The Eclectic Approach

'An eclectic thinker is one who selectively adopts ideas from different sources and combines them in the development of a new theory'

• In the case of psychology, taking aspects, methods or ideas from each of the 5 perspectives (biological, cognitive, behaviourism, humanism and psychodynamic) may provide a richer fuller and more accurate picture of human nature
• This definition refers not only to taking ideas and insights from different perspectives, but also putting them together to produce a new theory
• This new theory should replace two or more perspectives but psychology has not yet progressed to combine ideas and create a whole new perspective
• The value of adopting an eclective approach in psychology is that human thought and behaviour does not readily lend itself to understanding from one perspective

The eclectic approach is particularly useful when explaining the causes of mental disorders as research has suggested that there isn't just one root cause.

Diathesis Stress Model- Schizophrenia

• This suggests that individuals have a biological predisposition to schizophrenia but an environmental stressor (family dysfunction, cannabis, extreme stress) is needed to trigger the symptoms
• Supported by abnormal brain structures--> people can go their whole life with enlarged ventricles but never develop schizophrenia

Depression

• Concordance rates are 46% MZ for unipolar suggesting there are other factors other than genetics contributing to the cause of depression e.g. observational learning, peer pressure, APD
• Supported by the fact that antidepressant medication that works by increasing synaptic activity of the neurotransmitters serotonin and noradrenaline, have only around 65% efficacy

• Theoretical eclecticism- The combination of different theories and approaches
• Methodological eclecticism- The combination of different research methods
• Epistemological eclecticism- The combination of different debates e.g. nature/nurture
• Applied eclecticism- Combining approaches in applied psychology e.g. treatments
• Selective eclecticism- Combining approaches or keeping them seperate, depending on the situation

• Useful and appropriate in many cases e.g. treatment of depression
• In therapy, the treatment should be tailored to the individual, therefore an eclectic approach to any therapy is often the most appropriate
• There is often an overlap between the approaches, with the complexity of human behaviour rarely bein explained by only one approach
• Adhering to only one approach can narrow our understanding of behaviour and limit research to further our knowledge (using only a biological reductioninst view or only using experiemental methods from behaviorism)
• Eclecticism can mean considering areas other than psychology e.g. sociology, which can help our understanding of behaviour

• Some approaches just can't be combined as this would result in their fundamental difference being ignored e.g. humanism and behaviourism
• Prevents psychology from being regarded as scientific, as it suggests there is no paradigm (Feyerabend claimed this was a necessity), instead it lends itself to more of a common sense approach
• Whilst being useful in treatment and therapies, the eclectic approach can mean a therapist fails to be an expert in any particular approach but instead have a shallow understanding of all of them