PSY2012 Midterm
10-14-16
A.
I. The patient in this case conceptualization is a 25 year old European-American male who suffers from violent behaviors toward both men and women. He was recently released from a three year prison sentence for beating a man unconscious in a drunken brawl. Currently employed as a custodian although he does have an associate’s degree in computer repair, he cannot find a job in that field because of his past. Patient has been in multiple intimate relationships in the past, which have never lasted more than half a year. He reports that the women always disappear one day while he is at work, and he never sees them again. Patient is currently in an intimate relationship with a 19 year old female, …show more content…
There are eight distinct stages of psychosocial development that involve the psychological needs of the individual with the conflicting needs of society. Failure to successfully complete a stage can result in the inability to complete further stages. In this case according to Erikson, the patient is in the sixth stage of development which is intimacy vs. isolation. In this stage, we explore relationships leading to long term commitments. This patient is stuck in this stage not only because there are many participating factors, but he doesn’t grasp the virtue of love. The patient avoids long term commitment which leads to isolation and …show more content…
Learning is the change in behavior that occurs with experiences. Albert Bandura proposed The Social Learning Theory; that we learn by both doing and by observing. Learning by doing is enactive, and learning by watching others is called observational learning. In this particular case, the Social Learning Theory is related to the violent behaviors of this man. The patient learned his violent behaviors from modeling, which is observing and imitating the behaviors of others around him. By watching his mother or father engage in violent behaviors towards one another this man learned to act violently at a young age. The social learning theory also works through reinforcement, which is how the consequences of our behavior influence whether we repeat those behaviors. The patient may receive some sort of internal reward, like some sort of joy or satisfaction when he acts violently which would increase him to want to act that way. Due to the fact that this man did not successfully complete the stages of psychosocial development he suffers from an unhealthy personality and sense to