Belonging Pactise Essay

For a person to belong into a certain group, class or society, they must learn to fit in with that certain group, class or society and learn the rituals, language, behaviour responsibilities and culture. The sense of belonging to one of these social groups gives one a sense of belonging, and cancels out the feeling of exclusion and isolation. The journey into fitting into these groups can be a challenging task, which involves class clashes and other obstacles. Through the study of Educating Rita, we see the benefits of belonging, but contrasting them with the negatives in belonging. In order to fit in to a new class, one must learn the aspirations, culture, interests and language, otherwise they will not be able to communicate and feel the sense of belonging to the new class. In Educating Rita, the struggle Rita goes through in order to transforms her old self, into a new and improved Rita, shows us that in order to belong to a social class one must first have self-actualization, knowing what their purpose and aspirations are in life, in order to pursue the correct class for them. This is the problem that Rita has from the beginning of the play, the lack of self-actualization causes her the excessive want to change and to fit into the higher social class. Rita’s epiphany only comes towards the end of the play, but the struggles and obstacles that lead to the epiphany show us the importance of self-actualization. Throughout the play, we can clearly outline the differences between the two social classes, the working-class and the middle-class. These differences in language, culture, aspirations and rituals cause the obstacles to fit in. The task that Rita is pursuing is a very challenging one, that may not even be achieved. From the beginning of the play we see the struggles she is going to have, when she struggles to open the door. This is symbolic to the struggles and obstacles she will face during the process of trying to belong. The difference between language and education is shown when Frank is discussing the book Howard’s End, and Rita’s lack of education leads to the misunderstanding of the book’s title, and mocks the pun. The ambition and desire to belong into the higher social class is caused because of the lack of self-actualization. When Frank asks Rita why she has enrolled into the class, she answer, â€Å"I wanna know†¦ Everything†, this shows her lack of understanding about her own ambitions and aspirations, and shows that she is still looking for something to fulfil and enrich her life. The disproportionate use of tag questions suggests Rita’s lack of confidence, which reflects on her lack of self-actualization.

What are the similarities and differences in the very disturbed or disturbing characters which are presented in Havisham, Hitcher and The Laboratory?

There are many similarities between each of the characters in these poems but they also all vary in many ways.It appears that all of the characters are homicidal or otherwise intent on violence towards another person,but each of the characters does it in a different way. The poem â€Å"Havisham† is is a monologue spoken by Miss Havisham, a character in Dickens ‘Great Expectations'.After being left at the alter by he fiancà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½, she continues to wear her wedding dress and sit in her room without washing or changing her clothes for the rest of her life, while she plots revenge on all men.She tells the reader that has has prayed everyday for the death of her fiance and that her eyes have shrunk hard and her hands have sinews strong enough to strangle with – which fits her murderous wish for revenge on her, â€Å"beloved sweetheart bastard.Not a day since then have I not wished him dead.† Read this  Respiratory Activity Though Miss Havisham has not actually harmed another person she is willing to and wants to either kill or badly hurt the man who left her standing at the altar. She is similar to the speaker in Hitcher by her wish to hurt another person but she is has more in common with the speaker from The Laboratory because she has also been hurt by a man and wishes revenge. The poem â€Å"Hitcher† has a character who expresses violence in a completely different manner.The poem is a sort of monlogue where the speaker casually admits to possibly murdering an innocent hitchhiker.The speaker tells us that he has been taking time off work – faking illness and not answering his phone. Being threatened with the sack, he goes in to work again and gets a lift to his hired car. As he drives out of Leeds he picks up a hitchhiker who is travelling light and has no set destination. Some little way later he attacks his passenger, and throws him out of the still-moving car. The last he sees of the hiker, he is â€Å"bouncing off the kerb, then disappearing down the verge† – we do not know if he is dead or just badly injured. The driver does not appear to care. The speaker in this poem has actually harmed or possibly killed another person and does not seem even slightly troubled by what he has done. This person is similar to the other speakers because he wants to hurt people but is largely different because he has actually carried out his actions by killing or injuring somone instead of wishing or plotting. The Laboratory is a poem about a woman in 18th century France who is planning to kill her rival in front of her lover at the King's palace. It is in the form of a monologue and she is at an alchemist's shop or an apothacary, telling the proprieter about her plans.As she tells the shop owner and the reader of what she plans to do she expresses an interest in the type of poison the old man is preparing and exactly what it will do to her victim- – like the gum in the â€Å"mortar†.†This seems to suggest that she is unstable in someway or becoming deluded.The speaker has begun with a specific purpose – of poisoning one person – but now she seems to want to poison more than one person (Pauline and Elise). The desire and will to inflict pain on others is a similarity is still present in this poem.The speaker in this poem is closer to actually commiting murder than the speaker in ‘Havisham' but has not yet gone as far as possibly killing someone like in ‘Hitcher'. Overall there are many similarities and differences between all of the speakers in the poems.All show signs of a decaying sanity because of what has happened to them.Though each either plans to commit murder or has commited murder because of a different reason or in a different manner.

Fire and Its Social and Economical Problem

Fire has been called the foundation of human civilization. Fire provides warmth and heat, protecting us from the ravages of the elements . Fire gives us light to see in the dark and to signal other people who may be looking for us. Its light also tends to keep predatory animals away. Fire enables cooking, which improves the taste of many foods and helps eliminate harmful bacteria. In extreme situations, fire can be used as a weapon, brandished against wild animals or others who intend us harm. Fire plays an important role in various aspects of the Hindu Tradition. It is both the creator and destroyed of life. Uncontrolled and misuse of fire can cause tremendous adverse impacts on the environment and the human society. Forest fire is a major cause of degradation of India’s forests. Some common causes of fire in the houses are kitchen stoves, electric blankets, faulty wiring, clothes dryers, lighting, LPG, candles, crackers, flammable liquids etc. The potential for fire is present in any workplace. But, if you’re aware of the causes and conditions, if you’re prepared, and if you think before you act, the risk of a workplace fire and its damaging effects – on you, your co-workers or your company – can be minimized. Fire extinguishers are a critical component of saving property and lives in the case of a fire emergency. Ensure that fire protection equipment (i. e. , sprinklers, smoke/heat detectors, alarms, fire hoses, fire extinguishers, and fire blankets) are maintained, available for use, and not impaired or concealed. Make sure fire extinguishers correspond to the potential risk. Know where they’re located and how to use them. Good housekeeping practices and fire fighting training are the crucial to fire prevention. Ultimately it is the extra economic burden on the society.

Personal Peflection Paper Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Personal Peflection Paper - Assignment Example They carry out interviews to select the most competent persons with integrity. This process should be fair to have the right persons employed. It determines whether the candidates possess the health skills and knowledge needed to execute health duties with quality performance. Disciplinary terminations are also carried out by the HR staff. The health sector is demanding, and competent people are needed to provide proper services. Healthcare industry has a significant difference from other enterprises and thus requires the personnel to have sufficient knowledge and skills in performing their duties. Due to the changes in the health care systems technology has been introduced and much of the work computerized thus frequent training and workshops needed for employers. The HR staff is consistently providing training for its employees hence equipping them with the right skills and making them more competent. The process of training is working out well for the health organization and has highly contributed to the success of the health care by enhancing its credibility. The HR staff has a significant role in motivating the health care employees on their performance. The staff does various things to ensure that the workers’ performance will lead to attaining organizations goal and also give recommendable services as required. HR staff has provided benefits to employees such as promotions for the best performing workers. It has great an impact on the health care center since the employees get devoted to providing quality work that contributed the well-being of its clients since they get proper attention. The HR has initiated employee empowerment programs and also gives incentive to employees to motivate them. The HR has a responsibility to plan for the organization. In the health care enterprises, planning is essential and demanding than other firms. Management of risk relies on planning.

Effects of Slavery on Development of the South Essay

Effects of Slavery on Development of the South - Essay Example By the 18th century, America could not be seen as being a homogenous society. Clearly defined states could be identified that had different outlooks and different values. Which later was seen in the North versus South divide that created the two sides in the war. By April 1861, slavery had become entwined with state rights, the power of the federal government over the states and the South’s ‘way of life’. It made a significant contribution to the causes of the American Civil War.It later is seen in the North versus South divide that created the two sides.The South was an agricultural region where cotton and tobacco were the main backbone of the area’s economic strength which relied on free labor from the slaves. Slavery was seen as part of the southern way of life. Without slavery, the economic clout would have been severely dented. On the other hand, North was industrializing at a very fast rate. North’s economic development was based on entrepreneu rial skills and input of poorly paid workers who were not slaves. Due to this difference, both parts had different views of slavery. The southern side did not advocate for the release of the slaves as they relied on their labor for their economic backbone while northern side advocated for their release. These differences became the essential difference between north and south. Even after the liberation of slaves after the swearing in of Abraham Lincoln, the southern side was not viewed as a safe place for blacks as they were still considered as slaves.

