What I Think of Freud and Little Hans
At this point, I think Sigmund Freud is a very weird guy. I can sense that most of Freud's theories and interpretations are realated to sex. By this, I assume that he is a pervert which might be caused by his family background. On the other hand, he is really smart in the way the he used to cure Little Hans.

Throughout the class discussion, I develop lots of new ideas on Freud. I think that Freud is a compassionate man because he travel to where Little Hans lives in order to cure him.... I doubt how could interpret Little Hans's words and correctly apply it to his theories. Does it really work?

For Hans, I think he's just an ordinary person except his abnormality during childhood. I think that even without Freud, he could be naturally cured through muturation. As he continue to develop his ego, he will be normal like everyone in the society again.

How Science in 19th and Early 20th Centuries Affected Freud's Ideas
The ideas of Freud were greatly affected by the influences from many pieces of technology and scientists in his times. During much of Freud's life, the dominant technology was steam power. Steam was very common in back then as how computer is nowadays. Hermann von Helmholtz -- the person who introduced the theory of conservation of energy -- was one of the scientists who greatly influenced Freud. In his theory, Helmholtz stated that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. From here, Freud found out that human are driven by “psychic energy”. Moreover, Freud was able to adapt the theories of thermodynamics to explain his theories of psychodynamics. He theorized that human personality is divided into three parts, the id, ego, and superego. Freud had well described his theories by using the analogy of thermodynamics – he mainly compared to id, ego, and superego to the systems of steam engines which include fire, water, and steam. On the other hand, Charles Darwin’s ideas had also been a great influence to Freud’s theories. Through law of nature, Darwin showed that man is a part of nature world. Therefore, it could be studied scientifically. By looking back at the theory of evolution, we can see many several similarities in Freud’s theories of psychodynamics. For example, Darwin suggested adaptation – the change in organisms in order to suit better in the environment -- in his theory while Freud introduced ego – human personality that changed social condition -- in the psychodynamics.

Assessment 1

The major changes in psychotherapy in this century have been the expansion into the wider group of people who need treatments. During these days, one doesn’t have to be rich to get psychotherapy. Several objects such as books, cassettes, and computer assisted materials – those widely excepted by experts -- are developed in order to help people to get a therapy easier. By being able to reach the masses, lots of people will be cured from psychological disorders. Also, psychotherapists nowadays have better understandings of the multicultural backgrounds of the patients, in which, they are able to develop special treatment methods for each specific individual. With these changes, therapists are able to apply the psychological theories and create their own unique practices. Through these modern advances, psychology will surely be optimized to its highest efficiency.
In this article, twenty breakthroughs were being mentioned.

• Firstly, one of the discoveries I found most important was the one of Jean Piaget. In this finding, Piaget was able to show that children are unable to identify the conservation of quantity of objects placed in container with various shapes. From the result of this research, he was able to demonstrate that human intelligence develop in stages, in which, in the early stages, the sense of justice in children was not fully developed. By knowing this, psychotherapist will be able to give various types of treatment which suits the patients from different age groups – this will provide the treatments with optimized efficiencies.
• Secondly, Harry F. Harlow’s research had discovered the innate differences in characteristics of males and females – males play rough and female play soft and gentle, but on the other hand females play rougher with their words. Through understanding this, psychologists might give more importance to biological perception, in which, genetics shaped our personalities.
• Next, the breakthrough of Robert Epstein in “Capturing Creativity” was able to demonstrate that the creative process in an individual is predictable. By undergoing several training processes, human beings can be more creative which will lead to better performance. As a result, companies would give more concerns on giving out more training to their employee in order to increase their productivity, and indeed, creativity.
• The fourth important research in my opinion is Hans Selye’s ways of coping with stress. As most of us know, stress plays a great role in illness, mood, and performance. We believe that the way to cope stress is to find peace. We are wrong. According to Selye, each of types of human beings need specific ways to deal with stress correctly, or else bad effects might follow. For example, some people are better-off busy and hardworking life. If we let them stay in a very peaceful place where there is tranquil environment, it might be even more stressful to them.
• The last breakthrough I found important is Judith Rodin’s way to effectively control or lose or weight. I think that this discovery can save many people from getting over weight which might decrease the number of deaths caused by obesity and heart-linked diseases.

The Big Issues in Psychology

Today, in psychologycalss, I did a survey about my opinion on irrationality(0) vs. rationality(25) , change (0) vs. stability (25), and nurture (0) vs. nature (25). At first, I think I believe in irrationality, change, and nurture. After taking the survey, the result turned out to be almost the same, except that my believe in rationality vs. irrationality had changed.
On the score range bar, I got the results of

• 17 for a strong believe in rationality
• 1 for a strong believe in change
• 8 for a believe in nurture

....According to the results, I have a very strong believe that the people can really change over time through environmental influences and what they experienced during their life time. However, the results also show that I had wrong ideas about rationality of human beings.

Why do we do the things that we do?

I think we do the things that we do mainly because our thoughts, but also, our thoughts have always been influenced by several external factors such as environments, cultures, and how we changed and experience things through time.

In my opinion, I think the most important factor that shapes our thought is genetics and how we are raised up. We will be able to know our personalities and who we really are from the time we are toddlers to late childhood. We can not change who we really are "internally", but on the other hand, we can be changed "externally" through our life time. We may be influenced by many factors which will cause us to act differently when we are conscious or when we are staying under a certain social condition. In contrast, I believe we can not be changed internally or when we are unconscious.

Why Psychology

Getting to study in this intensive psychology course will certainly grant me many valuable insights about myself. I hope that most of the things that I will be learning during this course will be really useful in my future life. I expect that throughout the course, I will be able to apply psychological principles in real life situations, in which, it might help me to know others and even myself more – providing me with better social contact skills and several ways to improve myself.

I believe that enrolling in a psychology course will surely help me to communicate better and more logically -- which will help satisfy the people I would be dealing with in the future. Also, each person has unique personalities. In order for me to understand and provide a logical reason to those uniqueness, I decide to study the diversity of people and what they are thinking.
Lastly, I believe that every actions committed by human beings are based on psychology. So...I am here to find the answer.