While reading chapter 13 there were several topics that I found interesting. The first topic that caught my interest was the topic of modern clinical psychology. I found this interesting because it was the first section that mentioned it actually becoming a job field. Before the section only psychiatrists were considered skilled enough. The only thing they were allowed to do was give clinical testing. Once the war occurred and soldiers came back with mental illness the need was drastically raised. Clinicians were given a permanent place in the field of psychology. Most of the field training came on the go while dealing with cases to gain experience. This section really interested me on the times that it occurred and what drove the need in the field. I never thought the war would have anything to do with expanding the field but after reading the section it makes sense. The number of soldiers that were given a medical discharge was 1.5 million that number speaks for itself. Another topic I found interesting was the Hawthorne studies. This was interesting because it started applying psychology and the knowledge the work field. I learned about this in my organizational psychology class and it was very interesting. Simple things like lighting played a big role in worker productivity. While reading the section I was reminded that the setting wasn’t nearly as big a factor as other things such as lighting. I would figure that setting would have a lot to do with productivity but it turns out it wasn’t a major factor. There were several things that could also be looked at and determined to aid in productivity. Increased supervision during the study could have also been a factor that wasn’t mentioned and considered as much as it should have been. This section also reminded me of the time this study took place. It started in 1924 and continued for 3 years. Looking back almost 100 years it’s very intriguing that this concept was used so early in the field of psychology and the work place. I really enjoyed being reminded of the small details which helped me refresh my memory on this particular study. The third topic I enjoyed in the chapter was on the humanistic approach to psychology. This section again reminded me about previously learned information. I’ve always found this concept interesting. Even though humans are advanced creatures he realized that being able to self-actualize requires basic human needs to be meant in a particular order. This to me was a major turning point in psychology. By having the hierarchy from the base to the top (self-actualization) it gave an order to such things as love, self-esteem, and belonging. Most people have their own ideas on what is needed to self-actualize but this study gets down to the basic human concepts and puts value on them from base importance to the top reached rung on the ladder. It was a good section to touch up on and be reminded that research like this is what shaped our understanding of psychology today.
The section I found least interesting was the small section about the Boulder model. This section just described what lead to the expansion of the field and how it was taken on. The section described the three main areas of expertise that psychologists should know to be beneficial in the field. 1. Experts in diagnosing mental illness. 2. able to complete high quality empirical research. 3. Skilled psychotherapists. I didn’t find it interesting because throughout the years this has changed based on the new research and data. It was nice to see where it started but besides that I found no part useful for understanding the chapter.
The thing I think will be the most useful from this chapter is the information and emergence of clinical psychology. This to me starts the demand/need to help aid in and research mental illness beyond medicine. Counseling is also an important part to understanding and recuperating the mentally ill. This section helped me see when the major turn happened from regular research and theory to the advancement of the field and the surge to help the mentally ill in a humane way. This chapter leads into the new wave of clinical psych, in the previous chapters certain people and their contributions were discussed in detail rather than the field as a whole advancing. This section ties all the past psychologists in with the advancement and expansion of the field. This is a major step in the progress of the field which eventually led to where we are at today. Clinical psychology is still a huge part of the ever advancing field. A few things I would like to learn more about would be the major players and their contributions to the field after the demand for psychologists skyrocketed. Also what methods they used to help their patients and why they decided to use them. Once the understanding of psychology is there I believe that everyone has a different approach to how they apply it and what they use it for. It would be interesting to have more information on the different approaches that were used in the different generations. For example the approach to a war veteran should be different compared to someone with family issues. I would like to know how they treated different scenarios. A lot of my thoughts were just reminders of how I felt when I first learned the information. A lot of this information was repeated from previous classes but it was interesting to refresh my mind and see how I thought about things compared to before.
After reading over chapter 13 I found the topic on The Humanistic Approach to Psychotherapy interesting. Humanistic psychology started as a revolt, it came to be known as psychology’s “third force” rejecting what it believed to be the “mechanistic, impersonally, hierarchical, elitist, and the overly scientific, cold, removed behaviorism.” Humanistic psychologists criticized ideas that human behavior could be reduced to repressed biological instincts or simple conditioning processes. The rejected the ideas that individuals’ past histories inevitably limited what their future could be, and denied the deterministic assumptions of the other two forces in psychology, psychoanalysis, and behaviorism. It was proposed that the qualities best characterizing humans are free will and a sense of responsibility and purpose, a forward-looking lifelong search for meaning in one’s life, and an innate tendency to grow toward what is called self-actualization. To become self-actualized meant to reach one’s full potential in life. I found this interesting because how can you really feel or know if you reached your full potential? What if you never feel fully satisfied, does that mean you didn’t acquire what you wanted in life? This makes sense just a lot deeper than what it needs to be. Another topic I found interesting throughout the chapter was about Carl Rogers and Client-Centered Therapy. Carl Rogers was humanistic psychology’s second major figure; he is the creator of client-centered therapy. This is an approach that appealed to a large number of clinicians in the 1960s and 1970s. Rogers was the product of a highly controlled environment, but managed to build a career of his own despite his early experiences. He was the fourth of six children and lived in a very conservative household; his family valued hard work and considered all pleasures sinful. Rogers was determined to run his family farm, this is where he developed a keen appreciation for science out of experience. The essence of Roger’s client-centered therapy has a lot to do with how he was raised and why he came up with what he did. What I found to be the most interesting from this topic was that Rogers rejected the notion that it was important to explore the client’s past history in order for therapy to be effective. Another topic I found to be interesting throughout this chapter was the topic on Psychology and the World of Business and Industry. As discussed in Chapter 8, it didn’t take psychology long to become involved in the world of business and industry. Soon after the turn of the twentieth century, Walter Dill Scott was writing on the application of psychology to advertising and how business could be more efficient. During the 1920s, a period of growth and prosperity in America, these kinds of activities increased significantly. Also, as said in Chapter 8, after the visible Army testing program in WWI, psychologists began developing tests as fast as they could be printed, for applications in education as well as business, and many businesses and industries hired psychologists to revamp their personal departments by developing tests for the selection and evaluation of workers. Something that was least interesting, or what I didn’t like, in this chapter was that they put all different types of psychology all in this chapter and I feel as if they didn’t go into much detail because they jumped into the next topic. This chapter leads on from chapter 12 for sure, but also a lot from chapter 8 is built into chapter 13. The only idea I really had as I was reading this chapter was it was easier to read than the previous chapters and I think that is because we are getting into the last chapters and we are getting the building blocks out of the way. Something I want to learn more about is Hawthorn Studies. I found this topic really interesting but would like to learn more detail about what exactly they were looking for, besides the effect of different lighting on workers.
One thing I found interesting from this chapter was the section about lobotomies. I never actually knew what the process was until I read this chapter, and as disgusting as it is, it was very interesting. This type of procedure is very “savage-like”, and I just cannot see how anyone would deem this process appropriate. Another thing I found interesting was the humanistic approach in psychology that was developed in the 1940’s. Carl Rogers was a humanistic psychologist who primarily used therapy that was guided by the patient in order for them to find their “cure” for the problem. I liked learning about the humanistic approach because in my future career I want to be able to apply my knowledge to help people, and this approach attempts to help people find their “best self”. Another thing I found interesting was the Hawthorn effect, or the Hawthorn studies. I had a little previous knowledge about this study, but I liked reading more about it. The reason it interests me is the fact that people seem to care what strangers think, when in reality they probably won’t meet these people ever again. When put in social situations, people tend to act differently when they think others are judging them. This concept is so true, and I know we all do it at some point. I just find it interesting to read more into detail about it. Although there wasn’t much that I disliked about this chapter, one section that I didn’t like, or got bored by I suppose, was the Bolder Model. I found this kind of useless because things have greatly changed since that model was developed, and I think we have found other ways that work better.
I think that learning how clinical psychology and counseling developed would be the most useful thing from this chapter to understanding psychology. Clinical psychology is obviously a huge part in this field, and by learning what worked and what didn’t throughout history, we can make changes today to improve success in this field. Also, to see the emergence of counseling and therapy, we can learn what scientists thought would work to treat mental illness, and again, what was most successful, or what did not work.
This chapter builds on the previous chapter by discussing previous clinical practices, but building on the emergence of the field and how improvements were made. Also, the humanistic approach relates to the inhumane treatment in the mental health institutes, and then how guidelines were developed to treat these patients like real people.