Fire Protection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Fire Protection - Essay Example After mixing with water, the fluid is poured where hydration hardens the concrete within the desired shape. It is used in constructing roads, pavements, foundations, poles, blocks walls, structures, parking, bridges, underpass, etc. In either mode of construction, the most important aspect to keep in mind is fire resistance as after setting on fire the whole building can collapse. The best way is to keep the building airy and using non-combustible material (tiles of clay or slate, cement and concrete mixture, etc) in ceilings/roofs (Avillo, 2002). For windows smaller pane and double or tempered pane glass is preferred while skylights must not be made of flaming material. Firewalls, rated wall to resist fire, can be constructed to avoid the spread of fire. It slow downs the movement of fire from one side to another by separating the building into different fire areas. Constructing a project on large scale involves a number of tasks. Mixture of cement and concrete can be used to reinforce the infrastructure to increase its durability where inflammable material must be avoided for walls and roofs. There should be fire exits and firewalls to keep the burning area separate from the safe compartments.

Ethical Dilemma Assignment-using restraints and seclusion in treatment Research Paper

Ethical Dilemma Assignment-using restraints and seclusion in treatment facilities - Research Paper Example According to a study, both psychiatric and emergency nurses hold the belief that these experiences of assault from patient is part of their profession and cannot be prevented (Haddad, 2004). This is quite a disturbing finding for those involved in providing mental health care. The Ethical Dilemma of Using Restraints in Treatment Facilities A patient receiving mental care behaves unpredictably. In some cases, they seem fine but suddenly perform violent acts—throwing objects, screaming or shouting angrily, and even posing as a threat to himself or to others. For clinical nurse practitioners in the psychiatric unit, this is the new dilemma they are facing: to use restriction or not. What is the ethical dilemma here? Nurses are expected to understand their role in patients’ lives. When it comes to the psychiatric care, one particular role stands out above all else—the nurse as an advocate for their patients (Park, 2009). It may be quite difficult to fight for the pat ients’ rights when faced with factors such as self-harming behavior, aggression targeted towards health care professionals, and the call as to whether restrictions should be used. It is often confusing where nurses should lie now—will it be in their role in advocating patient right to life, personal freedom, safety and preservation of dignity or will the nurse follow hospital protocols and use seclusion or restriction measures to avoid in any occurrence of harm to anyone? Most often, the latter is the case not because it was the appropriate response but because it is the instinctive human response to feel anger or fear (Haddad, 2004). What guide must a nurse use in correctly addressing the situation and what is the solution to this ethical dilemma? To make a nurse qualified for their roles in the hospital, ethical theories and principles have been established. Instructions have been specified to make the right choices. To start, ethical theories aim toward the achievem ent of an aggregate of objectives—beneficence, least harm, respect for autonomy and justice--called ethical principles. Beneficence is concerned with â€Å"do[ing] good† and is pertinent to the principle of utility where one aims to do the highest possible proportion of good over evil (Penslar, 1995). The next objective, least harm, is quite similar to the first principle. However, this is used when any decision made will have a malicious outcome. Respect for autonomy requires an ethical theory to result in patient’s complete dominance over their lives having the privilege to control the decisions which ultimately leads to the first principle of beneficence (Ridley, 1998; Ethical Principles, 2010). In relation to that, there are various perceptions of the connection between the two. Beneficence is given first concern rather than the autonomy of a person when viewing it paternalistically or the opposite in a libertarian view. Moreover, an ethical theory must acco mplish justice where fair actions are needed to resolve and is characterized by reasonable basis to (Ethical Principles, 2010). Moreover, nonmalificence differs from the least harm principle in that this aims to cause no harm at all and is considered to be of the greatest importance even if all principles are of the same significance in theory (Kitchener, 1984; Rosenbaum, 1982; Stadler, 1986). According to Rainbow’

Historical facts of Texas Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Historical facts of Texas - Essay Example In the book, ‘A memoir of a Texas childhood’ by Horton Foote, the themes of poverty, fear, depression, racism, marital strife and injustice are clearly highlighted in the text. The book tells of the author’s early formative years as a child in rural Texas where he grew up in an extended family. In the book, the reader learns of the Foote’s experiences in life, and lessons learnt from his diverse familial relations. Horton was able to experience first hand the physical, emotional, and psychological suffering that slaves had to go through in their life. In the book, the reader is given an insight into his thoughts in the excerpt where he narrates about the slave girl who begged his sister to buy her mother’s freedom (Foote 120). According to Foote, this scenario got Horton thinking about what kind of man his grandfather was because he was a church minister and at the same time involved in the sale of other human beings. Horton is faced with many dilemm as, which are brought about by conflicting loyalties for his friends and family. The theme of racism and inherited wealth comes through when he faced with the making the choice of upholding his family or friends. This is because he had to uphold his family’s legacy as slavers in the perspective of the Ku Klux Klan or to remain friends with his black friends from his childhood (Foote 98). This burden came from the fact that he was part of the people that inherited their grandfather’s estate and assets; therefore, it was their duty to uphold his legacy. The great depression saw Horton strengthen his conviction that America needed to change the way it related to own citizens. This because the great depression, significantly affected their huge farm in Texas because did not want the help of the minorities a fact that was being fueled by racism and discrimination. Horton reasoned that the collective and equal participation of all American citizens in the economy was the onl y way to successful recover from the effects of the depression. Horton’s principles and philosophies made him the first person, in his extended family, to become

Lojack and Micrologic Alliance Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Lojack and Micrologic Alliance - Assignment Example The intention of this study is the alliance between Lojack and Micrologic as an example of upstream vertical (supplier) alliance. Alliances between companies can be horizontal and vertical. Direct horizontal relations are those in which the company reaches a tactic understanding with its competitors. This understanding might be related to price or other factors. Indirect horizontal alliances are often done with industry outsiders – these alliances help both the companies in research or other factors and do not create a conflict of interest between them. Upstream vertical alliances are done with suppliers. Lojack did not produce the theft detection system. Most of the production and technological work related to the product was done by Micrologic. Thus the alliance is an example of upstream vertical alliance along with the supplier. The other type of vertical alliance is the downstream alliance which is done with buyers. The stolen vehicle recovery system (SRV) had to involve p olitical and regulatory actors such as FCC (Federal communication system as well as various law enforcement agencies. It also involved the partnership with car dealers as well as the technology provider – Motorola. Thus the alliance between Lojack and Micrologic also involved a number of other relational actors. The initial objective of the alliance between the 2 players was intended to develop the necessary base software and equipment and to obtain FCC approves technology for the SVR system. However over a period of time the two have changed strategic objectives – Micrologic now wishes to use the alliance in order to use the marketing network of Lojack. ... ever over a period of time the two have changed strategic objectives – Micrologic now wishes to use the alliance in order to use the marketing network of Lojack. This shows that the objectives of an alliance can vary over a period of time. As the strategic objectives of the firms involved changes, the nature of partnership between them also changes. (George Stonehouse, 2004) They tend to leverage sources or integrate activities with other firm which tend to maximise their value proposition. Evaluation of the Partnership Making partnership is not a very difficult phenomenon. In this age of various multinational companies there are numerous opportunities available for collaboration. However the important thing to do is to evaluate the different collaborations. Evaluation helps both the firms to consider what are the objectives of the partnership, what they have done to achieve them and how do they want to move ahead. Evaluation helps the firm to understand how they need to work in the partnership; it helps both the partners to improve management processes and procedures. They are able to analyse the objectives which had been set by the firms initially and allows for a revision in this objectives if the need arises. Effectiveness of partnerships is important at three levels – input, output and impact. Input factors involve the partners working with each other. Both partners may bring different inputs to the partnership. In the case we are analysing the input from Micrologic was technical expertise whereas the input for Lojack was distribution and marketing strength. Output is the result of the work done by the partners together. The input and output factors both combine in order to create an impact. We will use the life cycle model of evaluating the partnerships in

