Avia Gray's Archive

It has been difficult for me to wrap my brain around Third Force Psychology. I believe that is so because I have a tendency to move past suface problems and attempt to solve my issues by getting to the root of the problem.  With Third Force, root issues may be present but are irrelevant to the way we deal with what is in front of us. While I believe it is important to focus on what is present and what we can deal with in the now, I also believe that avoiding the deeper issues crete band-aid solutions to problems. What has recently attracted me so much towards psychoanalysis is the break through component, or that moment of clarity that is reached by helping a patient or client realize the root of their issue. This would be similar to the feeling a teacher gets after seeing a student reach their “AHA” moment. Third Force Psychology requires a person to be more independent and reach the moment without help. Many people may not have the knowledge or drive to reach breakthrough moment on their own.

For me, what most reminds me of the Third Force Psychology movement is the fact that some people who behave without any motivation. For instance, people who give money to different organizations, because they can and want to, not necessarily because they see a need to. Sociopaths can also demonstrate Third Force Psychology because they have no emotional connections to everyday life. Those are just a few modern examples of Third Force Psychology.

The psychoanalytic school of thought has always perplexed me. I’m not sure if I entirely understand where Freud and Jung were coming from with many of their ideas. However, it gained so much popularity through the years and is still a highly talked about approach. While many of their ideas have been discredited, it is refreshing to hear of an approach that allows the general public to be able to distinguish the entire field of Psychology from the hard sciences. As we have discussed in class, I believe the beauty of psychology is that it attempts to delve into things unknown that most scientist would never even imagine attempting to discover.

Lucy Psychoanalyzes Charlie Brown

One of the earliest exposures I have ever had to psychoanalysis was when the ever-popular Charlie Brown get analyzed by Lucy. The clip attached I a little lengthy, but it was classic psychoanalytic therapy. Lucy attempts to help Charlie come out of his depression by first showing slides of his facial expressions to detect underlying emotions, and then having him project his frustrations about life onto a football. Lucy even claimed, much like Freud did, that she was the best person to help him because her therapy for the best for him. Maybe Sigmund Freud could learn a thing or two from Lucy and Charlie Brown.

Many people may have a problem with the knowledge that they can be controlled, and may not even know it. I had to cope with this idea as well. But when put into perspective, behaviorism can be radically life changing for those who are in need of therapy. It is the most scientific way to approach psychological conditions and has proven to be very effective. However, many advances in behaviorism has dealt with the reactions one may get form animals. Dogs, for example, that are trained use operant condition to either reinforce or punish behaviors. Without knowledge of behaviorism, we would not be able to train our pets. The problem is that we cannot always apply what we learn about animal behaviors to human behaviors. Human complexity is evident, simply by the fact that not one school of thought or technique has been able to completely describe and predict every person. Concepts about animal behaviors can usually be generalized, but with people, because we operate at a higher level of intellect, our world, experiences, and genetic make it hard to analyze a person using one theory – including behaviorism.

One use of behaviorism I think every person, or at least every parent, can benefit from is potty training. Rewarding behaviors for potty training can be really helpful, because it gives a child as sense of accomplishment. The Huggies commercials themselves are even  reinforcing; they tell children they are “big kids” if they use the potty, giving them a sense of pride and responsibility  There are so many examples of everyday uses for behaviorism, but that was just one I chose.

The evolutionary theory, like all theories, is an attempt to make sense of what we see around us. It is simply another doorway that was opened with the intent of leading us to truth. Evolution’s impact on psychology is simply a reflection of what may have happened with our behavior that branches from the evolution of our bodies. I do not think evolutionary psychology is the key to understanding behavior, but it may explain why some phenomena occur. For instance, National Geographic release a documentary on babies’ development in the for 12 months of life, and they found that when you stand an infant up on its feet, it begins to walk. It seemingly loses the ability to do so around 3 or 4 months, but if you put it in water, it starts to walk again. It could be that the baby has some innate idea that it should walk, which could be explained through evolution. But like many other things, evolution still only explains “how,” but never gets to the core idea of “why.” Personally, I think some concepts in evolution could be helpful if they are accurate, but since no one can prove any theory of origin, for now, the theory evolution is just another possibility of life.

Scholasticism had a very profound influence on the way many sciences and other systematic studies are conducted today. Since scholasticism was the “beginning of  the end of the Dark Ages” their reflect a new and enlightened way of thinking. One concept from the scholastics that has influenced modern practices is this distinction between truth and what we perceive as truth. For example, in psychology, people are often diagnosed with delusions of grandeur. Although a patient may believe he is one thing, a doctor will be able to make the distinction of who he really is versus who he think he may be. the doctor will have to treat the patient with the reality of the disease rather than the fantasy of the delusion. This idea is stable across all fields of science and research.

Scholasticism has also influence Christian thinking. A Christian will hold the belief that God is real. Regardless of whether a person believes in God or not, he is there and cannot be ignored in most or all aspect of life. The concept of truth is then defined as a constant. It is something that no person can change, but can have changes in the way we perceive truth.

The perception of truth then becomes our biggest debate. The scholastics were not so much concerned with new knowledge as they were with understanding what had already been taught or written. Those interested in education or higher learning can very much benefit from this idea. Interpretation largely influence the way we come to learn about a new concept or idea. The textbook says that the scholastics would learn new ways of approaching old concepts, as in Abelard’s Sic et Non. Teaching students to look at ideas from a variety of different view points, defend their own views, and even be able to argue for a view outside of their own makes for a well rounded and very logical individual. Although the scholastic thought process became less and less prominent, without their teachings, I believe many of the scientific field we have today may have stayed in the “Dark Ages.”

I have thought about what the good life mean many times. I often wonder if I am living the good life or just a good life, but for me, the true good life comes in an absolute. The good life is a life where I am able to know anything I wish. That  means I would  have enough time to search and discover the answer to any question. I could go any place and see anything I wanted. I do not think it is necessarily good to just think I know everything I want to know, because experience is a key component to my life being good.

The good life would also mean that I have stability in most or even all aspects of my life. Having stable relationships, finances, job security, etc. means that if I am living the good life, then I will continue to live that life. I am not a fan of surprises, good or bad, because my personality is not compatible with life catching me off guard. So in my good life, I would never not be prepared. I would not have to worry about life throwing unexpected twists and even being prepared for that, because the good life has no twists.

Overall, it seems as if my “good life” is a fantasy world, or heaven. I believe that everyone has something in their life that they do not necessarily deem “good,” and those are the things that make the life that we live now “real” as opposed to “good.”