The approach is important: from which side you look at an object, you will see it in it.
If a psychologist wants to look at something objectively, he has already made his personal, subjective choice: he looks at what is happening from the position of objectivity, and not everyone will understand him, but only those who are ready to make similar choices. Accordingly, there is no psychology at all, there are different psychological approaches, more broadly, different psychological paradigms.
A paradigm in practical psychology is an ideological base that determines the main life values and the prevailing conceptual apparatus. When a paradigm is embodied in one or another specific theory or practice, one speaks of an approach. For example, a behavioral paradigm is a worldview base, a behavioral approach is specific theories and practices.
Psychologists belonging to different approaches solve the same problem of the client in significantly different ways. As a fact, over time, around each direction, “their” clients are gradually grouped, who are helped by this particular method and who no longer understand, perceive other methods poorly, and sometimes even begin to treat them with hostility.
Sometimes it is possible to determine what exactly this psychologist or psychotherapist is most suitable for this client.
The man was told that they would wean him from smoking here, he ran in for half an hour: “Doctor, this, I should quit smoking!” — Soft existential psychotherapy is hardly appropriate here, and a directive behavioral approach may be more effective.
In other cases, different directions can work with approximately the same efficiency.
If the client is afraid of flying, the psychoanalyst will look for childhood traumatic experiences related to flying, and the Freudian psychoanalyst will try to find out what associations the patient has with the long fuselage of the aircraft — and this may work. A behavioral psychologist in such a case will start a standard desensitization procedure — in fact, begin to develop a conditioned response of calm relaxation to the stressful situation of the flight — this can be effective. A humanistic psychologist will listen and help the client find his own strength to solve this life situation — and someday this will turn out to be a wonderful solution.
With the largest division, the following approaches (paradigms) can be distinguished:
- Behavioral and phenomenological paradigm.
- Humanitarian and natural science approach
- Male and female approach
With an Englishman you need to speak in English, with a child in a language understandable to a child, with men in a manly way, with women in a language that reaches the heart of a woman. Men and women have different views on personality, personal growth and development. Practical psychology cannot abstract from gender characteristics, from the characteristics of male and female worldviews, different approaches in relation to oneself and others, to relationships. The male or female approach in applied psychology is a conversation about the gender of the practical psychologist, about his (or her) values, tools, and preferred working styles. See →
There are many hundreds of author’s schools and specific approaches in practical psychology, especially in the field of psychotherapy. If they are somehow systematized, one can single out psychotherapeutic and developmental approaches, ethical approaches (humanistic approach, Orthodox psychology, Frankl’s logotherapy, synton approach) and instrumental approaches (NLP, most techniques of the behavioral approach). According to the distribution of power between the client and the psychologist, the directive approach and the non-directive, client-centered approach are clearly distinguished. Perhaps, transformational approaches can be singled out as separate ones aimed at changing states and deep beliefs (trainings of states and transformational trainings, skills approaches that teach specific skills or skills of a universal plan, as well as educational approaches.
Transformational trainings work with deep (basic) beliefs, values and states. Right during the training, a person undergoes strong internal changes (breakthrough, Insight, Illumination, Forgiveness, etc.), which allow a person to discover, understand or realize something new in his life. Naturally, in most transformational trainings, a person also receives some skills, but they are not the main goal of the training.
Four main approaches in practical psychology
A simple typology that identifies four main approaches in practical psychology is formed at the intersection of two axes: humanitarian — natural science and behavioral — phenomenological approaches. A completely behavioral and natural science approach is behaviorism. The natural science approach that describes the inner part of human life is a cognitive approach. The humanitarian approach to describing the inner life of a person is a deep-personal approach. A humanitarian approach combined with a behavioral orientation is a personality-behavioral approach. See →
Nine Basic Approaches in Practical Psychology
The main approaches in practical psychology can be identified by asking the following questions. The first question is: what determines who or what is responsible for external behavior? The second question is: on what does it depend or who is responsible for the inner in a person? Answer options: external circumstances, internal impulses and states, the person himself personally. Thus, nine main approaches in practical psychology can be distinguished. See →