Understanding
Psychology has come from three different backgrounds, philosophy, psychology, and biology. While one may think that psychology is a new
science, it truly dates back to Greek Philosophers. Once can trace its roots to two different
human behaviors. Philosophy is the
exploring and understanding of several facets of ‘nature’ in the world. Introspection is what philosophy is all
about. Basically reflecting on one’s
ideas and inner experiences is how one can put into layman’s terms the real
definition of philosophy. The other field
that incorporates psychology, is physiology, this is a subcategory of biology.
William Wundt who was the father of psychology really was a physiologist. Physiologists seek enlightenment from
observation also known as empiricism.
Two very famous historical classmates of
Hippocrates were Plato and Aristotle.
Both believed that the mind was within the body. Oddly though, both placed them in two
different regions in the body. Plato
stated it was in the brain, and Aristotle said it was in the heart. The two of them impacted psychology by the
relationship of the mind and the body; the use of observation by way of
discovering the truth; and what is the original source of our ideas (Sternberg,
1998). While their views were
slightly different with regard to the nature of reality, they played a pivotal
role in psychology as it is known today.
Later in the Sixteenth through the nineteenth
century, Rene’ Descartes, John Locke and Immanuel Kant continued to mold modern
day psychology. Rene’ was a French
mathematician and philosopher who embraced Plato’s views on introspection and
reflection which he felt were superior to observation. John Locke was an Englishman that thought
that the collaboration between mind and body. He also was what is defined as an
empiricist, which is a human is born without knowledge. This is how his term blank slate first came
about. Life experiences get written on the tablets and thus how we become who
we are. Immanuel Kant the latest of the
philosophers, tried to create a viewpoint between dualism versus monism and
empiricism versus rationalism. Kant
retrained the psychological field to rethink the mind-body question by
inquiring how the mind and body are related over the mind being in
control. Kant thought that most humans
had some mental powers such as senses, understanding and reasoning. This is where the link between the mind and
body comes in. During the nineteenth
century, for the first time, science and philosophy worked hand in hand that
set the stage for psychology to be its own separate discipline by the late
1800’s.
Some chronological events that led to
modern day psychology are Socrates saying “Know Thyself” which is what
Psychology aims to help do. In 387 BC,
Plato commended the brain was a mechanism for the mental processes. In 335 BC, Aristotle suggested that the
heart was a mechanism for mental processes.
Franz Mesmer detailed his cure for mental illness in 1774 later to be
known as hypnosis. 1793 there was a massive movement for more humane treatment
of the mentally ill, suggested by Philippe Pinel. Darwin’s publication of “Origin of the
Species” explicitly expanded on the survival of the fittest back in 1859. The first laboratory founded by Wilhelm Wundt
at the University of Leipzig in Germany.
The very famous Johns Hopkins University was established in 1883 this
had the first psychology laboratory in it.
The first school of thought was
structuralism. The basic goal here was
to study one’s consciousness by focusing on the smallest parts like perception,
sensation and affection. The basic
method was to school the patients in an attempt to observe one’s own conscious
experiences (Whiten, 2004). As psychology grew, a student of Wundt’s
Edward Titchener started the first school of thought. His thought was that the human consciousness
was sub-categorized even smaller than once originally thought. His processes would attempt to break down
reactions and sensations of patients.
This was very limited and unreliable thus when he died in August 1927 it
went to the grave with him.
Some later developments that effected
psychology were behaviorism, gestalt theory, psychoanalysis, humanism and the
concave theory. John Watson was a
psychologist who molded the focus of psychology. He thought that the study of the conscious
was to objective. Internal mental
processes should not be studied, but instead observed this became movement
known as behaviorism. Behaviorism took a
nice foothold in America and became the lead in school teachings for little
less than a half a century. Gestalt
Theory came from Max Wertheimer’s research into what he called illusion of
movement (History of Psychology, 2010). A good example of this is a movie seen on
TV. Continuous movement from flashing
frames of light. Basically this theory
consisted of that any psychological wonder should be studied holistically and
not broken down but researched as a whole.
The next movement that took place in Europe was from Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis as they say revolutionized the
science of psychology. While Freud’s
theory was detailed the main idea was that the unconscious is responsible for
thought and behavior in humans. While he
was a radical of his day, many of his ideas are believed by psychologists
today. Humanism became a part of
psychology in the 1950’s. Some felt that
the psychoanalytic theory and behaviorism was brutalizing so they took on a
name more humane. Humanists, alleged
that humans were inherently good and that their mental processes played a role
in their behavior. Things like free will and emotions are all key in
humanism. The latest movement called
cognitive theory surfaced in the 1970’s.
It was more objective than humanism, but different than
behaviorism. Its focus was all mental
processes. Basically, we humans take
information from our environment, and process it mentally. Processing it entails organizing it,
manipulating it, and then storing it in memory.
Cognitive theorist, take the ideas, language, memory and apply it to
their ideas.
Psychology is a formal discipline well
rich in over a hundred years learning, growing and molding. Psychologists use thoughts from Plato, Franz Mesmer, Phineas Gage, Darwin and Freud
to study where we are going in this science.
Learning from the past, adapting and growing to our future will lead us
to be cornerstone makers in our time.
References
History of Psychology. (2010, August 25). Retrieved February 7, 2011, from
Oracle Think Quest: http://library.thinkquest.org/C005870/history/index.php?id=historyp1
Goodwin, C. J. (2008). A History of
Modern Psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. .
Sternberg, R. J. (1998). Search of the
Human Mind. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace.
Whiten, W. (2004). Psychology Themes
anv Variations. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
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