Curriculum Development for Inclusive Practice Essay

Curriculum Development for Inclusive Practice - Essay Example In this manner, the course meets the needs of the learners who do not want to reveal impairment and will help them in engaging in education to their full potential. There are different aspects that can influence access to curriculum and the real design of the curriculum. In my subject areas of mathematics and edexcel, mathematics is common since it is practical while edexcel is theoretical. In order to ensure that all learners engage in the learning process curriculum fall into particular model because it is the role of the teacher to ensure that students fully understand the content before asking them questions. This is because if the students might have not understood the lesson, it may be frustrating for both the teacher and the students, when the students fail to answer the questions asked during the lesson. It is also important for the students to understand the criteria against which their work is tested. As much as students should understand the criteria of assessment, the met hod of looking into each other’s scripts is however contradictory. This is because exchanging of scripts might lead to discouragement of the poorly performing students. An efficient method that could be used is the training and educating of the students on the criteria used (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000). The criteria of assessment can be shown to students by letting them know in advance, the content of the assessment. This can give them time to prepare and thus help them in understanding and improving their scores. This can also be achieved by choosing effective assessment tools that are precise and that measure the actual content learned. The tools can be comprehensive and give students details of what is required from the assessment. Through such tools, teachers can practice multiple measures, which can help them have a better understanding of the students (Gould & Lahiff, 2000). For instance, when teaching functional skills mathematics within different pathways, GSE and stage 3 students could earn marks equivalent to an additional half a GSE each. Conservative curriculum ideologies In the conservative perception, the school is a replica of cultural attitudes and values. It is seen as an institution of transmitting the cultural values and norms from one generation to the other, thus maintaining and preserving the cultural heritage for future generations. In addition, the school also helps other institutions by spotting or identifying future leaders and offering the education necessary to its destiny as a leadership cluster or group. The conservative curriculum aids to transmit the societal culture to all people and offer relevant education to the different groups in society. It incorporates the accepted general skills such as writing, arithmetic and reading found in learning institutions (Middlewood & Burton, 2005). Additionally, loyalty to the societal membership is established by the application of literature to demonstrate important cultural themes. For conservatives, history needs to be incorporated in the curriculum because it offers perspective into the evolution of the culture and its values or norms. Music and fine arts are also applied to expose learners to the cultural values. Prescribed and defined cultural norms and values are utilized to influence and shape character or behavior to follow the

The Most Challenging Aspects of Today's Global Business Environment Essay

The Most Challenging Aspects of Today's Global Business Environment - Essay Example Today, social networks have created an information age, where businesses need to be part of the evolving network to succeed (Castells, 2010). In with the changes, the paper seeks to identify the most challenging aspects of today’s global business environment and the opportunities that exist in them for business operatives. Johansson and Leigh (2011) cited the penetration levels of multinational companies into the BRIC markets as a typical scenario of the growing importance of emerging markets in today’s global business environment. As a result of the concentration, business leaders are forced to follow the new flow of social influence by also making meaningful impacts in emerging markets (Dholakia and Talukda, 2004). On the opportunities that emerging markets present, Wilson and Purushothaman (2003) made mention of conducive political provisions that exist in most of these markets as a way of making them globalised destinations for foreign direct investments. There are also economic incentives including tax holidays and access to government supported loans (Crane, Kawashima and Kawasaki, 2002). Even more, consumers in emerging markets have become part of a global consolidation that has developed a new twist to consumer behavior, where the preference for quality forces companies to optimise thei r potentials (Gupta, 2011). The opportunities notwithstanding, there are key challenges that most emerging markets present multinational companies and other companies in the global business environment. For example, the use of superimposition, which for a long time was seen to be a major advantage for companies have been cautioned by Featherstone (1991) as having major disadvantages in any competitive global engagement. Again, the economic growth pattern of most of these emerging markets has been questioned by Smith (2014) and The Economist (2013) as being unsustainable but rather short-lived. This is because in

The character of Scrooge Essay Example for Free

The character of Scrooge Essay He asks the ghost: Tell me if Tiny Tim will live if these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die. This shows that Scrooge feels guilty for not giving his clerk more money as he witnesses their way of life. The ghost then takes Scrooge to visit his nephew Fred on Christmas day. Fred is having a splendid time and is celebrating a more modern Christmas with fun, laughter, drinking booze and playing games such as: similes and yes or no. It is less religious as they have more money and a bright, dry gleaming house However, they still have strong moral values like the Cratchits. Dickens suggests that Scrooge is missing out on the fun and games by saying, that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. This suggests that Scrooge starts to feel a bit of remorse, since he turned the invite down. Scrooge is forced to realise that he has missed a chance to be merry with the only family he has left in the world. Finally, the ghost shows Scrooge two personifications of the social situation in the form of two children: Ignorance (a boy) and Want (a girl), who symbolise mankinds downfall. Dickens uses this personification to emphasise the point of mankinds destruction, for instance the spirit says, Most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which Doom This signifies if people continue to ignore the poor, society will crumble. In this stave Scrooge feels new emotions such as regret for not paying his clerk Bob Cratchit enough money, since he lives in poverty with a huge family and a crippled son, and more regret for not attending the invite from Fred. Also, he feels a lot sadder and some happiness for Freds games and the laughter, Scrooges family had without him. The ghost of Christmas yet to come represents death and judgement, this ghost is also known as a phantom because it is wearing a black cloak which conceals its face and it doesnt say a word to add to the morbid atmosphere. They visited a house where there was one little knot of business men with a lady trying to sell some of Scrooges possessions, he sees nobody is upset by his death, but instead raiding his hose and selling off his property. I hope he didnt die of anything catching Eh? Dont you be afraid of that. This shows that people are joking over his death and no-one cares about his departure from the face of the earth. He is very upset that no-one cares about his death, all they can do is laugh and attempt to make a profit from his belongings. Scrooge asks the spirit If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this mans death Show that person to me, spirit They go to the Cratchits house, but The only emotion that the ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure. This emphasises that no-one liked him and cared about him at all, so they were not sad to witness his death. After a while, they return to the Cratchits house where Bob has just returned from work. Dickens makes Scrooge feel miserable, regret and guilt that he did not offer his help to save Tiny Tim from dying, by making the Cratchit family more depressed, for instance, My little, little child! Cried Bob. My little child! He broke down all at once. This makes the reader feel sympathy for the Cratchits and anger towards Scrooge, as he did not help a poor family at need. Also, it makes Scrooge feel terrible and he realises that he must change his ways and become a better person, to stop these perceptions from happening. Stave four is a particularly religious section of the book, as it deals with Scrooges redemption and moral reformation. The language used by Dickens is similar to that used in a religious teaching, for example: Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful death, set up thine altar here. This biblical language is meant to make us aware that as readers we are being taught a moral lesson. All Christians believed strongly in heaven and hell; the thought of spending the rest of eternity in hell, frightened most Christians, so even the meanest of people would consider changing their ways to go to heaven. In stave five, Scrooge awakens on Christmas day as a changed man. He buys the largest turkey in town and donates it to the Cratchits. Ill send it to Bob Cratchits! This shows that Scrooge has finally reformed and he is now a better man, as he is being a lot more generous. Dickens shows that Scrooge has learnt his moral lessons and is not going back to his old ways, he does this by this continual joy, care and generosity, throughout the character of Scrooge in stave five, for example: Heres the turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas! This again emphasises that Scrooge has realised and acknowledged his faults and changed them; plus he donates lots of money to the poor, Scrooge says, not a farthing less This once more shows Scrooges generosity, the poor and the two gentlemen were very grateful. He also celebrates a lovely Christmas with his nephew; Dickens shows this by saying, Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness This stresses the changes Scrooge has made and that he is having a magnificent time with his family, at last. The next morning Scrooge was at his office ready to meet Bob Cratchit and give him a pay rise, he says Ill raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family And thats exactly what Scrooge did, he did not just raise Bobs salary, but he became like a second father to Tiny Tim, who did not die. There are many references to heaven in this stave such as: I am as happy as an angel, He went to church and God bless us, every one! in contrast to the references to hell when he was parsimonious, mean-spirited and had a cold heart, for instance, It is doomed to wander through the world , ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass eternity and dark master! This creates the impression that Scrooge was going to hell in stave one because he was stingy, cruel and uncharitable. Dickens teaches a social lesson to us, near the end of the book, so we remember it. He tells us not to worry if people laugh at the sudden change in you as long as you are doing good deeds that is all that matters, for instance, Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. This puts emphasis on Scrooges reformation and confirms that Scrooge has changed for the better and for good. A Christmas Carol is an inverted tragedy, since it has five staves similar to the five acts of a Shakespeare play; but Scrooge begins a cold-hearted, cruel, spiteful and uncharitable and ends a loving, caring generous man with a stronger, warmer heart, especially to the poor and needy. Through the character of Scrooge, Dickens hoped to change the views of society by showing the rich people, who would have read the book that they were Scrooge (not sharing their wealth; being grumpy and cold-hearted). It reflects that money does not lead to happiness, but living a high-quality Christian, moral life does. As the book continues on, Scrooge becomes more and more enthusiastic to learn his moral lessons, for example: As I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was This shows his eagerness to gain knowledge of his moral and social lessons and his acceptance of his faults. Christianity was a vast issue in the 1840s, and the idea of burning in hell would have made a lot of people change their miserable, tight-fisted ways. This Christian theme is set throughout the book and if you repent your ways you will be saved (go to heaven). Dickens uses Christmas because it is an occasion when generosity, exuberance and affection should be in our hearts as a time to convey this message of charity.

