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A 4-year-old become frightened of the dark and refuses to go to sleep at night. How would a psychoanalyst and a behaviorist differ in their views of how this problem developed?

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Considering psychoanalysis and behavioral psychology, how would one answer the following questions: 1. A 4-year-old becomes frightened of the dark and refuses to go to sleep at night. How would a...

Considering psychoanalysis and behavioral psychology, how would one answer the following questions:

1. A 4-year-old becomes frightened of the dark and refuses to go to sleep at night. How would a psychoanalyst and a behaviorist differ in their views of how this problem developed?

2. Imagine if you were the parent of a down syndrome child. What factors, within and beyond the family, could help you support your child's development?

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TAMARA K. H. eNotes educator | CERTIFIED EDUCATOR

As we are limited in space, below are a few ideas to help get you started.

In such a situation, a psychoanalyst would judge the 4-year-old's fear of the dark based on Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theories and techniques. Freud theorized that all phobias are a direct result of unresolved conflicts between the id and the superego. The id is the part of our brains that acts solely based on emotions, while the superego is our conscience, the part of our brain that acts based on value judgements; acting contrarily to the judgements of the superego will create a sense of guilt, and that sense of guilt can lead to unwanted behavior, like phobic behavior ("Phobia Treatment Options: Psychoanalysis"). More specifically, Freud theorized that phobias result from the superego repressing the desires of the id, and one of the most common repressions is the desire, especially for a boy, to have sexual relations one's mother . Freud traced all kinds of seemingly unrelated phobias to the desire for sexual relations with...