I would really like to learn more about engineering psychology. It is a topic that I am very unfamiliar with, and I would like to learn how it is applied in today’s world. I don’t know much about engineering at all, so I guess I would like to see how it fits in with psychology and how we can apply it.
While reading this chapter, I thought about the emergence of clinical psych after WWII, and how this is one of the few things that was actually beneficial from it. There are so many aspects to clinical psych, and I loved reading about the different ways that this field was developing into its own. I also thought about how engineering and psychology could possibly go together. I had never thought about these two things working together, but I guess it is possible! Also, I had already read about many of the topics mentioned in this chapter, and it was nice to refresh my brain on the different studies and concepts.
Chapter 13
1. Humanistic Approach of Psychology- I really loved reading this part of Chapter 13 because if I was a psychologist I would use this approach with my clients. I believe that the self-actualization is a great way to help one reach their full potential in life. The search of the meaning of life is one of the most important goals to achieve in life. Everyone wants to find their purpose and learn to grow from their free will. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model shows how self-actualization is at the top of the pyramid at full potential. Maslow also believed one would produce a healthier psychology.
2. Hawthorne Studies- I first heard about the Hawthorne study in my applied psychology class and I thought it was a unique way to study higher productivity plans. The study basically said that the lights really didn’t effect their productivity, because the workers knew they were being conducted in a study by researchers. The productivity increased when the workers knew they were being watched and wanted to impress the scientists. The study was a fail and light builds were not going to be sold to boost the electrical industry, but the study is really interesting to read.
3. Client-centered therapy- I also really like Carl Roger’s approach to psychotherapy because it is client focused and has the therapist listen. The client guides the session and giving unconditional positive feedback with empathy. When the therapist shows empathy, the client might open up more and become less intimidated.
*One thing I found aversive was that the Hawthorne study was a fail and the researchers could not perfect it and find a way to increase worker productivity.
*Most useful information I read was learning about how psychotherapy of client-based shows empathy and the therapist is a genuine person to listen. I really liked learning about the different approaches and how the information is still applied today.
*Chapter 13 relates to many previous chapters due to the fact that it builds on the area of clinical psychology and it’s practices. The chapter mainly discusses the researchers and psychotherapy approaches that focus on business and identity like in Chapter 8.
*Topic I would love to research more about on my own time is more research experiments on worker productivity that actually succeeded. I really liked the Hawthorne study and would love to learn further about other researcher’s studies that are similar.
Idea: Does client-based therapy work for those with severe mental disorders? Can Carl Roger’s approach work with those that can not speak, hear, or low functioning?
Chapter 13
I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I can relate more to modern psychology and the study of behavior influenced by our environment. The first thing that I found interesting continues to build off of the previous chapter dealing with mental processes and more specifically mental illnesses. Lobotomy was a controversial medical strategy used for the treatment of mentally insane patients. The two main contributors to the strategy otherwise known as leucotomy were Egas Moniz and Walter Freeman, but by the 1950’s their work became ineffective and dismissed. The reason why I find this so interesting is because of the idea that a person could control their emotions. As much as I believe in determining our own attitude which can alter the outcome of our emotions, I still think it is not possible to have full control over any part of our brain mostly because majority of it is unknown. There is the other factor of instinct when people react in certain situations instantaneously and may not even recollect it. It is easy to see why lobotomy turned out to be of limited effectiveness, but I still think it is important and neat to that someone took the time to find out if there was a way for our emotions to be controlled. The second thing that I found interesting in the chapter was the interrelation of behavior therapy and humanistic psychology. By just looking at the two separately they seem like polar opposites. Behavior therapy looks at the influence that our environment has over us as a result of learning, whereas humanistic psychology proposed that humans have control over their own lives and have the potential for personal growth and self-actualization without being tied to their past experiences. Humanistic psychology may have rejected behaviorism, but they are both correct approaches. I think it is important to keep an open mind and not dismiss either of the ideas, but maybe even combine them. Sometimes people want a simple, straight-forward answer and seem to be afraid of complexity or having to think outside the box. To me, just because there isn’t a clear answer doesn’t mean there is no answer at all. I think in many ways there are instances where we can accept that we cannot change the past, but have control of our future by controlling our attitudes in life. I also think that there are many instances where people are lose control of certain emotions or behaviors because of their past experiences and lose the possibility of going back in time to change the past. The third thing that I found interesting in chapter thirteen was the section about psychology in the world of business and industry because of my ability to relate with a business major. I always find it neat when I am able to connect my major of marketing/advertising with my minor in psychology because I think psychology is apparent in almost everything we do and so it should be a large part in business as well. The Hawthorne Effect is something that I have already learned about in my business classes and is popular in organizational management when it comes to providing employees with a healthy workplace and job satisfaction. The one thing in the chapter that I found the least interesting was the beginning about APA and research. I think this wasn’t interesting to me because I seem to always get frustrated when it comes to research papers and have a negative association with APA because I never feel like I fully understand how to do it correctly. What I like about psychology is that there aren’t many rules or guidelines and is based more on creativity and different ideas. I think this flow that I associate with psychology gets disrupted when I’m forced to resort to strict instructions on how to sight my thoughts on another person’s thoughts, because they are still mine that I take away from my experience. It almost seems that there might be a fear of repetition or too much stress on innovative and new ideas. Just because someone can be discussing their experience that they had with a subject that is the exact same as a previous person does not mean that there is one preferable point of view, because each of their experiences were completely different. That is kind of the whole idea I seem to be having throughout this assignment, that maybe we focus too much on trying to find out what is right and what is wrong when the obvious answer is that there is none. The amazing thing about humans along with other species is that each individual has a mind of their own and it is okay, in fact good and somewhat crucial, that there are a variety of differences among a population that brings necessary diversity.
I think the most important thing to take away from the chapter when it comes to studying psychology’s history is Carl Rogers rejection of traditional psychotherapy and his humanistic approach to treating patients. He is someone who I would like to learn more about because I find his theories interesting, but also because I agree with his emphasis on client-centered therapy and focusing on the positive growth of the patient. Psychology is the study of peoples’ behaviors in their environment, so it only makes sense that a psychologist should know the importance of the atmosphere presented to the patient. Rogers’s theories aren’t important in the history of psychology just because I agree with him, but because of the impact it had in the 1970’s producing new models that were aimed more for practice than on research.
This seemed like one of the shorter and easier chapters. I found it interesting that WWII was the main reason for the creation of clinical psychology. Many more men were coming home from war with psychological wounds in contrast to physical wounds (44,000 vs. 30,000). At the time there were not enough clinical psychologists to meet the demand or needs of society. This then started the new training and college programs to train these clinicians. The government even got involved to encourage more psychologists.
I also found it interesting that there has been a long running rivalry between clinical/applied psychologists and researchers. They had to form their own associations. Also that research was first the most powerful in the APA but then lost its power and formed its own group, in the end though they both sort of needed each other.
I found it interesting that Industrial psychology was a lot older than I realized. I thought it was more modern but it was created back in the 1920s. I had heard of the Hawthorne Effect but I guess I did not make the connection.
Overall this was a pretty interesting chapter and I would not say anything was uninteresting. Maybe too much time was spent on the Boulder training and the Psy. D because it seemed sort of meticulous. I would not have wanted to have to come up with these ideas on how training should be done.
This chapter was most important I think in its discussion of how clinical psychology started and some of the early methods. Maslow’s and Roger’s ideas are pretty famous and still used so they are important to know. It is also important to know the tricky relationship between research and applied psychology.
This chapter built a lot on other chapters. It talked about how people studied Freud’s theories but did not quite feel right about them so they created their own ideas. Past names were brought back up like Cattel, Hollingsworth, and the Gilbreths. Intelligence testing was brought back up again. Titchner and Skinner were brought back up. Some universities like the University of Chicago were also mentioned again.
I would like to learn more about the industrial psychology because that was very briefly mentioned. Or maybe I might want to learn more about the Hollingsworths with their research for Coca-Cola because again that was very brief. Also the Walter Dill Scott stuff might be interesting too.
The section on lobotomies was not too shocking. It made me think about one of the Kennedy daughters who I think had one and that back then they really did think it helped. I was surprised that they did the procedure through the eye and wondered how that worked without eye or cosmetic damage. I thought that the number of people 16,000 who had it done to be higher than I expected. Are there people still alive who had them done? What are they like now? Will we look back at something we are doing now like we look at lobotomies? Not a lot of research was mentioned in this chapter and it made me wonder is clinical psychology really that scientifically backed?
