Best of the Century

Psychotherapy has evolved greatly over time with the advancement of new technology, research and studies. In the early 19^th century psychotherapy was restricted to the rich, but now it is open to everyone. Psychotherapy is now more available to the public than it was a century ago. Millions of people now attend psychotherapy sessions, which allows a person to go to workshops, seminars, or individual sessions with a therapist. There is also a larger variety of ways of getting treatment. For example by using books, cassettes, and computer assisted materials. Case studies was the main type of treatment in the 19^th century, and most of the times get no progress. But the times have changed; people don’t have to pay a lot of money or need to have any mental problems to get some kind of therapy. Now you don’t even need a therapist to get some help because it has evolved to be distributed in to different media. You can now use the modern technology to help a person out. There are also workshops in most parts of the world where we can attend. Therapists are also more educated and have the knowledge to understand the background culture of their clients. In the past therapist were forced to believe in only one method however, they can now combine or create their own methods of treating their clients. Along the years they have been many advancements and breakthroughs in psychology. In this article twenty breakthroughs were described, and here are the five that I find are most important.

A breakthrough that I found that is important was by Jean Piaget. I feel that this breakthrough is important because it shows that we now have a better understanding of children. And when they are children if we understand them better and not just assume that they know the simple easy things. We can teach them and make them a better and smarter person once they grow up. The example of a tall thin glass of milk and a child will look at it and see there is a lot of milk, but once put into a bowl the child will think that some milk has disappeared. And this can be related into many situations where a child doesn’t understand but the adults assume they do. This breakthrough also shows that the mind develops in stages and understands things and different

levels. Once we understand this psychotherapist can give treatment at different levels that will suit the client’s age to get more effective results.

A breakthrough by Matina Homer helped understand why men are more successful than women in society. Matina conducted an experiment that shows that males do better in a competitive situation than women do. In the experiment, both the male and female were given the same test to do but in different rooms. The second time they were given the same test to do but this time they were both in the same room. In the first test the male did poorly, however when the male was put into a competitive situation he did better than the female. This shows why males are usually leaders and that they perform better under pressure.

Another breakthrough that I found important was by Harry F. Harlow. His breakthrough was that when a child is nurtured by the mother it is more effective than if it was a father. Harry also says that it effects the emotionally and it academic performances. he conducted an experiment with monkey’s and proved his theory. Many people do find it offensive that humans are compared to as monkeys, but I agree with him.

The breakthrough by Hans Selye made was introducing stress to the world. He was the first researcher to discover psychological stress and how to cope with it. As we have been taught that stress is bad thing and that it can lead to harmful diseases, but Hans says that stress is not such a bad thing. He says that some people might be better off being busy and having something to do. Because if a person who usually has something to do is put into and environment where he is “stress-free” they might even be more stressed out than they usually are. This shows that everyone deals with stress in different ways and the important things is for us to learn how we need to deal with it.

The last breakthrough is the most important one from me and this was discovered by Erik Erikson. Erik said that intellectual and emotional development happens throughout ones life time. I totally agree with him, even though we reach a certain age one we have developed I still believe that we can still change to adapt to new surroundings or situations.