The+Behavioral+Perspective

 Behaviorism __Overview and History of Behaviorism:__
 * Behaviorism is, in some cases, called the learning perspective. **Behaviorism** is based on the proposition that everything humans and animals do — including breathing, acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors. Behaviorism comprise that all theories should have observational correlates but that there are no philosophical differences between publicly observable processes (such as actions) and privately observable processes (such as emotions).

__Major Behaviorists__ John Watson, an American Psychologist founded **behaviorism**. He established the psychological school of behaviorism, after doing research on animal behavior. He also conducted the controversial "Little Albert" experiment. Later he went on from psychology to become a popular author on child rearing, and an acclaimed contributor to the advertising industry.

B.F. Skinner invented the Operant Conditioning Chamber and developed his own school of psychology, **Radical Behaviorism**; which understands behavior as a function of the enviroment. His most influential work was with reinforcement in humans, and he thought of reinforcement as a scientific principle of behavior.

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian scientist who is known for discovering **Classical Conditioning**; which involves a neutral stimulus paired with another significant stimulus that produces a conditioned stimulus. He is best known for his research with dogs and their externalized saliva. He concluded that saliva was a response to food.

Edward Thorndike, an American psychologist spent nearly his entire career at Colombia University. His work on animal behavior and the learning process led to the heory of connectionism(philosophy that the mind is a system of interconnected networks) and helped lay the foundation for modern behavioral psychology. He worked on solving industrial problems such as employee exams and testing. He was a memeber of the Psychological Corporation and served as president of the American Psychological Association in 1912.

__ Perspective on Mental Illnesses __ Behaviorists describe mental illness as a developed response to stimuli. A person's enviroment and surroundings causes them to have certain behaviors. Behaviorism maintains that rewards and punishments form a person's behavior; for example someone involved in a serious car accident will most likely have a phobia of cars. It is believed that a person brings on the mental disorder to themselves; therefore they are thought to be able to find a way to cure the disorder, themselves.

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• One treatment approch used by behavioral psychologists is **Cognitive Behavioral Therapy**(CBT). CBT is psychotherapy that intends to influence emotions and behaviors that relate to unstable judgement of events. It has been used in the past to treat mood disorders and anxiety disorders. Methods include keeping a diary of important events and feelings, questioning thoughts and behaviors, confronting situations you may have avoided before, and attempting new ways of behaving and responding. =====

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• Another treatment used is S**elf-psychology**,which describes mental illnesses as being the result of unmet developmental needs. To understand self-psychology you must understand the concepts of empathy, self-object, mirroring, and idealising. Self psychology places the self as an important role in human motivation, reasoning, affect, and social identity. The significance of __empathy__ is said to be that parent's failure to communicate with their children is the reason behind all mental illnesses. Observing the patients connections with __self-object__(persons, objects, or activities that complete the self) is essential to self-psychology .=====