While reading chapter 13, the first thing I found interesting was Joseph Wolpe and his development of systematic desensitization. This is a behavior therapy technique used to reduce someone’s phobia or anxiety towards a certain stimuli. It has three steps.
First, the patient is taught relaxation technique to become deeply relaxed and free of all anxiety. Then, Wolpe would introduce the adverse stimuli at a low level. For example, if a person was afraid of a spider, she might first be asked to image a small spider the size of an ant and ten feet away in a cage. Gradually the size and closeness to the spider is increased while the patient remains relaxed.
This procedure has been showed to be highly effect with certain types of anxiety, especially with phobias for which it was first developed.
Another thing I found interesting was Client-Centered therapy developed by Carl Rogers.
The idea around client-centered therapy is to create the right type of environment that allows the patient to take control of their own life and began to develop self-actualization. Rodgers wanted therapists to act “warm” toward their clients. The therapist was to always be accepting and supporting.
The third thing from chapter 13 that I found interesting was the section that discusses the development of the scientist/ practitioner model at the Boulder Conference.
I was interested in reading about the conflict between those who had viewed psychology as just a science and those who see it also as a profession. It seems like this is continuing battle within the field of psychology. Some people want psychology to be “pure” and not have much to do with application or practice. And others seem to be only interested in practice and not much interested in research projects. This conflict was not resolved because later the Vail Conference developed the idea of the PsyD program. This was a practitioner’s degree in the way an MD is a practitioner’s degree. MD’s do not get a degree in biology and then try to practice it. They get an applied degree.
The thing I found least interesting in chapter 13 was the section about Lobotomies. To me lobotomies were pseudo science. This practice of cutting the brain between the frontal lobes and lower centers was not based on experimentation and controlled studies. Instead, it was based on a few case studies with those doing the procedures estimating how much benefit had occurred. There was no science about any of it.
The concept from this chapter most useful in understanding the history of psychology is the Boulder Conference in 1949 -which developed the scientist-practitioner model. This showed the tension in psychology that later lead to the formation of the American Psychological Society that we read about in another chapter.
This chapter relates to previous chapters because the previous chapter talks about mental illness and its treatment and this chapter talks about the development of clinical psychology as a profession and some therapy techniques developed by clinical psychologists.
The topic I would like to learn more about is Wolpe and his role in developing systematic desensitization. I remember from taking Abnormal Psychology that this was an important technique and that he developed others as well.
Among the things I thought about was how behavior therapy (and this early practice of related techniques) changed many aspects of clinical psychology – as well as how far we have come from implementing surgical procedures based on little scientific evidence.
Three things that I found most interesting in chapter 13 were the importance of war on clinical psychology, the Boulder model, and behavior therapy being used in daily life. The text talks about how war created a permanent place for clinical psychologists, due to the increase of mental illness caused by war experiences. About 45% of all soldiers that were given medical discharges were for psychiatric reasons. Psychiatry couldn’t keep up with the high need for therapy, so the government advocated a graduate program to teach clinical psychology. The modern day clinical psychologist came to be due to the high need to treat mental illness. I think this is interesting, because I didn’t realize how common mental illness and PTSD was back then. I also think it is cool how our government recognized the need, and implemented a program to help the people who fought for our country. It seems that people have lost that gratitude, so it is refreshing to be able to look back and see what we are capable of. This high need to for clinical psychologists led to the Boulder model. In 1947, the APA formed a Committee on Training in Clinical Psychology, CTCP. The CTCP held a 15 day conference at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado to discuss clinical training. From this conference came 3 ideas that a clinical program should be based upon. These ideas include: clinicians should be experts in diagnosis of mental disorders, they should be skilled psychotherapists, and be able to conduct high quality research. These ideas became known as the Boulder model or the scientist-practitioner model. I found the boulder model interesting, because it helped to greatly increase the number of clinical psychologists in the United States. From this increase, more people were able to get the treatment that they needed, which I think is pretty cool because I think that everyone has the right to be healthy. I also think that the popularity of behavior therapy is pretty interesting, because it can be applied to daily life. The main idea was that if were behaviors were brought about by learning, then behaviors could be unlearned as well; specifically dysfunctional behaviors. One behavior method that was used to treat a dysfunctional behavior was systematic desensitization. Joseph Wolpe created systematic desensitization in the 1950s, and it remains as one of the most effective behavior therapy techniques. This therapy method involved relaxation techniques and creating an anxiety hierarchy. Patients relax and then imagine themselves progressively in these anxiety situations. I think this is important, because many people are suffering from irrational fears that can be debilitating. With this therapy, they have a great opportunity to overcome these fears and to lead a better life. One thing that I didn’t like was how the electrical companies funded the Hawthorne study, because they thought that better lighting would correlate with higher productivity. If this would have been the case, they would make more money, because the factories would use more electricity on lighting. I didn’t like this, because it should how slimy companies can be when it comes to money.
What I found most useful in this chapter was the comparison between the PhD and the PsyD in clinical psychology. I had heard of the PsyD before, but had never looked into what it actually was. Before the PsyD, many believed that too much attention was being made to the scientist side of the degree rather than the clinician part. So in 1968, the first PsyD program was created at the University of Illinois. I think that it is important to know about both degrees, because they both value different forms of psychology. If someone was looking into graduate school to be a research psychologist, then they would know that they should look into a PhD program. Another person may only be interested in the clinic side, so they might want to enter a PsyD program.
Chapter 13 builds off of other chapters in many ways. First off, this chapter picks up where chapter 12 ended. Chapter 12 talked about the treatment of mental illness’ and chapter 13 builds off of that by explaining different branches of treatment. These include psychotherapy, behavior therapy, and the humanistic approach. Psychotherapy was talked about in chapter 12, and chapter 13 goes on to show the alternatives that were developed.
Something that I would like to study more is the Hawthorne Effect. The Hawthorne Effect is the tendency for performance to be affected because people know they are being studied in research. This is why we now use blind and double-blind studies for research. I think it would be interesting to see different studies that were affected by the Hawthorne Effect.
The beginning of chapter 13 where it was talking about mental illness and the war got me wondering on how prevalent PTSD is today. It also made me wonder what measures are being taken by the government to help these soldiers coming home from overseas. I think that it would be helpful to screen each soldier for PTSD before they are sent home so that they can get help if they need it.
The first area I was really interested in was discussed in the close-up with the emergence of the transorbital lobotomy. I feel like this section is very important for understanding psychologies history as well because it demonstrates the sort of fear people felt towards this field in the past and for good reason. Doing an organized surgery like what Moniz started off with is more understandable, but then turning that into just simply hammering an ice pick like implement into peoples eye sockets is completely barbaric. On top of that the fact that Freeman was willing to do so many of these surgeries with no real evidence of how effective they were is worrisome. These kinds of procedures should not be put into practice so freely.
The second area I found interesting was on Carl Rogers. I love hearing the story of how these famous psychologists started off in completely unrelated fields and end up being monumental figures for the field. The fact that Rogers went from agriculture to psychology is awesome because it shows the opportunity people had to really find something they loved and it is a good lesson to anyone trying to figure out what they want to be. Just because you have been surrounded by something most of your life does not define who you can and will be.
The third area I found interesting was on the Hawthorne Effect. What surprises me and intrigues me about these early psychology ideas and studies is how messy and unorganized they are. So many mistakes are made resulting in confounds and with all the people working on the study it’s not until years later that someone looks at the study and says, “this isn’t right.” I think it’s funny that the Hawthorne Effect originates from a situation that is much more complex than what we define the effect to be.
The section I find least interesting is the section on psychology and industry. The reason this is the least interesting to me is because it is pretty much chapter 8 all over again. That being said this is also where this chapter really builds off the last and goes deeper into psychology in business with things like the Hawthorn Effect.
The area I would like to learn more about is on the topic of transorbital lobotomies and how they were executed. I really want to look and see if the patients were at least in a state where they didn't feel pain or else these practices are truly barbaric. The ideas I had while reading the chapter came mainly from this area as well. I really just thought of all the movies where psycho psychologists are portrayed performing these procedure, like in the movie “Sucker Punch.” It really gives a scary feel to just the idea of what a psychologist might do.