Analysis of Critical Psychology Theories

Analysis of Critical Psychology Theories Introduction One of the most important bodies of knowledge is psychology. It is through psychology that so many disorders have been dealt with. The disorders referred to here are disorders to do with the state of the mind as well as the environment affecting the well being of the mind of the individual. An example of a disorder that psychologists treat is referred to as sexual compulsive behavior. Many people would still be in problems were it not for psychology. Through psychology, other bodies of knowledge have benefited. As any body of knowledge, psychology has grown to have branches within it and one of them which are relevant in this research paper is critical psychology. This research paper is going to deal with the question; Is critical Psychology essential to clients rights in Mainstream Psychology? This research is going to argue that Critical Psychology is essential to clients rights in Mainstream Psychology. The research paper is going to look at psychology and give an overview of psychology Then move on to critical psychology where it will give a detailed explanation of what critical psychology is all about by looking at how it came to existence and what it is all about then finally relate it to mainstream psychology so as to show how relevant it is in psychology. Critical psychology is a branch of psychology that was developed with the aim of criticizing the mainstream psychology. It also has a goal or a purpose which is to try and put into practice the knowledge that psychology has accumulated into practice and at the same time learning something new without being rigidly constrained within the borders of psychology. Psychology knowledge is used in ways that are progressive under critical psychology. The main focus of critical psychology is the use of social change in its bid to criticize mainstream psychology but also as a tool to treat as well as prevent psychopathology. Many criticism bullets have been shot at mainstream psychology. The most common highlights the manner in which mainstream psychology does not put into consideration or ignores deliberately the way in which the differences in power between the classes as well as the groups of society can greatly have an impact on the well-being of the person in terms of the mind and the physical bodies of either individuals or groups of people. This is very relevant material. A body of knowledge that is not constantly criticized is a body of knowledge that tends not to grow over time. It is just like a life that is never criticized and never examined. Before criticizing, there is examination. When something is examined then that means there loopholes within the existence of something are looked into and the relevance of the thing in todays world. A human being will want to be current with the fast growing world and he or she is always constantly looking at ways in which he or she can improve him or he rself. A human being is always updating him or herself to be current with the world and the changing times. This may explain the reason people do not dress in the olden day fashion styles but embrace what the fashion brings. An employee will take a course in something so as t upgrade him or herself in the field of work a person is. The human beings who listen to criticisms and work on them well always improve themselves and become better people in society but those who done never grow much. It is clear that criticism is a very aspect of growth in todays world. Businesses pay a lot of money in order to be criticized! They do this by asking their customers how their company has served them. They probe consumers with a wide range of questions in a bid to get the worst out of people about the companys product or products. This can be done with the online focus groups that are being used as marketing tools at the end of the day because the product that will emerge will be based on the improvements that the customers said they will want to see. This is the same thing with mainstream psychology. Given the nature of mainstream psychology then it would make sense for there to be a body that looks into psychology as a body of knowledge to identify the things that can be done better and the factors that have to be considered when treating psychopathology. Mainstream psychology has not mentioned the impact that the various social groups and differences we have in society can have o n an individual. Say for example that in a neighborhood, there are those that are doing really well and those that are not doing so well in terms of the financial stability. Most of the times rather than not, the people who are doing very well will come together and form some kind of social group and within this social group, they will have their own way of thinking then in the other group where people are not doing so well, there will be a way of thinking. With time these two groups will always compare themselves. This may explain why some rich people with no happiness and no people to love in their lives envy the genuineness of the love of people in the poor settings and the genuineness of their love for each other. This has an impact on the mental well being as well as the physical well being of a person. One may start to limit him or herself and decide that some things are a certain group of people and some are for a different group of people. There are many people who are a liv ing proof of such influences and have either become very poor as a result or very rich as a result. It is therefore very clear and important on the role critical psychology plays in the application of mainstream psychology. It acts as an update of mainstream psychology as well as a tool to keep mainstream psychology on its toes. It also brings psychology to life as it ensures that it is practical in its approach during the treatment of psychopathology. This is a very important aspect of critical psychology. This is the main reason as to why this research paper is going to look at the relevance of critical psychology in the role of mainstream psychology. Mainstream psychology has to be very grateful to critical psychology as critical psychology gives mainstream psychology life. Overview of Psychology The study of psychology started when the world started to civilize. During this time, human beings got to try and explain the reasons behind almost everything they found into existence. Te civilizations of Egypt, Persia, China, India as well as Greece were the first to try and study the humans as well as try to explain why some humans behaved in a certain way and others behaved in another. The ancient Muslim physicians and psychologists introduced the experimental and clinical approach that psychology has today. They even went ahead to build hospitals to cater for people with psychological problems. More steps were made when the French physiologist who went by the name Pierre Cabanis added the biological aspect of psychology in the year 1802. He had done expensive biology studies and based on the knowledge he had acquired in biology, he explained the human mind from the same perspective. He asserted that the souls as well as sensibility characterize the nervous system. (Levin Troiden, 1988) Psychology had not become a field of study until the German physician whose name was Wilhelm Wundt built the first ever laboratory for the sole purpose of the study of psychology at an institution of higher learning referred to as the Leipzig University. Wundt became known as the father of psychology because of this brave move. It is no wonder that on the very same year that the laboratory was built which was the year 1879, the year was labeled the date psychology was born. An American who was a psychologist as well as a philosopher wrote a book in 1890 which laid the solid foundation son which psychology is built for many scholars of psychology. Hermann Ebbinghaus is also a very crucial contributor to the psychology bode of knowledge that did a lot of research and experimental studies on the memory compartment of the mind. A Russian who was a guru in psychology also contributed to the knowledge of psychology as we know it today. His name is Ivan Pavlov. He cam e up with a process human beings use to learn according to him and is referred to as the classical conditioning. In the mid 20th century, most of the work done by the psychology pioneers mentioned is referred to as experimental psychology as most of this work was concerned with the information that was collected from various sectors and subjects along with the processing of the same information. The information gathered during this time is a subset of cognitive science. This period is seen as a period that brought a revolution because the development made by the various pioneers of psychology answered as well as reacted to the different kinds of ways of thinking that were in existence and at that time, there were two major schools of thought; behaviorism and psychodynamics (Lopez, Schmidt Blanco, 2007). (Syed, 2002) Psychoanalysis is a psychotherapy that was developed by Sigmund Freud who was an Australian physician. His psychology was based on the methods of interpreting of the mind, the observations of patients with mental problems or problems that were related to mental problems and introspection. He concentrated on resolving of the unconscious conflict, psychopathology as well as the mental distress of the human being. The theories that were coined by Freud were popular because they addressed issues of sexuality, the unconscious mind and also repression. The society saw the discussion of the problems Freud tried to tackle as a taboo. He managed to engage society in such discussions and proved to them that such issues could be discussed openly. It helps to deal with issues when conversations about the issues are held then the way forward formulated. Psychoanalysis was criticized and seen not to be efficient enough as it wasnt empirical and had not proven to withstand experimental tests. John B. Watson founded behaviorism. This was inclined towards determinism as well as positivism. Behaviorism was based on the premise that the use of animals to experiment could give a more in-depth understanding of psychosocial behavior such as analysis that is psychonamic in nature. The behaviorists believed the scientific research methods would result in pursuing of the necessary weapons needed to control the problems life presents rather than searching for truths which are seen to be timeless. Behaviorists maintained that much of the components of the human mind are not open to the scrutiny of science and that scientific psychology should rely on the behavior observed. This led to behaviorist analyzing the behavior of humans and relating the behavior with the environment in which the human being exists or interacts with. The behaviorism model of psychology has been challenged and its fall in part paved the way for more models to come into existence (Syed, 2002). (Khaleefa, 1999)In reaction to psychoanalysis and behaviorism, humanism and existentialism emerged in the mid 20th century. Here the whole person was analyzed and not just some parts of the person. Humanism focused on practical human issues such as aloneness, meaning, self-identity, freedom as well as death. Emphasis was not on pathology but on determinism rejection, the positive growth concern as well as subjective meaning. Abraham Maslow an American psychologist played a major role in the development of humanism. There was the formulation of the hierarchy of human needs, client-centered therapy and Gesalt therapy. Existentialism focuses on the human nature as being neutral. It also focused on anxiety and positively assessed it. Existentialism argued that the human themes such as freewill, death and meaning are shaped by existing myths as well as narrative patterns. The human themes are allowed as authentic by the human freewill. (Levin Troiden, 1988) The cognitive revolution gave birth to cognitivism as a strain of thought. Naomi Chomsky is responsible for this. Cognitivism does not support the idea that research and analysis ignoring the innate child contribution to human behavior. Cognitivism had proven to have a practical approach as it assisted in the understanding of weapons operations during the World War II. By the end of the 20th century, cognitivism had taken the psychology world and other related subjects by storm. New concepts to replace the ones that were being used in behaviorism and psychoanalytic strains of thinking were formulated such a subliminal processing and implicit memory. Cognitive psychology did not throw all the work that was done by behaviorists and psychoanalysts but it took the better of the two worlds, made it make sense and incorporated it into cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology comprised