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Originally Posted by Nancy1999  I can tell you in psychology, there are three major schools of thought, Behaviorism, Freudian or what is known as Psychoanalysis, and Humanistic psychology. The strict Freudians hate the Behaviorists and the Humanists, as does the strict Behaviorist, hate the other branches. A therapist, who only endorses one branch and shuns the others, is making a huge mistake; behavior modification works well, in certain circumstances, but talk therapy is needed in others. Dog training has long been dominated by only Behaviorism, because there was no way to psychoanalyze or develop a dogs " self-actualization." So Cesar comes along, and starts looking into the dog's psyche, and what he believes a dogs really needs to be "self actualized", exercise, discipline, and affection, and this is a whole new way of thinking, when we start to look at the dog's needs. He is incorporating the two other branches of psychology, into his methods, and I can understand why this would infuriate behaviorists. While behaviorism was my specialty, I never discounted the other branches as being worthless, but I can tell you that most behaviorists do, even with human psychology, and when you are talking about animal psychology, I doubt if you will find any strict behaviorist who would endorse Cesar because Cesar doesn't just rely on just behaviorism. |
I don't agree with this. First, there have been huge breakthroughs in the use of medications to treat anxiety disorders and the like in animals. It's been recognized that animals can have OCD, and there is tons of observations and discussion at zoos about how to keep animals happy and engaged, because zoo animals often act in neurotic ways. Second, Victoria just had a veterinarian on her show to analyze one dog's extreme separation anxiety with another dog, and the vet talked about how dogs can experience grief and PTSD. Victoria talked about the evil chi described earlier as having experienced rejection and loss. Third, I see so many people saying about Cesar "dogs just need to know what you like and don't like." How is this psychology? Fourth, there is tons and tons and tons of research into animal emotions. Saying there isn't, or that all trainers are straight behaviorists, isn't true.
Finally, human psychology is a whole other ball of wax, greatly complicated by the fact that we are studying our own species, and a whole host of other factors.