The first topic I found interesting was Wolpe’s systematic desensitization sessions with patients. After reading about progressive relaxation from a physiologist in Chicago, he used the relaxing procedure and created an “anxiety hierarchy,” which was a list of situations that created anxiety in humans. Each level increased in anxiety. After just a few sessions, Wolpe found that patients could remain relaxed as they progressed through levels. The second topic I found to be interesting was Carl Roger’s client-centered therapy. It had three main parts to it. The first was that the therapist must be genuine and honest with the client; the second is for the therapist to be completely accepting of the client, valuing them as a person simply because they are human. The third part is having empathy. If the therapist can try and understand how a person views life, they can better help the patient. Reflection is mentioned and I really agree with Roger’s views on this. Reflection is being able to take something that a person says and rephrase it to them that help communicate to yourself and to the other person that you understand them. He believed that an effective therapeutic environment applied to all human relationships, and I couldn’t agree more! The third topic I found interesting was the concept of the Hawthorne effect. The Hawthorne effect says that when a person knows they are being studied, their performance in a specific task is affected. If this effect had not been found out by the studies done in Hawthorne, which could have really had an effect on the liability of human observation experiments. The least interesting topic I read about was the first part of psychology and the world of business section. I just am not that interested in business.
I think reading about the differences between an authoritative therapeutic environment and a humanistic therapeutic environment will be the most useful in understanding the history of Psychology. I think this because knowing which technique is more effective can be useful for modern day techniques practiced every day. If psychologists know how to be the most sufficient with their patient, they can better help the patient.
This chapter builds on previous ones in that in goes in depth about techniques for clinical psychologists. I would really like to learn more about client-centered therapy because I want to know if it is still used today by psychologists and therapists and if it has helped.
The first thing I found interesting in chapter 13 was Joseph Wolpe’s systematic desensitization and Edmund Jacobson’s progressive relaxation. The idea of gradually eliminating someone’s worst fear or their high anxiety towards something by starting off with a small fear and gradually working up to their biggest fear but still keeping that person calm is brilliant. These works makes me think of an idea. What if we could do this to someone who is suffering from a painful disease or cancer. What if we could somehow make their pain tolerable or somehow make it so they don’t feel it anymore. That would be incredible. The second concept I found interesting was the idea of self-actualization. To become self-actualized means to reach one’s full potential in life. I know there are some religions that believe in a concept close to this. I’m not sure if I so much believe in this idea. I believe everyone has the chance to become what they want and if they chose not to, that is their fault. To reach full potential in life to me is living a happy life. Doing what makes you happy and being with people that make you happy. Not so much reaching a destination. The third concept I found interesting in this chapter was engineering psychology. I never imagined the field of psychology integrating with engineering. The one thing I didn’t enjoy reading about, or really just didn’t agree with, was Rogers’ client centered therapy. Roger’s rejected the notion that it was important to delve into the client’s past history in order for therapy to be effective. I don’t believe this to be true. Our background and history is what shape’s our lives and without diving into what problems we have in the past, we can’t move forward with our future. The thing I think is most important from this chapter is the emergence of clinical psychology and how it came about. By understanding clinical psychology we can better understand the practices psychologists do today. This last chapter floats into this chapter and builds on it. Chapter 12 talked about mental illness and treatment and this chapter started off with psychologists as practitioners and how they did their best to treat them with what they knew. I would like to learn more about the topic of psychology in the world of industry and how they are more linked together.
The first part of this chapter that I found interesting was the section on lobotomies. It started with research done on Chimpanzees that showed that surgical damage to the frontal lobe had an extreme effect. Before the surgery, the animals were very aggressive and hostile. After performing a lobotomy, the animals behavior changed a fair amount. The animal was no longer aggressive and their mental functions seemed to be unimpaired. A lobotomy is performed by severing the connections between frontal lobes and lower brain centers involved with emotional behaviors. This served to calm down easily aroused chimpanzees.
The next part of the chapter that I found interesting was the Humanistic approach to psychotherapy. This approach believed that the personality and human behavior was controlled by free will. Supporters of this theory believed that one’s sense of responsibility and purpose controlled human behavior. Self actualization is the lifelong search into the meaning of one’s life. In order for someone to become self-actualized, they had to reach their full potential in life. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow were the two psychologists that were most interested in the Humanistic approach.
The third section that was intriguing was the client-centered therapy. Carl Rogers used the humanistic approach in his client centered therapy. He did not believe that he had to look into the past of a client in order to be effective. The first rule was to always be honest with the client. He also did not like the word “patient” because it reminded him of someone who was sick. He also thought that the therapist must be warm to the client, and accept them as a person. The final part of client centered therapy was empathy. The therapist must be empathetic towards the client.
I’d really like to learn more about the Humanistic approach. It seems like a very logical explanation for Human behavior. It kind of reminds me of our right as American’s in the “pursuit of happiness”. Is the “pursuit of happiness” the same as the “pursuit of self-actualization?” I think that this will be a very interesting topic to look at for Thursdays blog. This chapter fit in with the rest of the book because it’s continuing towards a more modern approach to psychology. The last chapter was on mental illnesses, and this chapter talked about psychology’s practitioners. I like how the book has worked out. It has explored a number of different approaches to psychology. It has shown me the background to many different theories, and how they have developed through time to be the way that they are today. It has also shown me theories and practices that no longer exsist today for either non- effectiveness or ethical issues.
The first section I found interesting in Chapter 13 was the section about the Boulder Model. In 1947 the APA formed a committee on training in clinical psychology by means of financial support from the federal government. As the chief psychologist, David Shakow had been an active member of the original American Association of Applied Psychologist just before WWII and had also served on the committee that trained the clinical psychologists. Out of the Boulder conference came the blueprint for clinical training that was identically designed to balance what Shakow saw as the three primary forms of expertise that any psychologist should have-they should be experts in diagnosis of mental disorders, skilled psychotherapists, and they should be able to complete research. The Boulder Model became what is called today as the scientist-practitioner model of clinical training. This type of training involves a solid ground base of the principles of psychology and in research methods, as well as a doctoral dissertation that involves periodical research and a year long internship at a professional clinic, VA hospital, or similar setting. This was interesting because it explained one of the core models of practice and the one that we most commonly see today. It holds a special interest to me because I intend on attending graduate school and may encounter this model.
The second section I found interesting was the close up talking about lobotomies. In the early times of psychiatry, most of the patients were beyond help, so the common treatment was restraints and sedation. In the 20s and 30s, new psychiatric treatments emerged promising to cure those who were very mentally ill. Some practices became widely spread without a backing of scientific evidence, which one was the lobotomy. American scientists Carlyle Jacobsen and John Fulton reported that surgical damage to the frontal lobes of chimpanzees could have a beneficial effect. Prior to the surgery, these animals were very aggressive post surgery showed that the aggression seemed to disappear. By destroying the connections between the frontal lobes and lower brain centers involved with emotional behavior, the researchers had seemed to find a way to calm the chimps. Moniz developed the surgical procedure and tool to complete this procedure on humans. He called the surgery prefrontal leucotomy, he used what he called a leucotone and drilled small holes above and below the temples, the leucotone was then inserted in these holes and moved around. By 1936, Moniz had performed this surgery on twenty patients, primarily with depression disorders, these procedures were deemed somewhat successful. Moniz made sure to make known that the procedure should not be performed unless in extreme cases.
The third section that I found really interesting was the segment on the Vail Conference. By the late 50’s many Ph.D clinicians were complaining that they were unprepared when it came to the actual practice of psychology. Since most were practicing in clinical settings, they were not getting much use in their research. Criticisms of the Boulder model led to considerations of an alternative, one that emphasized the practice of psychology over the practice of research. Crane wrote an article explaining that aspiring clinicians should be taught more in the practice of psychology rather than its research practices. He suggested the creation of the “Doctorate of Psychology” or Psy.D. The first one was created at the California School of Professional Psychology. In 1973 a conference in Vail, Colorado was held to establish clear guidelines for the doctorate in Psychology. The goal of the conference was to legitimize the Psy.D degree and provide a clear distinction between it and the programs yielding a Ph.D in psychology. In essence, the practitioner-scientist model was created.
I did not really find anything very uninteresting about this chapter in the book. I found this chapter to be really interesting because these are all things that I will be focusing on the future and will help me make a decision for what program I want to do in graduate school. Also, I have been to Vail, Colorado many times and knowing now that a conference was held there in the 70’s to establish the Psy.D doctorate is just really cool. I think the most useful thing in the chapter was the explainations of the different models used in psychology and how they came about, therefore this helps us understand the history of psychology even more. This chapter seems to just pick up where the left chapter left off, almost like the author wrote just one big chapter, decided it was too long and just split it up into two separate chapters.