of various subfield that deal with psychology such as neuroscience, philosophy of the mind as well as computer science. One cannot strictly follow one school of thought and claim to completely understand the human mind. All schools of thought are very crucial in the understanding of the human mind. Modern psychology has come up with a school of thought that integrates all the other existent schools of thought; the biopsychosocial approach. This is so as to make it clear that any human mental process or behavior is governed by many interrelated biological, psychological as well as other social factors (Syed, 2002). Psychology is a very wide field and so much is yet to be learnt in the psychology field. There exists several subfield of psychology. In other words, we can easily come up with a long list of the psychology topics as well as the disciplines that psychology encompasses. Abnormal psychology as the name suggests involves the study of behavior that deviates from normal behavior. Biological psychology is the study that involves a combination of the biological processes in relation to the state of the mind. Biological psychology is related to cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology as well as physiology. Clinical psychology is a subfield of psychology that deals with the application of psychology knowledge with the aim of solving problems to do with distress, personal development as well as the general well being of humans. Other subfields of psychology include; counseling psychology, cognitive psychology, critical psychology, comparative psychology, forensic psychology, educational psychology, development psychology, evolutionary psychology, legal psychology, global psychology, industrial psychology, health psychology, quantitative psychology, occupational health psychology, personality psychology, school psychology as well as social psychology (Miller, 1983) When professions in the psychology field research, they draw knowledge from other bodies of knowledge so as to understand the psychology phenomena. They can do this by abduction, deduction or induction. In any psychological research project, there is no reliance on only one type of inference but all of them help when used together. There are psychologists that do nothing but research on psychology. They play a very important role in adding to the existing knowledge that psychology has so far accumulated. These researchers make use of controlled experiments, animal studies, quantitative and qualitative research, qualitative and descriptive research methods, survey questionnaires, observations in natural settings, computational modeling, longitudinal studies, animal studies and lastly, neuropsychological methods (Steffens, 2006). Psychology has been criticized to be a fuzzy science. The main reason is because there is no pre-paradigm being that we can base psychology on. Some of the interests in psychology such as well being, thinking, personality, emotion and many more cannot be measured and inferential statistics applied to it. The empirical aspect is not complete as some things cannot be assigned a number value. The testing of hypothesis is normally not up to standard as most psychologists are not adequately train to be able to analyze data. The criticism sometimes comes from one psychologist to another especially when one is research oriented and the other is clinical oriented. One side may argue that the clinical practices are not backed by empirical evidence and the other side may argue that experiments are done in controlled environments which are not the same as the real world situations. There is also concern that the scientific theories of psychology are miles apart from the actual application of ps ychology. It is more like going to school to study something then not applying the same thing in the profession one studied for. Critical Psychology By the fact that the word critical psychology has the word psychology at the very end than this means that it is a branch of psychology. Just the same way you would have people that bear the last name in a family setting, this would tell you that the two children belong to the same father. The word critical is used as it in itself is critical as it tries to bring out the aspects that mainstream psychology has continually ignored or not considered. Its main aim is to criticize mainstream psychology and this was the premise on which this branch called critical psychology came into existence. It points out other factors that may also explain the reason as to why some people think the way they think as well as make us understand the reason as to why some people are not mentally well and why some people are not physically well. Even before getting into the details of critical psychology, it is already clear that the role of critical psychology in mainstream psychology is very important. T he fact that critical psychology provides some kind of checks and balances in the psychology body of knowledge is a very big reason for one to argue that for sure critical psychology plays a major role in mainstream psychology because it acts as a push to mainstream psychology for it to grow and for it to incorporate some of the things that have been hidden from it or may have not been in existence when the body of knowledge was established meaning critical psychology gives life to mainstream psychology. Freie Universitat Berlin is the institution in which critical psychology was started in the 1970s. It is largely based on the existing knowledge that psychology as a whole had accumulated by then but it also at the same time came up with its own theories and explanations as it sees the world at one particular moment. By the beginning of May 2007, there were very few words that had been translated into English. The main root of German Critical Psychology is the post-war babyboomers student revolt which happened during the late sixties. The main spark of the student revolt was the criticism of the political economy by Marx. Berlin was the best spot for the student revolt as it was a free city which was circumference by East Germany. East Germany was socialist. This led to the sociological foundations upon which critical psychology is built to be Marxist. They have not gotten a listening ear from the many figures found in Critical Psychology. Klaus Holzkamp is a very important author in this field as he wrote the book Grundlegung der Psychologie. If the title of the book was to be translated in English then it would read Foundations of Psychology. This book is very sophisticated in the Critical Psychology field. Klaus Holzkamp might just be the man to be stamped the founder of Critical Psychology as far as the theories are concerned. Klaus had already two books which talked majorly about the theory of science as well as the sensory perception. He felt that the book on the foundations of psychology gave psychologists a reason to research as the book explains the solid paradigm upon which psychological research can be done. The book views psychology as a scientific discipline that is pre-paradigmatic. Aleksey Leontyev provides a unique approach to historical psychology as well as activity theory. According to him, the actions of human beings are as a result of the evolution of culture as well as the biological evolution. Leontyev drew from Marxs work where culture and its concepts have been materialized. He emphasized that the cognition of an individual is a subset of social action and social action is mediated by tools which are man-made such as cultural artifacts, social action is also mediated by language as well as systems and symbols that are made by man. Leontyev viewed this as something that provides a clear distinction between human cognition and human culture. Holzcamp in his attempt to give a comprehensive as well as integrated set of categories that were researched by Aleksey Leontyev, he did come up with this sophisticated book. The book was based on the research that Aleksey Leontyev had done as explained. One other theory we see Holzcamp using in his book in the fiel d of Critical Psychology is one that was developed by Lucien Steve; theory of personality. The concept here is of social activity matrices. The matrices are seen as the structure of mediation between individual reproduction as well as social reproduction. With the various theories Klaus Holzkamp is seen to use, he does not forget the works that were done at the institution in which Critical Psychology was born; Free University of Berlin. The works that were done at Free University of Berlin was done by critical psychologists and their works was greatly influenced by Mark, Steve and Leontyev. The materials he used included books that were written on sensory perception, animal behavior or ethology, cognition and motivation. Ideas from Freuds psychoanalysis which is a form of play therapy used to treat disorders and he also incorporated ideas from Merleau-Pontys phenomenology as he explained his approach. Holzcamp did a lot of comparative as well as historical analysis of perception, the human reproductive action as well as cognition. The core finding that he identified the symbolic meaning whether constructed culturally or historically to be structures that are conceptual and specifically useful to be structures that the human being will create in relationships that are close so as to make culture material. They also create the structures in close relationship in a culture that is material within the context of social reproduction that have been formed specifically in history. With this in mind, Klaus Holzkamp had a problem with behaviorism which he referred to as stimulus-response psychology or in short, S-R psychology. He looked at the analysis of the linguistics and he also showed how behaviorism created the illusion that is had scientific objectivity but at the same time behaviorism was not relevant in its understanding of human actions that are culturally situated and intentiona l at the same time. Klaus Holzkamp came up with his own approach that he drew a lot of ideas from a man that goes by the name Kurt Lewin and this he does in Chapter nine of his book titled Foundations of Psychology. This approach was to objectivity as well as generalization. Before Klaus Holzkamp died in the year 1995, he wrote on learning. His work was out in 1993 and he looked at learning from the object side and not the learner. Holzkamp was out to reinterpret the theories that were developed by psychology that was conventional. This means that he looked at the theories from the view of a critical psychologist and the paradigms of critical psychology. The useful insights that were found in conventional psychology were integrated into critical psychology but at the same time picking out and criticizing their implications that were limiting. In S-R psychology, the intentional action and the subject were eliminated. In cognitive psychology, the intentional action as well as the subj ect was taken into account. In the first part of the book, Holzkamp looks into the theories that were there in conventional psychology. The theories he focuses on most are those of learning. He then reinterprets the theories from a critical psychologist point of view. Jean Lave and Edwin Hutchins who contributed to the concept of classroom learning were very useful in the explanation of Holzkamps approach. In the second part of the book, Holzkamp looks at the modern world and the concept of classroom learning as something that is cultural and historical yet has an influence in socialization as well as learning. In the second part of the book, he looks at Michel Foucaults work of Discipline and Punish. According to Holzcamp, the historical way we know classroom learning is limiting to the student in that the ability of a student to learn is constrained to some finite teaching strategies. In his approaches, he strived to look for a way of learning that would make full use of the poten tial of the learner. Holzkamp explains expansive learning in the last part of the book which aims at overcoming the limitations that classroom learning presents. His ultimate plan was to write a book on life leadership but his demise came before he could go past the early stages of developing the book but some of this work was published in form of journals in Forum Kritische Psychologie and Argument. The period 1960s through to 1970s, critical psychology was known as radical psychology but the main reason it went by this term is to discourage the focus on the individual as the main object of analysis. It was also to discourage psychologists not to use the individual only as the only source of psychopathology. The close inspection of the role inspection plays was considered in radical psychology. The role of the society was looked at in the light that it causes and treats problems. Radical psychology looked