0.16 Learning theory and personality development  (Page 21/24)

Discussion Question: Dollard and Miller described how the Semang culture seems to lack aggression, as a result of their learning the danger of challenging the Malay. Can you recognize examples in your own life where a certain group seems to act in a predictable way as the result of how another group acts? If yes, how has one group reinforced or punished the behavior of the other in consistent ways, in keeping with the predictable behavioral outcomes?

Psychoanalysis, Behavior Therapy, and Relational Models

Paul Wachtel has continued studying the relationship between psychoanalysis and behavior therapy, following in the footsteps of Dollard and Miller, and he has also extended this comparison into the “relational world” (Wachtel, 1977, 1997). Wachtel emphasized that psychotherapy should be understood in terms of the theory that guides it, and that the practice of therapy provides the true test of any psychological theory related to personality and/or mental illness. Behavior therapy is appealing in terms of being direct and practical, but Wachtel feels that it can gain in several ways from being blended with psychoanalysis. He questions whether pure behavior therapists can really assess psychological conditions, whether they achieve narrow gains at the expense of broader psychological change, and he addresses the ethical implications of being involved in specifically changing another person’s behavior. He also addresses several problems that behaviorists see for psychoanalysis, such as the focus on internal states that cannot be observed, whether underlying causes are really treated instead of symptoms, and the application of the medical model to psychological processes.

It is my general premise that psychodynamic and behavioral approaches to psychotherapy, and to the understanding of personality, are far more compatible than is generally recognized, and that an integration of the concepts and observations accumulated by these two approaches can greatly enrich our clinical work and our understanding of human behavior…It is my experience that workers guided by either of these two broad frames of reference tend to have only a rather superficial knowledge (and sometimes none at all) of the important regularities observed by those guided by the other viewpoint. (pg. 5; Wachtel, 1977)

In Psychoanalysis, Behavior Therapy, and the Relational World , Wachtel (1997) discusses advances in the recognition of object relations theory in American psychology, and how object relations theory fits into connections between traditional psychodynamic perspectives and learning theory. Although it was not necessarily the intent of object relations theorists, object relations theory has shifted the focus of psychoanalysis from internal psychological conflicts to relationships with other people. Thus, there has been a shift from an internal focus to an external focus, which is more compatible with learning theory (and the input-output contingencies that are essential to learning). Wachtel also considers this shift as favorable for connections between psychoanalysis and family systems approaches to therapy. Surprisingly, Wachtel makes no mention of relational-cultural theory and the work of the Stone Center Group, which seems ideally suited to the integration of approaches proposed by Wachtel. Regardless of the nature and extent to which these various approaches might be integrated, it remains of the utmost importance that the focus of the therapist remains on helping the patient (Wachtel, 1997).