Chapter 13 was a struggle to get through. By now, the information is just not as awe-inspiring as in previous chapters. This chapter discussed the emergence of several modern methods of psychology as well as the application of these methods to a business/industry focused world. It was interesting how a catastrophic event like World War II could cause an entire field of scientists to meet in order to solve problems on a field-wide level. The results of this meeting included the development of a training program for clinical psychologists as well as standards that psychologists must meet in order to be recognized as clinical. It was around this same time that researchers like Eysenck began to evaluate methods of therapy on a scientific level based on their effectiveness. This systematic evaluation led to the development of several modern methods of therapy including behavior and humanistic therapies. Behavior therapy is centered on the idea that many issues in life develop through experience-based learning. While this idea was not new, it became more prevalent post-world war II. Humanistic psychology is based on the idea that humans have the capability to change their lives at any given time and aren’t slaves to their past. According to a humanist, self-actualization is the ultimate goal of life which involves the satisfaction of all psychological and physiological needs. Humanistic therapy allows for a patient to see a self-actualized individual (the counselor) and work towards a goal of becoming self-actualized. These new discoveries and theories helped to shift the public outlook towards insight based therapy, paving the way for another innovative method, lobotomy which involved the severing of connections between lobes in the brain. This procedure proved to be very risky and minimally effective. This time period also saw increases in factory and business workers. Businesses always want to know how to improve productivity and what is a better way to find out how to do so then to get into the head of your average worker drone? So in order to find the root of worker motivation psychologists set up some studies in work environments. In one Hawthorne study, worker productivity increased while under supervision of the researchers. It was determined that this increase was due to the presence of researchers and the intrinsic motivation of workers to be a part of this seemingly important research not because of any variable the researchers specifically altered. Most of this was uninteresting but informative so I couldn’t name any specific topics I was interested in although the idea of humanism is interesting. I think that it makes a lot of sense and it would benefit psychology programs to give humanism some more attention. I can’t say that anything in particular added to my understanding of psychology from this chapter. I understand how people started to question the effectiveness of insight based psychotherapy so it does help me to understand why you don’t see a lot of insight based therapy these days. I also did not see much specific connection to the earlier chapters. Psychological ideas are constantly being questioned and revised and will continue to be as long as it remains a legitimate science so there’s nothing really new about changing ideas. I would however like to read some of the work of Abraham Maslow. He studied people that he believed attained self-actualization and I would like to read about those individuals as self-actualization is my goal in life. This chapter didn’t inspire too many ideas but I did reflect on the courage it took to perform lobotomies or to even consider performing such a risky procedure. I can’t even imagine the courage, or insanity, it took to receive such a treatment.
A topic I found interesting in this chapter was the Humanistic Approach to Psychotherapy. This approach rejects the ideas that human behavior can be reduced to biological instincts and that an individual’s history can limit what their future holds. Instead, this approach suggests that individuals can do whatever they want based on free will. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs models self-actualization at the top of the pyramid – which highlights a person’s full potential. However, in order for an individual to reach their full potential they must first meet all the needs necessary to achieve self-actualization. Maslow found that self-actualizers perceived reality accurately, were highly independent and creative, spontaneous, thought of their work as a calling rather than a job, and has strong moral code. Maslow’s work emphasized mental health rather than mental illness.
Another interesting topic in this chapter was Roger’s client-centered therapy. This form of therapy relates to the humanistic approach and allows the therapist to create a proper therapeutic environment based on trust. Client-centered therapy allows the therapist and the client to build a genuine relationship using empathy to make the client feel as though the therapist truly understands what they are saying. This form of therapy was very different from conventional methods used during this time by taking control away from the therapist and giving more control to the client. According to Rogers, creating the proper therapeutic environment allows good things to happen. Although the popularity of this method has faded, it still had an important impact on the clinical practice of psychology.
The emergence of modern clinical psychology was also interesting to read about in this chapter. Prior to WWII, clinical psychologists struggled to establish themselves as independent professionals. They were typically employed under the supervision of psychiatrists and their practice was limited and due to lack of training they developed their skills on the job or in internship-like settings. However, after WII psychiatrists couldn’t handle the heavy caseload the need for clinical psychologists increased due to a large number of mental disorders from those who survived the war. This resulted in training programs for clinical psychologists in twenty-two universities and deemed clinical psychology as a credible professional career.
The section I found least interesting was about engineering psychology. This section was brief and didn’t go into much detail. However, I think it has the potential to be interesting. This is why I would like to learn more about it. Some of the things mentioned in the text, like having seats that reduce fatigue in airplane cockpits are intriguing and made me want to learn more about it this field. I think it would be interesting to explore what type of research goes into creating a “well-engineered airplane cockpit” or finding out other things that are products of engineering psychology.
The topic I found most useful in understanding the history of psychology was the emergence of modern clinical psychology. It’s also important to realize the impact World War II had on the field of psychology. The war created a means for clinical psychologist to separate themselves from psychiatrists and researchers and become its own credible profession. The emergence of modern clinical psychology also correlates with the shift from academic psychologists to more professional practitioners.
This chapter relates to the previous chapter by continuing the discussion about clinical psychology and expanding on it. It also refers to chapter 8 by continuing the discussion of psychology and how it’s applied to business and industry. While reading this chapter I found myself wondering why the popularity of client-based therapy faded and what other techniques took its place?
I liked the section of behavior therapy in reference to Pavlov’s principles. In the U.S. Hobart and Willie
Mowrer came up with a treatment program for bed-wetting in relation to conditioning principles. They invented a crib pad paired with a bell that would ring as soon as it got wet. This type of research is more relatable to the norm because not everyone can have labs in their houses to conduct experiments, but they used a more common kind of study in bed-wetting which most kids go through at some point in their childhood.
One section I liked, though it was disturbing, was Wolpe and his work with phobic reactions of cats. He first created the fear by shocking the cats whenever they reached for food and then tried to remove the fear. His whole procedure of giving an animal a fear by shocking it was pretty disheartening to read about, but I was relieved to read that he accomplished his goal of removing the fear. He became by feeding the animal first in a room that looked like the room where the shock was administered and then worked his way into a room that was even more like the first room and kept going from there. I liked reading how he applied Jacobson’s progressive relaxation technique with his systematic desensitization in order to help patients with nervous disorders. First, patients would start off relaxed and think about a situation of a small amount of anxiety and soon increase to a situation with more and more anxiety. In the end, Wolfe discovered patients could handle being around their most feared objects.
I enjoyed reading about Carl Rogers. I hadn’t ever heard of him in any other classes and I agreed with his views on how a client’s history isn’t necessarily vital for a therapist to know and perform to the best of their ability. He believed the therapist had to be in the right kind of setting so the client felt like they could take control of his/her life and develop their own self-actualization path. I also agreed with his three components needed for the right type of environment: honesty/genuineness, accepting, and being empathetic. I always think honesty is the best policy in any kind of relationship whether it’s friendship, relationship, or within a family. To go along with that, accepting a person for who they are as a human being is crucial as well. If you don’t accept them, you might try to change them or force them into being who you want them to be. Being empathetic from a therapist standpoint is good too because it shows the client that they care and even though they may not be able to relate, they try to understand as best as they can.
One thing I disliked reading about in this chapter was Maslow and self-actualization. I don’t necessarily dislike Maslow or his hierarchy of needs, but I’ve heard a lot about it in other psychology classes so it was bound to be covered in this class eventually.
This chapter related to other chapters when discussing behavior therapy. It touched on the work done by Watson and his research with his Little Albert study. Although Watson and Rayner did not remove Albert’s fear or rats, they had different ideas of how to go about it. Later on, Mary Cover Jones used some of their proposals on plenty of other children. She was known for one case in which she got rid of a boy’s fear or rabbits using a method called “direct conditioning”. It’s interesting to see how Watson and Rayner’s work they did not engage in, was put to use by someone else and was successful.
I want to learn more about behavioral research. I think you can learn a lot just by observing people and possibly drawing conclusions from there. I did like reading about the methods psychologists used to help people get over their fears or anxiety.
I wonder if there is a way get past fainting at the sight of blood because I tend to have that happen in some cases. I’m sure it’s not the same, but it’d be cool to learn about how psychologists go about finding ways to help people with their fears.
