The psychological schools are the great classical theories of psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

. Each has been highly influential, however most psychologists hold eclectic

Eclecticism

Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...

 viewpoints that combine aspects of each school.

The most influential ones are behaviorism

Behaviorism

Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...

, the psychoanalytic school of Freud, Systems psychology

Systems psychology

Systems psychology is a branch of applied psychology that studies human behaviour and experience in complex systems. It is inspired by systems theory and systems thinking, and based on the theoretical work of Roger Barker, Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana and others. It is an approach in...

, functionalism

Functional psychology

Functional psychology or functionalism refers to a general psychological philosophy that considers mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person's environment. As such, it provides the general basis for developing psychological theories not readily testable by controlled...

, humanistic

Humanistic psychology

Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the work of early pioneers like Carl Rogers and the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology...

/Gestalt

Gestalt therapy

Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating...

, and cognitivism

Cognitivism (psychology)

In psychology, cognitivism is a theoretical framework for understanding the mind that came into usage in the 1950s. The movement was a response to behaviorism, which cognitivists said neglected to explain cognition...

. Here are some other schools of thought in psychology:

• Activity-oriented approach
  Activity theory
  Activity theory is a psychological meta-theory, paradigm, or theoretical framework, with its roots in Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky's cultural-historical psychology. Its founders were Alexei N...
  
  
• Analytical psychology
  Analytical psychology
  Analytical psychology is the school of psychology originating from the ideas of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. His theoretical orientation has been advanced by his students and other thinkers who followed in his tradition. Though they share similarities, analytical psychology is distinct from...
  
  
• Associationism
  Associationism
  Associationism in philosophy refers to the idea that mental processes operate by the association of one state with its successor states.The idea is first recorded in Plato and Aristotle, especially with regard to the succession of memories....
  
  
• Behaviorism
  Behaviorism
  Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...
  
   (see also Radical behaviorism
  Radical behaviorism
  Radical behaviorism is a philosophy developed by B.F. Skinner that underlies the experimental analysis of behavior approach to psychology. The term radical behaviorism applies to a particular school that emerged during the reign of behaviorism...
  
  )
• Behavioural genetics
  Behavioural genetics
  Quantitative human behavioural genetics is a specialisation in the biological field of behaviour genetics that studies the role of genetics in human behaviour employing quantitative-genetic methods. The field is an overlap of quantitative genetics and psychology...
  
  
• Biological psychology
• Cognitivism
  Cognitivism (psychology)
  In psychology, cognitivism is a theoretical framework for understanding the mind that came into usage in the 1950s. The movement was a response to behaviorism, which cognitivists said neglected to explain cognition...
  
  
• Cultural-historical psychology
  Cultural-historical psychology
  Cultural-historical psychology is a theory of psychology founded by Lev Vygotsky at the end of the 1920s and developed by his students and followers in...
  
  
• Depth psychology
  Depth psychology
  Historically, depth psychology, from a German term , was coined by Eugen Bleuler to refer to psychoanalytic approaches to therapy and research that take the unconscious into account. The term has come to refer to the ongoing development of theories and therapies pioneered by Pierre Janet, William...
  
  
• Descriptive psychology
  Descriptive psychology
  Descriptive Psychology is primarily a conceptual framework for the science of psychology. Created in its original form by Peter G. Ossorio at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the mid-1960s, it has subsequently been the subject of hundreds of books and papers that have updated, refined, and...
  
  
• Developmental psychology
  Developmental psychology
  Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...
  
  
• Ecopsychology
  Ecopsychology
  Ecopsychology connects psychology and ecology. Its political and practical goals are to show humans ways of healing alienation and to build a "sane" society and a sustainable culture. Theodore Roszak is credited with coining the term in his 1992 book, The Voice of the Earth...
  
  
• Ecological psychology
  Ecological psychology
  Ecological psychology is a term claimed by a number of schools of psychology. However, the two main ones are one on the writings of James J. Gibson, and another on the work of Roger G. Barker, Herb Wright and associates at the University of Kansas in Lawrence...
  
  
• Ego psychology
  Ego psychology
  Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.An individual interacts with the external world as well as responds to internal forces. Many psychoanalysts use a theoretical construct called the ego to explain how that is done...
  
  
• Environmental psychology
  Environmental psychology
  Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field focused on the interplay between humans and their surroundings. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments...
  
  
• Evolutionary psychology
  Evolutionary psychology
  Evolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...
  
  
• Existential psychology
• Experimental analysis of behavior
  Experimental analysis of behavior
  The experimental analysis of behavior is the name given to the school of psychology founded by B.F. Skinner, and based on his philosophy of radical behaviorism. A central principle was the inductive, data-driven examination of functional relations, as opposed to the kinds of hypothetico-deductive...
  
   - the school descended from B.F. Skinner's work.
• Functionalism
  Functional psychology
  Functional psychology or functionalism refers to a general psychological philosophy that considers mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person's environment. As such, it provides the general basis for developing psychological theories not readily testable by controlled...
  
  
• Gestalt psychology
  Gestalt psychology
  Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a theory of mind and brain of the Berlin School; the operational principle of gestalt psychology is that the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies...
  
  
• Gestalt therapy
  Gestalt therapy
  Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating...
  
  
• Humanistic psychology
  Humanistic psychology
  Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the work of early pioneers like Carl Rogers and the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology...
  
  
• Individual psychology
  Individual psychology
  Individual psychology is a term used specifically to refer to the psychological method or science founded by the Viennese psychiatrist Alfred Adler...
  
  
• Industrial psychology
• Organismic Psychology
  Organismic theory
  Organismic theories in psychology are a family of holistic psychological theories which tend to stress the organization, unity, and integration of human beings expressed through each individual's inherent growth or developmental tendency...
  
  
• Organizational psychology
• Phenomenological psychology
• Phrenology
  Phrenology
  Phrenology is a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules...
  
   (Considered as a pseudoscience
  Pseudoscience
  Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
  
  ))
• Process Psychology
  Process psychology
  Process Psychology is a branch of psychotherapeutic psychology which was derived from Process Philosophy as developed by Alfred North Whitehead. It bears a similar name to Process Oriented Psychology as developed by Arnold Mindell and Amy Mindell but is different in theoretical foundations and...
  
  
• Psychoanalysis
  Psychoanalysis
  Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
  
  
• Radical behaviorism
  Radical behaviorism
  Radical behaviorism is a philosophy developed by B.F. Skinner that underlies the experimental analysis of behavior approach to psychology. The term radical behaviorism applies to a particular school that emerged during the reign of behaviorism...
  
   - technically a school of philosophy, not psychology.
• Self (psychology)
  Self (psychology)
  The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology derived from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the...
  
  
• Social psychology
  Social psychology
  Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
  
   (also known as "Sociocultural psychology")
• Structuralism
  Structuralism (psychology)
  Structuralism in psychology refers to the theory founded by Edward B. Titchener , with the goal to describe the structure of the mind in terms of the most primitive elements of mental experience...
  
  
• Transactional analysis
  Transactional analysis
  Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. It is described as integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanist and cognitive approaches...
  
  
• Transpersonal psychology
  Transpersonal psychology
  Transpersonal psychology is a form of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience....