Ways to View Behavior: Psychological Approaches

The behaviorist psychological perspective deals with a method of conditioning, in which a person's reactions are conditioned by reward and punishment. As such, a behaviorist psychologist would likely speculate that a person's difficulty sleeping could be caused by some aspect of their environment being altered. For instance, a man has grown used to sleeping with the radio on, and has slept with it on for many years. If the radio is removed from his sleeping environment, the man may suffer from insomnia. The man might not necessarily know that this is the reason, however, so a behaviorist psychologist would have to investigate into any possible alterations to his sleeping environment. Once the psychologist resolves that the radio (or lack thereof) was the root of the problem, the psychologist would recommend replacing the radio or instead conditioning the man to learn to sleep without it.

A psychoanalytic approach to psychology primarily involves the unconscious mind and its respective tendencies and conflicts. The unconscious mind often has a different reaction to an action or event than the conscious mind, for instance, one might underestimate the extent that they've been affected by a traumatic event, but to the unconscious mind, the person may be psychologically devastated by the event. This can inevitably lead to consequences on the physiological aspect of the body. A person may not be able to sleep, because their unconscious mind replays the events every time they attempt to sleep. A psychoanalytic psychologist might attempt to find the root of the problem by using word association, and ink blot tests, and generally discussing their life's events with the patient.

The cognitive psychological approach involves the mental processing in a person's mind, including: problem solving, memory, and language. A person's ability (or lack there of) to problem solve can inadvertently have an affect on their daily routine. For example, if a person grew up in an environment that didn't foster critical thinking, and the person's parents weren't able to appropriately react to situations, than a person might not ever have learned to problem solve. There are numerous consequences that can stem from not knowing how to problem solve, and perhaps a person became so entangled in a problem and didn't know how to respond, that they weren't able to sleep with the burden of trying to solve the problem upon them. A cognitive psychologist might try to teach the person critical thinking and problem solving skills, much like a math problem, the psychologist would go through the steps of how to solve a problem, so that the person wouldn't be burdened by a problem that wouldn't allow them to sleep.

The biological approach entails the genetic, medical, and neurological components of the person. In this scenario, a person who is unable to fall asleep, may have a chemical imbalance or a sleeping disorder that hinders their ability to do so. For instance, a person may have chronic insomnia, which makes it difficult to attain sleep. A biological psychologist might observe the patient's sleeping routine to look for any abnormalities, and if the psychologist identifies one, he/she may be able to prescribe medication or provide suggestions of how to sleep better.

The humanistic approach is a unique one, in that it emphasizes that a person is in control of his or her own destiny and that people are inherently good, rather than aggressive or predatory. One possible scenario of why a person may not be able to sleep, is that they have low self-esteem and are dependent on the love and recognition of others. For example, maybe the patient is the type of person who also feels the need to be in a relationship, in order to "validate" themselves as human beings. If the person isn't in a relationship at the time of these sleeping troubles, they may not be able to sleep, because they sleep alone in their bed. A humanist psychology might approach helping this patient by building their self-esteem and help them become more independent from others.