1.) I thought the division of academicians and practitioners was interesting. It was almost like a mini-battle between the two types of psychologists. Academicians wanted psychology to be a studied field while practitioners wanted to apply psychological measures to help humankind. It was a major struggle between the two. Clinical psychologists wanted more emphasis while academicians wanted less and more emphasis on research. Eventually there was a split between the APA and the creation of the APS (American Psychological Society). The APS quickly gained support from massive amounts of members but many still remained members of the APA. The truest and most interesting portion of this struggle came post-WWII. During this time, there were many psychologically damaged soldiers from the harsh war conditions. The problem was recognized and the need for more clinical psychologist was made clear. The modern clinical psychologist was born and no longer limited in their practices. They were now recognized as professionals that could diagnose and provide expert therapy.
2.) I found the humanistic psychologists to be interesting. They went against everything modern psychology at the time was preaching about. Although I don’t totally agree with this approach, I find it interesting and to some extent, true. We are well acquainted with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and what they are so I won’t elaborate on that much. Basically, they said that biological forces were not as dominant as everyone thought. They proposed that free will along with responsibility and purpose was the true meaning of one’s life. This became to be known as self-actualization. Another term we should all be well acquainted with. Self actualization is to reach ones full potential in life. I agree with this because I think evolutionally we have evolved to higher cognitive standards than other mammals, allowing us to pursue other life endeavors. Naturally, we want to be successful and live comfortably. This is because of society and the development of societies to be civilized. I still believe that underlying biological forces are responsible for certain aspects of human behavior.
3.) Another interesting topic and well known term we should all know is the Hawthorne Effect. I’m pursuing an I-O certificate so I have covered this over and over in industrial psychology. Basically, the impression that people are part of a study or considered a special group makes their performance improve no matter what the conditions. In the text, the author described how conditions were made worse for a group but since they were under direct supervision and thought of themselves as “special” they still over performed under harsh conditions. Somehow the presence and direct supervision over others stimulates people to perform better on their designated tasks. I mean, who doesn’t want to perform well when being watched? If we aren’t being watched in our jobs, we slack off. The boss comes around, and we start being more active. It seems simple enough but intriguing none the less. I think we have an innate ability to act/be more efficient when in the presence of others. We don’t want to look incompetent in front of others.
One thing I disliked was the Eysenck Study. In this study two different types of therapies were researched and experimented with. First, Eysenck lacked a control group which confounded his methodology. I don’t think the study was well done. However, it proved that therapies needed to be reviewed for their effectiveness. All in all, I believe all consulting type therapy that involves one on one sessions with the client and psychologists to be effective.
The one thing I read about in the chapter that will most help me understand the history of psychology was the emergence of clinical psychologists. WWII was definitely a bad thing but it helped launch the well needed recognition of clinical psychologists and their proper education and professional standing in the therapeutic world of psychology.
I think this chapter builds on the previous chapters by highlighting the importance of two different practices of psychology. This chapter shows the main shift from psychology being a pure research/experimental discipline to a more applied and useful science with the emergence of clinical physicians.
I would like to learn more about the Boulder model. I found it interesting because I would like to know more about how the guidelines for clinical psychologists and their specific training methods came to existence.
**Idea**
-An idea I had during this chapter concerned how long, or when clinical psychology would’ve evolved to a true profession if it wasn’t for WWII. Certainly, we wish WWII never happened. However, what other movement would’ve sparked the need for clinical psychologists?
While I don't really intend on going into the field of psychology (with the exception that it's a subject I plan on teaching to my secondary students), clinical psychology always interests me, because it seems like a practical and straightforward field.
I think it's really interesting, especially as a student in world history, to connect al the fields I study together. Clinical psychology grew out of a world that was struggling, WWII. The field of psychology, and the APA, became a much more goal-oriented profession that also focused on the welfare of people, instead of a purely scientific field. I thnk because of the destruction of warfare, the need for mental healing was a huge step that needed to be taken to take care of the returning soldiers that were suffering. In our current world today, we see the same problems that psychologists were figuring out as we are now, with the Gulf War. PTSD, depression, and many other disorders are haunting reminders that there is much more work to be done to aid in their recovery and our understanding of these disorders.
With the emergence of a modern clinical psychology came behavior therapy. While Behavioral psychology wasn't a newfangled idea, putting their ideas into a usable tool created ideas like systematic desensitization. This made behaviorism much more usable for those who were trying to use it as therapy.
Carl Rogers , a humanistic psychologist, created a form of therapy that centered on the persons willingness to accept responsibility to change themselves, not another person.The aptly named client-centered therapy allowed the client to figure out what solutions were best for them while the therapist created a safe atmosphere that fostered change.
The first thing that interested me was the material on the boulder model. Many people were concerned with the training of clinical psychologists around the 1940s. In 1947, with the financial help from the federal government through the Veterans Administration and the U.S. Public Health Service, the APA formed a Committee on Training in Clinical Psychology. David Shakow led a 15-day conference that attracted 71 clinical psychologists to the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1949. After the conference, Shakow came up with three primary forms of expertise that any clinical psychologist should have. Those were: being experts in the diagnosis of mental disorders, being skilled psychotherapists, and they should be able to complete high quality empirical research. The Boulder model is also known as the scientist-practitioner model of clinical training. It’s called this because it combined training in science and in the practice of psychology. Whatever people want to call it, this model was huge for the field, and the number of clinical psychologists rapidly increased in number. I thought it was crazy that it took until the late 1940s for the field of clinical psychology to become more popular. It’s one of the most popular areas of psychology today, and it’s crazy to think strong interest in the field didn’t pick up until about 60 years ago.
The next thing that interested me was the close-up section on lobotomies. A lobotomy is a surgical procedure pioneering by Egas Moniz in the 1930s that involves severing connections between the cortex and lower brain centers. This was originally designed to treat severe mental illness, but it was abandoned when it was found to be of marginal effectiveness and often abused. It was first tested on chimpanzees. They thought surgical damage to their frontal lobes could have a beneficial effect. Before the surgery, the chimps had been very aggressive, but the aggression seemed to disappear after the surgery, and the animals’ mental functions seemed unimpaired. After all of their experiments, Moniz declared this shouldn’t be done unless it was a very extreme case. However, American neurologists Walter Freeman and James Watt thought it was a major breakthrough in the treatment of different psychiatric disorders. They came up with a new technique called a transorbital lobotomy. It involved inserting a device similar to an ice pick through the eye socket and into the prefrontal and frontal lobes. By 1951, more than 18,000 patients had undergone lobotomies. It was effective in calming agitated patients, but it often made permanent changes to a person’s personality. I had heard of this before, but it was very general and brief information. I can definitely see why people didn’t think much of this procedure. The device that was used had to scare some people as it was similar to an ice pick. In 2.5% of the procedures, the patients died, so I can’t believe it lasted as long as it did.
Another thing that interested me was the humanistic approach to psychotherapy. Humanistic psychology actually started as a revolt. Some people didn’t like behaviorism. Humanistic psychologists criticized the ideas that human behavior could be reduced to repressed biological instincts or simple conditioning processes, rejected the idea that individuals’ past histories inevitably limited what their futures could be, and denied the deterministic assumptions of the other two forces in psychology, which are psychoanalysis and behaviorism. They thought the qualities best characterizing humans are free will and a sense of responsibility and purpose. They also believed people grow toward self-actualization, which is for a person to reach their full potential in life. This was very interesting, because there’s been a lot of information on behaviorism, so it was interesting to see people who didn’t agree with that area of psychology. The reasoning for them not agreeing with it is understandable, and it’s interesting to see differing opinions in psychology.
The thing I found to be the least interesting was the material on behavior therapy. It was actually kind of interesting, but that’s just the material that interested me the least. That was just the area in the chapter that I could have gone without learning about. It seemed like the material dragged on a little bit, and I think that made me get a little bored at times reading about it. The material that will be most useful to me in understanding the history of psychology was the information about the advancement of clinical psychology. I was very surprised when it stated that it didn’t become popular until about 1950. I hear about clinical psychology a lot, so it was shocking to learn that it’s only been a popular field in psychology for about the last 60 years. If the conference in Boulder hadn’t happened, I wonder if the breakthrough of clinical psychology would have occurred. This chapter builds on previous chapters by continuing to give information on how certain areas of psychology broke through and became popular. Also, behaviorism was brought up in previous chapters. In this chapter, humanistic psychology is introduced, which doesn’t like the idea of behaviorism. I’d like to learn more about lobotomies. I had briefly heard of it before, and I learned new information about while reading this chapter. However, I’d like to learn about specific cases and results of it. While reading this chapter, I wondered if clinical psychology would have ever became popular if it wasn’t for the conference in Boulder, Colorado. After this conference, the number of clinical psychologists rapidly increased. Also, I wondered what it took for people to think badly about lobotomies. It was a very questionable procedure, and I don’t know what made them think it would significantly help mentally ill patients.
