Trends, Issues and Perspectives on Psychology

Tasharnie BullockHCI College

Trends, Issues and Perspectives on Psychology

There are numerous emerging trends in psychology, including mental health, telehealth and remote services, focusing on natural immunity and behavioral prevention and virtual learning. Experts predict that a tsunami or problems will continue hitting the population due to changes and stress. Prioritizing emotional well-being is important for citizens, and psychologists are the center of delivery of mental health services (Newcombe, Piercy, Ariyanto, Muluk, Suradijono, S. & Kristi Poerwandari, 2018). Additionally, nowadays telehealth has become a booming business. People are now turning to remote opportunities to avoid unnecessary exposures. With increased viral strands, people are now preferring virtual health care to in person visits. The pandemic caused a significant shift from medical models to natural immunity and prevention. People are now taking control of their health behaviors and prioritizing their health needs. People know that immunity is linked with lifestyle variables such as sleep, stress, sunlight, zinc, and vitamin D. Virtual learning is also a trend as new styles of learning have emerged with the pandemic. The pandemic affected the learning process for psychologists that teaching and learning in the field.

Issues in psychology have to do with how human beings make decisions and shape human behavior. The Nature-nurture debate is one of the issues in psychology. This debate is about how a person’s behavioral aspects are a product of their genes or are acquired learned characteristics. Another issue in psychology is the mind-body debate. The debate asks whether the body is part of the mind or the mind is part of the body and if they are different, which one of the two is in charge and how they interact. The free will/determinism debate is also another issue in Psychology. The free will debate has to do with the extent to which a person’s behavior stems from forces they have no control over or whether people decide how to behave or act for themselves.

Psychologists employ unique perspectives to study how people feel, behave and think. The psychodynamic perspective is one of the major perspectives in Psychology. First developed by Sigmund Freud, this perspective maintains that early childhood experiences, the unconscious mind, and interpersonal relationships play a role in explaining human behavior and treating mental illnesses. Sigmund Freud conceived that the mind comprises 3 elements, the ego, id, and super-ego. The id addresses unconscious desires, the ego addresses the demands of the real world, and the super-ego manages all our internalized standards, morals and ideals. Another psychological perspective is the behavioral perspective. Behavioral perspective has to do with learned behaviors. Developed by John Watson and Edward Thorndike, the Behaviorism perspective dominated during the early twentieth century. Currently, behavioral principles apply in mental health settings where counsellors and therapists employ such techniques to treat and explain illnesses (Filep & Laing, 2019). The cognitive perspective is also another perspective for cognitive psychology. This focuses on mental processes such as language, memory, problem-solving, thinking, and decision-making. The cognitive perspective employs an information-processing theory where a human mind is compared to a computer to explain how information is processed, acquired, stored, and utilized.

References

Filep, S., & Laing, J. (2019). Trends and directions in tourism and positive psychology. Journal of Travel Research, 58(3), 343-354.

Newcombe, P., P Piercy, F., A Ariyanto, A., Muluk, H., Suradijono, S. H. R., & Kristi Poerwandari, E. (2018). Diversity in unity: Perspectives from psychology and behavioral sciences (p. 662). Taylor & Francis.