at the change in society as an alternative therapy skill to treat illnesses of the mind as well as deal with the prevention of psychopathology. Anti-psychiatry was a term that was so common within psychiatry and so the British preferred the use of the term Critical Psychiatry. Up to today, the term Critical Psychology is still used to refer to the branch of psychology that seeks alternative methods of therapy to the conventional methods or forms of therapy that exist in the dis cipline of psychology. It is also against the idea of focusing so much on the individual that the influence the society has in the individual is not considered. In the 1990s, there were more authors writing about Critical Psychology. The one that caused a biggest shake and was most famous for its writings was an edited book and its title was Critical Psychology. This was a book written by Dennis Fox and Isaac Prilleltensky. Many different introductory texts that were written in the United Kingdom and were focused on critical psychology have a particular interest in the discourse. This was argued by different people in critical psychology as being as dangerous as mainstream psychology as it heavily relies on something; language. Heavily relying on one thing in a dynamic world is dangerous when you are supposed to explain something that interacts with so many things and in different ways. In the year 1999, Ian Parker came up with a manifesto that was very influential. The manifesto was on the Annual Review of Critical Psychology as well as the online journal Radical Psychology. In the manifesto, Ian says that Critical Psychology should have th e following components; Close examination in a systematic way of the manner in which various kinds of psychological action as well as experience have more weight over that of others, the manner in which the accounts of psychology which are dominant operate in ideologies as well as the service of the power. The manner in which the different varieties of psychology are constructed in the cultural and historical sense in their study and the manner in which the different kinds of psychology may assert or may refuse the assumptions of ideology of the mainstream psychological models The body of knowledge of the different kinds of the examination and the regulation by the individual himself or herself in day to day life and the manner in which psychological culture works when outside of the boundaries of academic practice as well as professional practice. The detail look at the manner in which mainstream psychology structures the professional work as well as the academic work in psychology and the manner in which day by day activities may provide a foundation for the act of resisting the happenings of the different disciplinary practices that are happening today. There are quite a number of journals that are international and are solely dedicated to Critical Psychology. Some of them include the Annual Review of Critical Psychology as well as the International Journal of Critical Psychology which is no longer being published. The journals lean more to the academic world. The Annual Review of Critical Psychology is an open access journal that runs online. In Britain, the Critical Psychologists and the Critical Psychiatrists have some commonality which they express via the Asylum Collective. Main Criticisms of Conventional psychology Different groups such as psychiatrists and patients as well as the public in general and the industrial lobbyists, or the very rich groups of society and the less rich groups of society, or even psychologists and their clients all have difference in power within the different groups. The psychiatrist is on a different power level as compared to the patient. They have met to discuss the same thing but it is clear that they will not discuss it from the same point of view. With such kind of treatments, the patient will mostly try to resist what the psychiatrist is saying. The psychiatrist and the patient may not agree especially when the patient has some knowledge on the same. Psychologists also have the same problem when dealing with their clients. They normally never have the same ground on which they base their actions. A patient will always want to stay in the comfort zone and what he or she went to do at the clinic is for him or her to be told that he or she is on the right course. The psychiatrist wants to gain millage as he or she interacts with the client but most of the time rather than not this millage are never easy to gain. The people who are very rich in society will definitely be at a very different level of power from the people who are less well-off in terms of finances. There are ideologies that the rich has formed about themselves and there are ideologies that the poor has formed about themselves. There also exist the theories the rich have come up about the poor and those that have come up about the rich. They are so different and I few were to put the two groups in a room there would be so much emotion that would feel the room. This already says a lot about their theories, they are based in the way they feel and not on how things are. Some poor people may have been raised by a mother who highly trained them to be beggars. They grow up not working for what they want in life. In life, you can work for whatever possibility possible that was create d by the creator of heaven and earth. The powers have been given to the human being but instead he or she will sit back and watch as things get out of hand for him o r her then start to blame some past experience or blame some one . As much as it is true that the way we relate with people I our childhood, the things that are said to us during our childhood and the things that are done to us during our childhood are very important in determining how we grow up, there exists so much media from which to learn from and so many people around us to learn from. There is no limitation as to what a human being can do that we are aware of in terms of improving their well being and taking it from one level to another. A human being can always improve himself. A human being can always fight for what he or she wants and still is in a position to wake up, shake the dust off and continue with life stronger than ever. The industrial lobbyists will have an angle from which they argue their points but the general public will always blame them for anything they can possibly utter when it comes Analysis of Critical Psychology Theories Analysis of Critical Psychology Theories Introduction One of the most important bodies of knowledge is psychology. It is through psychology that so many disorders have been dealt with. The disorders referred to here are disorders to do with the state of the mind as well as the environment affecting the well being of the mind of the individual. An example of a disorder that psychologists treat is referred to as sexual compulsive behavior. Many people would still be in problems were it not for psychology. Through psychology, other bodies of knowledge have benefited. As any body of knowledge, psychology has grown to have branches within it and one of them which are relevant in this research paper is critical psychology. This research paper is going to deal with the question; Is critical Psychology essential to clients rights in Mainstream Psychology? This research is going to argue that Critical Psychology is essential to clients rights in Mainstream Psychology. The research paper is going to look at psychology and give an overview of psychology Then move on to critical psychology where it will give a detailed explanation of what critical psychology is all about by looking at how it came to existence and what it is all about then finally relate it to mainstream psychology so as to show how relevant it is in psychology. Critical psychology is a branch of psychology that was developed with the aim of criticizing the mainstream psychology. It also has a goal or a purpose which is to try and put into practice the knowledge that psychology has accumulated into practice and at the same time learning something new without being rigidly constrained within the borders of psychology. Psychology knowledge is used in ways that are progressive under critical psychology. The main focus of critical psychology is the use of social change in its bid to criticize mainstream psychology but also as a tool to treat as well as prevent psychopathology. Many criticism bullets have been shot at mainstream psychology. The most common highlights the manner in which mainstream psychology does not put into consideration or ignores deliberately the way in which the differences in power between the classes as well as the groups of society can greatly have an impact on the well-being of the person in terms of the mind and the physical bodies of either individuals or groups of people. This is very relevant material. A body of knowledge that is not constantly criticized is a body of knowledge that tends not to grow over time. It is just like a life that is never criticized and never examined. Before criticizing, there is examination. When something is examined then that means there loopholes within the existence of something are looked into and the relevance of the thing in todays world. A human being will want to be current with the fast growing world and he or she is always constantly looking at ways in which he or she can improve him or he rself. A human being is always updating him or herself to be current with the world and the changing times. This may explain the reason people do not dress in the olden day fashion styles but embrace what the fashion brings. An employee will take a course in something so as t upgrade him or herself in the field of work a person is. The human beings who listen to criticisms and work on them well always improve themselves and become better people in society but those who done never grow much. It is clear that criticism is a very aspect of growth in todays world. Businesses pay a lot of money in order to be criticized! They do this by asking their customers how their company has served them. They probe consumers with a wide range of questions in a bid to get the worst out of people about the companys product or products. This can be done with the online focus groups that are being used as marketing tools at the end of the day because the product that will emerge will be based on the improvements that the customers said they will want to see. This is the same thing with mainstream psychology. Given the nature of mainstream psychology then it would make sense for there to be a body that looks into psychology as a body of knowledge to identify the things that can be done better and the factors that have to be considered when treating psychopathology. Mainstream psychology has not mentioned the impact that the various social groups and differences we have in society can have o n an individual. Say for example that in a neighborhood, there are those that are doing really well and those that are not doing so well in terms of the financial stability. Most of the times rather than not, the people who are doing very well will come together and form some kind of social group and within this social group, they will have their own way of thinking then in the other group where people are not doing so well, there will be a way of thinking. With time these two groups will always compare themselves. This may explain why some rich people with no happiness and no people to love in their lives envy the genuineness of the love of people in the poor settings and the genuineness of their love for each other. This has an impact on the mental well being as well as the physical well being of a person. One may start to limit him or herself and decide that some things are a certain group of people and some are for a different group of people. There are many people who are a liv ing proof of such influences and have either become very poor as a result or very rich as a result. It is therefore very clear and important on the role critical psychology plays in the application of mainstream psychology. It acts as an update of mainstream psychology as well as a tool to keep mainstream psychology on its toes. It also brings psychology to life as it ensures that it is practical in its approach during the treatment of psychopathology. This is a very important aspect of critical psychology. This is the main reason as to why this research paper is going to look at the relevance of critical psychology in the role of mainstream psychology. Mainstream psychology has to be very grateful to critical psychology as critical psychology gives mainstream psychology life. Overview of Psychology The study of psychology started when the world started to civilize. During this time, human beings got to try and explain the reasons behind almost everything they found into