The first topic I found to be interesting was the Behavior Therapy section of the chapter. It told how there were several demonstrations using the conditioning principles that could be used to alter a persons behavior in a clinical setting. The text went on to tell that in Russia, researchers used the Pavlovian principles for treating alcoholism. By putting alcohol with electric shock, and hysteria by conditioning the movement in the limbs that seemed to be paralyzed. I thought it was interesting that they associated a “cure” for alcoholism with electric shock therapy.
I also found interesting even though I have already heard of it before was how O. Hobart and Willie M. Mowner made a treatment program for bed wetting using conditioning principles by using a bell. This also relies on the unconscious conflicts that there are that would explain the problem.
A third thing that I found interesting about this chapter was where it talked about the Hawthorne effect. I had heard some about this before but I think that it really shows how people care what others think of them.
I would have to say this chapter was pretty interesting but if I had to choose one least interesting thing, it would be the section on Carl Rogers, just for the fact that I have already heard so much about him in my past psychology courses.
One of the sections I thought to be the most useful was the section on the emergence of modern clinical psychology. I think this section is important because it told how people working in these settings developed skills on the job which we do in any job we will work at. We go to college to get our degree, but each job will train you how they want things done anyways. It also talked about how there was an overwhelming need for therapy during the time of the war, which I think explains a lot for today about veterans needing therapy for the PTSD they may be experiencing after serving in the war.
This chapter builds on to chapter 10 really well on the section of behavior therapy, because in chapter 10 it talked about how if behaviors are a result of learning, then the “dysfunctional” behaviors could be “unlearned” and replaced with better ones.
I would like to learn more about the engineering psychology, because I am not so familiar with it.
I thought while reading this chapter that the emergence of clinical psychology was important, because it is really used today like it was in the book for people who have fought in the war and were experiencing PTSD.
One the things I found interesting in this chapter was the section on the Eysenck’s Study. He opened the door to the two new forms of psychotherapy called behavior therapy and client-centered therapy. He outlined these in a six page article. He studied the efficiency of traditional approaches to psychotherapy from studies and combined the results. From his reports he concluded that was no evidence to support that psychotherapy is effective. He proved that new strategies were needed in order for psychology and therapy to be successful. I found this interesting about this man went against everyone’s beliefs and was determined to find the truth, even if that made him an outcast.
Another thing I liked from this chapter was the part on Maslow and self-actualization. Humanistic psychologists focuses on our humans qualities of free will and a sense of responsibility and purpose, our life-long search for meaning in our lives, and our tendency to want to become self-actualized. This means to want to reach your full potential before you die. Maslow came up with a model to explain self-actualization arranged in a pyramid that showed what was needed to reach self-actualization. This required one to satisfy all the needs in the pyramid. These were: physiological needs, safety needs, the need for love and belonging, and a need for self-esteem. Maslow did research and believed that individuals who appeared to be self-actualized were highly independent, had peak experiences, had an accurate perception of reality, thought of work as a career, creative, and were spontaneous and normal around others. This was interesting to read because we have about Maslow all the time, but the history had a different way of telling the story. It didn’t just tell me what self-actualization and the hierarchy of needs were it explains it in detail.
Something else I found interesting was client-centered therapy. Roger created this and he believed that a client’s history was not important in order for therapy to be effective. He thought it was more about creating the right kind of therapeutic environment for the client. You must be genuinely honest with the client, to be accepting of the client was a person and value them, and lastly to be empathetic. This required one to understand how this person views things and realize that you can not completely understand another person. I found this interesting because these three things are very important when it comes to clinical psychology. I want to be a psychologist for mentally ill patients, so the idea of empathy is going to be an extremely important skill for me to have.
One thing I did not enjoy reading about was towards the beginning of the chapter when the text talked about the Boulder model. I felt like it didn’t go into a lot of detail about what types of research and training were being done. It seems that this was a big turning point in understanding and gaining more knowledge on psychology.
I thought that the last big section of the chapter entitled, “Psychology and the World of Business and Industry” was useful in the understanding of psychology. It shows you how psychology can be applied in the world. We learn a connection to World War II and the growth of engineering psychology. Psychology has the power to help businesses grow and produce more efficiency.
This chapter relates to the other chapter because it shows progressively through all these chapters psychology has branched away from philosophy been studied separately. It has become its own subject and individualized. We already learned a lot about behaviorism and now the opposite, humanistic.
I would like to learn more about the field of engineering psychology. It is talked about briefly at the end of the chapter, but not in a lot of detail. I don’t really know much about what it is. I also find it interesting about when I think of engineering I think of what my brother does as a mechanical engineer at John Deere. So, I will find it interesting to know if there are any similarities.
This chapter made me think about how much psychology is used in business today and it’s a lot. Advertising requires a great deal of psychology background in order to get people to buy a product. You have do whatever you can to make the product appealing. It also made me realize how important empathy is in clinical psychology. In fact, I don’t think you could be a successful theraptist without showing empathy.
I liked reading about Joseph Wolpe. His form of progressive relaxation is still basically used today and it goes along with other studies as well. These forms of relaxation have helped many people with anxiety disorders and other disorders. With his levels of relaxation, he could get the patients to be with their biggest phobia and still be calm and relaxed. He agrees with skinner and cognitive-behavior therapy, and learning theory. Another interesting topic was Carl Rogers and the client-centered therapy. Looking at what he did vs. what we do at the treatment facility I work at, is completely different. We still empathize with the clients, but we have a very structured facility which runs off of certain rules and expectations not of the client but for the clients well being. The overall buisness section was dull to me, however, the hawthorn affect was interesting. this was that people perform better when they are know they are being watched or studied. this stays true and i think always will. This is just a part of it. People generally act different while changing the people they are around.
The first thing that interested me in the chapter was how modern clinical psychology became a major field. This was the first actual job for psychologists where they could clinical help patients instead of just running tests. This occurred after the war where soldiers came back with PTSD and doctors finally had enough practice to feel comfortable with having psychiatrists do their own work. They gained much of their experience case by case, but it opened up the need for psychology in the medical field permanently. It was very interesting how the war helped psychiatrists get a job and it just shows how badly the patients needed the help. I also didn’t know there were around 1.5 million soldiers who were medically discharged after seeing a psychiatrist. The second topic a found very interesting was about lobotomies which interesting me a lot after the last chapter. I knew what lobotomies were and there intended use, but I was unaware how often they did the procedure and who came up with it. The experiment was first tested by Jacobson and Fulton on Chimps that were very aggressive in hopes that they would calm down. The procedure consisted of separating the frontal lobe which decreased aggression significantly so they thought it was somewhat of a success. Egas Moniz believed this same experiment could be used on humans which they did try and thought it was somewhat successful. Freeman and Watt however thought the surgery was a serious breakthrough and continued to use it on thousands of patients. This later was found to make a virtual zombie and there were just too many negative sides of the surgery so it faded out in the 50’s. The Hawthorne studies were also very interesting as I’ve learned about them in my organizational psychology class and am trying to get an I/O certificate. It explained how simple things were important to work productivity. They mention instead of a setting of a work area being a big deal it’s the small things such as lighting in a room. This was very interesting in the fact that a close to over a hundred years ago psychologists were interested in helping workers to be happy and in return increase productivity. One of the least interesting aspects of the chapter was about the boulder model which has been replaced very much over the years.
The first item that was very interesting to me was the excerpt about lobotomies. There was so little data to support this procedure yet so many began to back this surgery. It’s really sad when you think of how many lives were destroyed by this unresearched procedure.
The second was Carl Rogers. He really seemed to want to help those with mental illnesses rather than simply make a name for himself. It must have been so liberating to some of his patients to have a clinician who told them that they had value!
I have also always found the Hawthorne studies to be very fascinating. These scientists felt as thought they had failed but they had discovered some important ideas. These people felt valued and worked harder because they were being watched and wanted to please those conducting the study. I was not aware of the two substitutions made and found that to be really interesting in the study.
As I was reading about the changes in the treatment of those with mental illnesses I wondered what it must have been like to be mentally ill during this time period. I think it must have seemed so hopeful.
