Psychodynamic Approach

The psychodynamic perspective includes all the theories in psychology that see human functioning based upon the interaction of drives and forces within the person, particularly unconscious between the different structures of the personality. 

The words ‘psychodynamic’ and ‘psychoanalytic’ are often confused. Remember that Freud’s theories were psychoanalytic, whereas the term ‘psychodynamic’ refers to both his theories and those of his followers. Freud’s psychoanalysis is both a theory and a therapy.
The greatest criticism of the psychodynamic approach is that it is unscientific in its analysis of human behaviour. Many of the concepts central to Freud's theories are subjective and as much impossible to scientifically test. For example, how is it possible to scientifically study concepts like the unconscious mind or the tripartite personality? It this respect the psychodynamic perspective is unfalsifiable as the theories cannot be empirically investigated.

Cognitive Approach

The term cognitive psychology came into use with the publication of the book Cognitive Psychology by Ulric Neisser in 1967. Cognitive Psychology revolves around the notion that if we want to know what makes people tick then the way to do it is to figure out what processes are actually going on in their minds. 

The cognitive approach began to revolutionise psychology in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, to become the dominant approach (i.e. perspective) in psychology by the late 1970s. Interest in mental processes had been gradually restored through the work of Piaget and Tolman. Other factors were important in the early development of the cognitive approach. For example, dissatisfaction with the behaviourist approach in its simple emphasis on behaviour rather than internal processes and the development of better experimental methods. But it was the arrival of the computer that gave cognitive psychology the terminology and metaphor it needed to investigate the human mind. The start of the use of computers allowed psychologists to try to understand the complexities of human cognition by comparing it with something simpler and better understood i.e. an artificial system such as a computer.

behaviorist approach

Behaviorism (or behaviourism), also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors.^[1] The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind.^[2] Behaviorism comprises the position 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 thinking and feeling).^[3]


Behaviorism is a psychological movement that can be contrasted with philosophy of mind. The basic premise of radical behaviorism is that the study of behavior should be a natural science, such as chemistry or physics, without any reference to hypothetical inner states of organisms as causes for their behavior. A modern example of such analysis would be Fantino and colleagues' work on behavioral approaches to reasoning.^[20] Other varieties, such as theoretical behaviorism, permit internal states, but do not require them to be mental or have any relation to subjective experience. Behaviorism takes a functional view of behavior

Stimuli and responses

Behaviourism, by focusing on

Th oughts, feelings and other inner mental states cannot be studied empirically, and so have no

place in behaviourist theory. Genetic variation, while presumably contributing to diff erences

among individuals, is also ignored, because traditionally it was not measurable (and is still largely

inaccessible). By contrast, environmental conditions are relatively easy to measure and study.observable events, sets its own limits on what can be studied.