|
|The Humanistic and Cognitive Behavioral Applications of Psychology with A Shout Out to Buddhist Psychology |
|My perspective of History and Systems in Psychology |

| |

Psychology as a scientific discipline can be divided into four major historical forces. The first historical force being psychoanalysis, the second force behaviorism, the third force humanistic, and the fourth force multicultural. Each historical force represents the zeitgeist or prevailing school of thought for its historical time, and each school of thought brought about the development of different theoretical applications and ideological approaches. This paper will focus on theorists and theoretical applications of the second and third historical forces. Behaviorism is the school of thought founded by John B. Watson and is the second historical force in psychology. The basis of behavioral psychology suggests that all behaviors are learned and therefore can be unlearned and changed. Watson, like most other behaviorists were of the mindset that only observable, or overt behaviors, should be studied because concepts such as emotion and cognition were too subjective (Cherry, K. 2011). Cognitive applications of behavioral psychology known as Cognitive Behavioral psychology or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) differs from the orientation of Behaviorism in that it focuses on the mental processes, perceptions, and interpretations of the mind, as well as how information is retrieved. Cognitive Theorists believe emotions are triggered by thoughts and beliefs. It is in this mindset that Cognitive Behavioral psychotherapy was developed as a type of “talk therapy” which is clinically