What would they think about how we have progressed? In one hand I think that they would be impressed by how far we have come with medications, however they might be less than impressed with the social stigmas we have yet to overcome.
I really enjoyed this entire chapter, I went back over a second time and did not find anything that seemed uninteresting.
This chapter seemed to build on the last chapter showing how psychology developed into more practical.
I would like to learn more about Dil Scott and his endeavors. I find I/O psychology very interesting.
Even though learning about it tended to make me nauseous, I did find all of the information on lobotomies to be interesting in terms of the related psychological effects. Most interesting perhaps may have been what made anyone even consider it to be a good idea in the first place. Learning about the techniques they used to perform them was perhaps the most unpleasant part of all of my reading in this book. The most interesting thing is that the procedure originated from an experiment done by Jacobsen and Fulton. They used a chimp in their lobotomy studies. What’s interesting is that frontal lobe alterations led to personality changes in the chimps as they we calm as opposed to their previous aggressive temperament. It’s interesting that something so vial could be seen to have a “positive” effect. Further, it’s interesting that, after seeing that this procedure can lead to personality/character alterations in chimps, people thought it would be good to perform on humans.
Egas Moniz, a neuropsychiatrics also interested me. He toke the idea of a lobotomy being used to alter aggressive chimp’s personalities and started to think about how it could apply to mentally disturbed patients. It’s interesting to think about the connection between the chimps, and Moniz’s idea’s about “aiding” mentally disturbed individuals. Moniz thought it was a good idea to perform this surgery with individuals who were suicidal or dangerous. It’s interesting that the book keeps saying that for the most part these lobotomies were successful. The thing is, lobotomies created people who were virtually “zombies”. Calming someone down is different from altering their personality or making them practically brain dead. To me it seemed to intentionally handicap someone or “dumb them down”. How on earth this fits the description of “for the most part successful” is far beyond me! It’s all shocking, ridiculous, and interesting.
I thought it was incredibly interesting that lobotomies were the gateway to brain surgery, and that brain surgery was being looked at in the 1890’s. I feel like, for the most part, surgery in general would have been relatively new. I think it’s both incredibly and incredibly shocking that brain surgery was being looked at and so largely considered already-before the 1900s.
I enjoyed what this chapter had to say about the Hawthorne affect and I found it to be another interesting point. I liked this chapter’s look at the Hawthorne effect because it talked about how the related studies helped to pave the way and contribute to other findings. It’s interesting to see how it contributed to other, unintended aspects of psychology. It’s interesting that this chapter mentioned the possibilities of there being other variables present in the Hawthorne studies. Another contributing factor to the fact that productivity went up when workers were being watched, was the ability of the group being tested. Perhaps productivity increased due to a higher level of talent or experiences. The original sample varied from the experimental group because it had workers who were not a productive. There were 5 individuals who were deemed slower or less productive in the first sample group. Those workers had been replaces for the second group or the experimental group. It’s interesting to think about how something that is considered to be common knowledge and highly referenced in other research may not have had a good control in the original experiment. Though originally measuring the effects that lighting has on work productivity…the Hawthorne studies expanded to look at new things like the presents of others and how the arouses changes in productivity. Moreover, the chapter mentions alternative explanations to the findings. For example, not only was someone present, but the environment was changed in the study as well. The data seems to have been skewed. This is very interesting to reflect upon.
I also found the Boulder Model to be pretty interesting. I found this interesting because it talks about my a very interesting apect of psychology-education. It is incredibly important! Basically a bunch of clinical psychologist got together in a place called Boulder to form a curriculum for educating psychologists in how to prep for clinical psychology. I really thought it was interesting to see what points they believed to be most important (diagnosis, psychotherapy skills, ability to do research). It was interesting to think about how a base for education in the field had to be formed somewhere, I never really put much thought into it, I thought it was very interesting to look at where clinical psychology began.
I’m not very interested in all of the information about the humanistic approach. I feel like this approach is all very common sense. I like that it’s a people based focus of psychology and that it looks at the individuals and relates to the idea of “best self”. I think the main reason I’m least interested is because I feel like they don’t have to have an entire approach and section about treating people like humans while helping to cure them of their problems. I think I may be a little more interested if it was presented differently…possibly. As is, I wasn’t overly impressed. There wasn’t anything that truly bored me in this section however, I just tried to pick something that seemed a little less interesting in order to finish the questions..
Learning about the most recent history related to mental health counseling and more clinical views on psychology will be most interesting and useful to my future studies. I’m applying to graduate programs in mental health counseling and the information about post WWII counseling psychology and mental health related studies will help me a great deal as I continue my studies in a more specific program (as opposed to this very broad history analyses). It’s useful for me to know the background related to my further studies and future career.
This chapter built on the last one as the previous chapter introduced treatment of the mentally ill. It talked about the inhuman practices people had when it came to treatment of those who were mentally ill. It also talked about related exploration and experiments that were performed on them. The last chapter was just beginning to look at alternative treatment for the mentally ill, this chapter turns around and moves from to what seems to be pretty vicious treatment. It expands on the early treatment and investigations in how science learned about the mentally ill and disabled. Both chapters looked at the disabled/ill individuals more humanistically as opposed to simply ruling them as a lostless cause, banned from society.
Some ideas I had while reading the chapter were GAG! And YUCK! I had such a hard time thinking about the details of lobotomy. I got to thinking, WHY! Is the person who came up with the idea a genius or a crazy, creepo? I also wondered why people would voluntarily subject themselves to this. Even more, why would you pay for a lobotomy. I could just see the same men that forced their wives into mental institutions now forcing them to become zombie wives. I was infuriated while reading this and I had many angry thoughts. I wondered if I would have bought into all of this shit if I lived during the time. It made me most mad to think about how men could just subject their wives to just about anything cruel and evil if they made them mad. I had many thoughts and ideas while reading this chapter. Most centered around the lobotomy topic and in my thoughts I was angry, disgusted, or annoyed (no matter how interesting it all was).
I would like to learn more about why lobotomies ended. Why did they suddenly seem to become unfamous? They were only really around until the1950’s. Did they have other long lasting side effects? Are there any people who underwent a lobotomy? I would like to know more about how the individual help and how this procedure really affected the individual. I would like to be involved if possible.
Note for the TA, I had difficulties submitting all of my posts last week as I would receive a notice saying: "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later."
Dr. Maclin instructed us to try again later and that we would not be penalized. He said, " It will not be considered late. Sorry for the hassle but we have been workign on this."
I'm sure you've been informed. This is the reasoning for the tardiness of my wk #14 posts. Ill post this in reply to my other posts for last week (that are also tardy). Thank you. Sorry for the difficulties.
I found electroshock therapy and shell shock to be really interesting. Lobotomy was really interesting as well. The third topic I found to be interesting are the different concepts in humanistic psychology. I found electroshock shock therapy to be really interesting because it is still used today. It creates a compulsive seizure. This treatment showed improvement, especially the first schizophrenic patient, but later it progressively disintegrated. ECT became really popular not just in Europe, where it started but spread quickly into America. During World War 1, soldiers would suffer from what they called shell shock. It was believed that ECT was the cure to this. Solider who suffered from shell shock had a various about of different symptoms. Some of the cases involved paralysis, panic attacks, tremors and nightmares. The ECT was to shock those symptoms right out of them. I found lobotomy to be really interesting because of the results that were found after doing one on a patient. It may have seemed like it cured a patient but cutting away the connections in the brains but it wasn’t ethical. I think it’s interesting that lobotomies because as popular as they did and how many patients had actually undergone that surgery. There were also different procedures that had been created as well. This is mostly associated with Maslow and Rogers. It was a client-centered therapy. The therapy involved empathy, reflection and a focus on the patient’s past. The one topic I didn’t find to be very interesting was engineering psychology. I just couldn’t get into the topic. The focus of this type of psychology is to create machines that improve human production. There wasn’t very much information on the topic and it seemed kind of just thrown into the chapter.
I think the most useful information is about the three topics I touched on briefly. These topics showed how psychology has been shaped and formed. Different treatments had been tried and learned from.
It builds on previous chapters in that it continues to talk about different treatments had been discovered and how they became popular and eventually research had proven to be not as successful as once believed.
I would like to learn more about the patients that had undergone the lobotomy. I think it’s interesting to see how these patients turned out after going through this terrible procedure.
The ideas I had been thinking about is about the PsyD degree. I’ve learned about this a little bit in Careers in Psych.