existence. Te civilizations of Egypt, Persia, China, India as well as Greece were the first to try and study the humans as well as try to explain why some humans behaved in a certain way and others behaved in another. The ancient Muslim physicians and psychologists introduced the experimental and clinical approach that psychology has today. They even went ahead to build hospitals to cater for people with psychological problems. More steps were made when the French physiologist who went by the name Pierre Cabanis added the biological aspect of psychology in the year 1802. He had done expensive biology studies and based on the knowledge he had acquired in biology, he explained the human mind from the same perspective. He asserted that the souls as well as sensibility characterize the nervous system. (Levin Troiden, 1988) Psychology had not become a field of study until the German physician whose name was Wilhelm Wundt built the first ever laboratory for the sole purpose of the study of psychology at an institution of higher learning referred to as the Leipzig University. Wundt became known as the father of psychology because of this brave move. It is no wonder that on the very same year that the laboratory was built which was the year 1879, the year was labeled the date psychology was born. An American who was a psychologist as well as a philosopher wrote a book in 1890 which laid the solid foundation son which psychology is built for many scholars of psychology. Hermann Ebbinghaus is also a very crucial contributor to the psychology bode of knowledge that did a lot of research and experimental studies on the memory compartment of the mind. A Russian who was a guru in psychology also contributed to the knowledge of psychology as we know it today. His name is Ivan Pavlov. He cam e up with a process human beings use to learn according to him and is referred to as the classical conditioning. In the mid 20th century, most of the work done by the psychology pioneers mentioned is referred to as experimental psychology as most of this work was concerned with the information that was collected from various sectors and subjects along with the processing of the same information. The information gathered during this time is a subset of cognitive science. This period is seen as a period that brought a revolution because the development made by the various pioneers of psychology answered as well as reacted to the different kinds of ways of thinking that were in existence and at that time, there were two major schools of thought; behaviorism and psychodynamics (Lopez, Schmidt Blanco, 2007). (Syed, 2002) Psychoanalysis is a psychotherapy that was developed by Sigmund Freud who was an Australian physician. His psychology was based on the methods of interpreting of the mind, the observations of patients with mental problems or problems that were related to mental problems and introspection. He concentrated on resolving of the unconscious conflict, psychopathology as well as the mental distress of the human being. The theories that were coined by Freud were popular because they addressed issues of sexuality, the unconscious mind and also repression. The society saw the discussion of the problems Freud tried to tackle as a taboo. He managed to engage society in such discussions and proved to them that such issues could be discussed openly. It helps to deal with issues when conversations about the issues are held then the way forward formulated. Psychoanalysis was criticized and seen not to be efficient enough as it wasnt empirical and had not proven to withstand experimental tests. John B. Watson founded behaviorism. This was inclined towards determinism as well as positivism. Behaviorism was based on the premise that the use of animals to experiment could give a more in-depth understanding of psychosocial behavior such as analysis that is psychonamic in nature. The behaviorists believed the scientific research methods would result in pursuing of the necessary weapons needed to control the problems life presents rather than searching for truths which are seen to be timeless. Behaviorists maintained that much of the components of the human mind are not open to the scrutiny of science and that scientific psychology should rely on the behavior observed. This led to behaviorist analyzing the behavior of humans and relating the behavior with the environment in which the human being exists or interacts with. The behaviorism model of psychology has been challenged and its fall in part paved the way for more models to come into existence (Syed, 2002). (Khaleefa, 1999)In reaction to psychoanalysis and behaviorism, humanism and existentialism emerged in the mid 20th century. Here the whole person was analyzed and not just some parts of the person. Humanism focused on practical human issues such as aloneness, meaning, self-identity, freedom as well as death. Emphasis was not on pathology but on determinism rejection, the positive growth concern as well as subjective meaning. Abraham Maslow an American psychologist played a major role in the development of humanism. There was the formulation of the hierarchy of human needs, client-centered therapy and Gesalt therapy. Existentialism focuses on the human nature as being neutral. It also focused on anxiety and positively assessed it. Existentialism argued that the human themes such as freewill, death and meaning are shaped by existing myths as well as narrative patterns. The human themes are allowed as authentic by the human freewill. (Levin Troiden, 1988) The cognitive revolution gave birth to cognitivism as a strain of thought. Naomi Chomsky is responsible for this. Cognitivism does not support the idea that research and analysis ignoring the innate child contribution to human behavior. Cognitivism had proven to have a practical approach as it assisted in the understanding of weapons operations during the World War II. By the end of the 20th century, cognitivism had taken the psychology world and other related subjects by storm. New concepts to replace the ones that were being used in behaviorism and psychoanalytic strains of thinking were formulated such a subliminal processing and implicit memory. Cognitive psychology did not throw all the work that was done by behaviorists and psychoanalysts but it took the better of the two worlds, made it make sense and incorporated it into cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology comprised of various subfield that deal with psychology such as neuroscience, philosophy of the mind as well as computer science. One cannot strictly follow one school of thought and claim to completely understand the human mind. All schools of thought are very crucial in the understanding of the human mind. Modern psychology has come up with a school of thought that integrates all the other existent schools of thought; the biopsychosocial approach. This is so as to make it clear that any human mental process or behavior is governed by many interrelated biological, psychological as well as other social factors (Syed, 2002). Psychology is a very wide field and so much is yet to be learnt in the psychology field. There exists several subfield of psychology. In other words, we can easily come up with a long list of the psychology topics as well as the disciplines that psychology encompasses. Abnormal psychology as the name suggests involves the study of behavior that deviates from normal behavior. Biological psychology is the study that involves a combination of the biological processes in relation to the state of the mind. Biological psychology is related to cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology as well as physiology. Clinical psychology is a subfield of psychology that deals with the application of psychology knowledge with the aim of solving problems to do with distress, personal development as well as the general well being of humans. Other subfields of psychology include; counseling psychology, cognitive psychology, critical psychology, comparative psychology, forensic psychology, educational psychology, development psychology, evolutionary psychology, legal psychology, global psychology, industrial psychology, health psychology, quantitative psychology, occupational health psychology, personality psychology, school psychology as well as social psychology (Miller, 1983) When professions in the psychology field research, they draw knowledge from other bodies of knowledge so as to understand the psychology phenomena. They can do this by abduction, deduction or induction. In any psychological research project, there is no reliance on only one type of inference but all of them help when used together. There are psychologists that do nothing but research on psychology. They play a very important role in adding to the existing knowledge that psychology has so far accumulated. These researchers make use of controlled experiments, animal studies, quantitative and qualitative research, qualitative and descriptive research methods, survey questionnaires, observations in natural settings, computational modeling, longitudinal studies, animal studies and lastly, neuropsychological methods (Steffens, 2006). Psychology has been criticized to be a fuzzy science. The main reason is because there is no pre-paradigm being that we can base psychology on. Some of the interests in psychology such as well being, thinking, personality, emotion and many more cannot be measured and inferential statistics applied to it. The empirical aspect is not complete as some things cannot be assigned a number value. The testing of hypothesis is normally not up to standard as most psychologists are not adequately train to be able to analyze data. The criticism sometimes comes from one psychologist to another especially when one is research oriented and the other is clinical oriented. One side may argue that the clinical practices are not backed by empirical evidence and the other side may argue that experiments are done in controlled environments which are not the same as the real world situations. There is also concern that the scientific theories of psychology are miles apart from the actual application of ps ychology. It is more like going to school to study something then not applying the same thing in the profession one studied for. Critical Psychology By the fact that the word critical psychology has the word psychology at the very end than this means that it is a branch of psychology. Just the same way you would have people that bear the last name in a family setting, this would tell you that the two children belong to the same father. The word critical is used as it in itself is critical as it tries to bring out the aspects that mainstream psychology has continually ignored or not considered. Its main aim is to criticize mainstream psychology and this was the premise on which this branch called critical psychology came into existence. It points out other factors that may also explain the reason as to why some people think the way they think as well as make us understand the reason as to why some people are not mentally well and why some people are not physically well. Even before getting into the details of critical psychology, it is already clear that the role of critical psychology in mainstream psychology is very important. T he fact that critical psychology provides some kind of checks and balances in the psychology body of knowledge is a very big reason for one to argue that for sure critical psychology plays a major role in mainstream psychology because it acts as a push to mainstream psychology for it to grow and for it to incorporate some of the things that have been hidden from it or may have not been in existence when the body of knowledge was established meaning critical psychology gives life to mainstream psychology. Freie Universitat Berlin is the institution in which critical psychology was started in the 1970s. It is largely based on the existing knowledge that psychology as a whole had accumulated by then but it also at the same time came up with its own theories and explanations as it sees the world at one particular moment. By the beginning of May 2007, there were very few words that had been translated into English. The main root of German Critical Psychology is the post-war babyboomers student revolt which happened during the late sixties. The main spark of the student revolt was the criticism of the political economy by Marx. Berlin was the best spot for the student revolt as it was a free city which was circumference by East Germany. East Germany was socialist. This led to the sociological foundations upon which critical psychology is built to be Marxist. They have not gotten a listening ear from the many figures found in Critical Psychology. Klaus Holzkamp is a very important author in this field as he wrote the book Grundlegung der Psychologie. If the title