Question

What do behaviorists believe about psychopathology? What do they think the causes are? How do they assess the "ABCs" in order to understand how a person’s personality was developed? How do they argue that psychopathology can be treated? , where the behaviorist theory of personality development applies. How would you endeavor to help them if you were a behavioral psychologist?

Answer 1

Psychopathology is a systematic study to assess as to what causes mental illness--it could be due to injury to the brain, environmental factors, genetic disorders, and general infections. These are basically termed as four approaches to Psychopathology. A Psychiatrist (a medical doctor) would determine the mental illness through careful diagnosis and would tell as to what was the root cause. Based on the diagnosis and root cause, the treatment would start. A clinical psychologist, on the other hand, would act as someone who would prepare the individual to cope up with the environment after complete course of medication or during the course of medication as prescribed by a Psychriatrist. The role of a Psychologist would be limited only to counseling and hypnosis in rare instances only if he's certified.

Behaviorists are a set of Psychologists specializing in something called Behavior Psychology. They are the individuals who strongly advocate that all the mental illnesses are caused due to environmental factors. According to this neglected school of Psychology, every response to the environment is through a stimuli. They broadly assess an individual's behavior as learnt presdesposition acting favorably or unfavorably to a given stimulus based on 1. Classical Conditioning 2. Operant Conditioning.

Ivan Pavlo's famous experiment on a dog (dog salivates when the bell rings) is the best example of classical conditioning while Operant Conditioning is about giving stimuli through reinforcements (positive and negative).

Behavioral Psychologists or Behaviorists don't believe in the Psychopathology approach as they relate all the illnesses to environmental factors--stimulus. They would want Psychopathology to focus only on environmental factors.

Well known writer and Psychologist Sigmund Freud said that Behavioral Psychology was not really beneficial as it tends to ignore the sub-conscious mind, sleep state etc.

Behavioral Psychologists should understand the actual science and anatomy of the brain as well, and work closely with Psychiatrists instead of sticking on to one particular school of Psychology that has rigid views.