of the book was to be translated in English then it would read Foundations of Psychology. This book is very sophisticated in the Critical Psychology field. Klaus Holzkamp might just be the man to be stamped the founder of Critical Psychology as far as the theories are concerned. Klaus had already two books which talked majorly about the theory of science as well as the sensory perception. He felt that the book on the foundations of psychology gave psychologists a reason to research as the book explains the solid paradigm upon which psychological research can be done. The book views psychology as a scientific discipline that is pre-paradigmatic. Aleksey Leontyev provides a unique approach to historical psychology as well as activity theory. According to him, the actions of human beings are as a result of the evolution of culture as well as the biological evolution. Leontyev drew from Marxs work where culture and its concepts have been materialized. He emphasized that the cognition of an individual is a subset of social action and social action is mediated by tools which are man-made such as cultural artifacts, social action is also mediated by language as well as systems and symbols that are made by man. Leontyev viewed this as something that provides a clear distinction between human cognition and human culture. Holzcamp in his attempt to give a comprehensive as well as integrated set of categories that were researched by Aleksey Leontyev, he did come up with this sophisticated book. The book was based on the research that Aleksey Leontyev had done as explained. One other theory we see Holzcamp using in his book in the fiel d of Critical Psychology is one that was developed by Lucien Steve; theory of personality. The concept here is of social activity matrices. The matrices are seen as the structure of mediation between individual reproduction as well as social reproduction. With the various theories Klaus Holzkamp is seen to use, he does not forget the works that were done at the institution in which Critical Psychology was born; Free University of Berlin. The works that were done at Free University of Berlin was done by critical psychologists and their works was greatly influenced by Mark, Steve and Leontyev. The materials he used included books that were written on sensory perception, animal behavior or ethology, cognition and motivation. Ideas from Freuds psychoanalysis which is a form of play therapy used to treat disorders and he also incorporated ideas from Merleau-Pontys phenomenology as he explained his approach. Holzcamp did a lot of comparative as well as historical analysis of perception, the human reproductive action as well as cognition. The core finding that he identified the symbolic meaning whether constructed culturally or historically to be structures that are conceptual and specifically useful to be structures that the human being will create in relationships that are close so as to make culture material. They also create the structures in close relationship in a culture that is material within the context of social reproduction that have been formed specifically in history. With this in mind, Klaus Holzkamp had a problem with behaviorism which he referred to as stimulus-response psychology or in short, S-R psychology. He looked at the analysis of the linguistics and he also showed how behaviorism created the illusion that is had scientific objectivity but at the same time behaviorism was not relevant in its understanding of human actions that are culturally situated and intentiona l at the same time. Klaus Holzkamp came up with his own approach that he drew a lot of ideas from a man that goes by the name Kurt Lewin and this he does in Chapter nine of his book titled Foundations of Psychology. This approach was to objectivity as well as generalization. Before Klaus Holzkamp died in the year 1995, he wrote on learning. His work was out in 1993 and he looked at learning from the object side and not the learner. Holzkamp was out to reinterpret the theories that were developed by psychology that was conventional. This means that he looked at the theories from the view of a critical psychologist and the paradigms of critical psychology. The useful insights that were found in conventional psychology were integrated into critical psychology but at the same time picking out and criticizing their implications that were limiting. In S-R psychology, the intentional action and the subject were eliminated. In cognitive psychology, the intentional action as well as the subj ect was taken into account. In the first part of the book, Holzkamp looks into the theories that were there in conventional psychology. The theories he focuses on most are those of learning. He then reinterprets the theories from a critical psychologist point of view. Jean Lave and Edwin Hutchins who contributed to the concept of classroom learning were very useful in the explanation of Holzkamps approach. In the second part of the book, Holzkamp looks at the modern world and the concept of classroom learning as something that is cultural and historical yet has an influence in socialization as well as learning. In the second part of the book, he looks at Michel Foucaults work of Discipline and Punish. According to Holzcamp, the historical way we know classroom learning is limiting to the student in that the ability of a student to learn is constrained to some finite teaching strategies. In his approaches, he strived to look for a way of learning that would make full use of the poten tial of the learner. Holzkamp explains expansive learning in the last part of the book which aims at overcoming the limitations that classroom learning presents. His ultimate plan was to write a book on life leadership but his demise came before he could go past the early stages of developing the book but some of this work was published in form of journals in Forum Kritische Psychologie and Argument. The period 1960s through to 1970s, critical psychology was known as radical psychology but the main reason it went by this term is to discourage the focus on the individual as the main object of analysis. It was also to discourage psychologists not to use the individual only as the only source of psychopathology. The close inspection of the role inspection plays was considered in radical psychology. The role of the society was looked at in the light that it causes and treats problems. Radical psychology looked at the change in society as an alternative therapy skill to treat illnesses of the mind as well as deal with the prevention of psychopathology. Anti-psychiatry was a term that was so common within psychiatry and so the British preferred the use of the term Critical Psychiatry. Up to today, the term Critical Psychology is still used to refer to the branch of psychology that seeks alternative methods of therapy to the conventional methods or forms of therapy that exist in the dis cipline of psychology. It is also against the idea of focusing so much on the individual that the influence the society has in the individual is not considered. In the 1990s, there were more authors writing about Critical Psychology. The one that caused a biggest shake and was most famous for its writings was an edited book and its title was Critical Psychology. This was a book written by Dennis Fox and Isaac Prilleltensky. Many different introductory texts that were written in the United Kingdom and were focused on critical psychology have a particular interest in the discourse. This was argued by different people in critical psychology as being as dangerous as mainstream psychology as it heavily relies on something; language. Heavily relying on one thing in a dynamic world is dangerous when you are supposed to explain something that interacts with so many things and in different ways. In the year 1999, Ian Parker came up with a manifesto that was very influential. The manifesto was on the Annual Review of Critical Psychology as well as the online journal Radical Psychology. In the manifesto, Ian says that Critical Psychology should have th e following components; Close examination in a systematic way of the manner in which various kinds of psychological action as well as experience have more weight over that of others, the manner in which the accounts of psychology which are dominant operate in ideologies as well as the service of the power. The manner in which the different varieties of psychology are constructed in the cultural and historical sense in their study and the manner in which the different kinds of psychology may assert or may refuse the assumptions of ideology of the mainstream psychological models The body of knowledge of the different kinds of the examination and the regulation by the individual himself or herself in day to day life and the manner in which psychological culture works when outside of the boundaries of academic practice as well as professional practice. The detail look at the manner in which mainstream psychology structures the professional work as well as the academic work in psychology and the manner in which day by day activities may provide a foundation for the act of resisting the happenings of the different disciplinary practices that are happening today. There are quite a number of journals that are international and are solely dedicated to Critical Psychology. Some of them include the Annual Review of Critical Psychology as well as the International Journal of Critical Psychology which is no longer being published. The journals lean more to the academic world. The Annual Review of Critical Psychology is an open access journal that runs online. In Britain, the Critical Psychologists and the Critical Psychiatrists have some commonality which they express via the Asylum Collective. Main Criticisms of Conventional psychology Different groups such as psychiatrists and patients as well as the public in general and the industrial lobbyists, or the very rich groups of society and the less rich groups of society, or even psychologists and their clients all have difference in power within the different groups. The psychiatrist is on a different power level as compared to the patient. They have met to discuss the same thing but it is clear that they will not discuss it from the same point of view. With such kind of treatments, the patient will mostly try to resist what the psychiatrist is saying. The psychiatrist and the patient may not agree especially when the patient has some knowledge on the same. Psychologists also have the same problem when dealing with their clients. They normally never have the same ground on which they base their actions. A patient will always want to stay in the comfort zone and what he or she went to do at the clinic is for him or her to be told that he or she is on the right course. The psychiatrist wants to gain millage as he or she interacts with the client but most of the time rather than not this millage are never easy to gain. The people who are very rich in society will definitely be at a very different level of power from the people who are less well-off in terms of finances. There are ideologies that the rich has formed about themselves and there are ideologies that the poor has formed about themselves. There also exist the theories the rich have come up about the poor and those that have come up about the rich. They are so different and I few were to put the two groups in a room there would be so much emotion that would feel the room. This already says a lot about their theories, they are based in the way they feel and not on how things are. Some poor people may have been raised by a mother who highly trained them to be beggars. They grow up not working for what they want in life. In life, you can work for whatever possibility possible that was create d by the creator of heaven and earth. The powers have been given to the human being but instead he or she will sit back and watch as things get out of hand for him o r her then start to blame some past experience or blame some one . As much as it is true that the way we relate with people I our childhood, the things that are said to us during our childhood and the things that are done to us during our childhood are very important in determining how we grow up, there exists so much media from which to learn from and so many people around us to learn from. There is no limitation as to what a human being can do that we are aware of in terms of improving their well being and taking it from one level to another. A human being can always improve himself. A human being can always fight for what he or she wants and still is in a position to wake up, shake the dust off and continue with life stronger than ever. The industrial lobbyists will have an angle from which they argue their points but the general public will always blame them for anything they can possibly utter when it comes