A Brief History of Western Psychology

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A Brief History of Western Psychology
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Ebers Papyrus of about 1550 BC

• The Ebers papyrus is written in hieratic script
  and preserves for us the most voluminous record
  of ancient Egyptian medicine known. The 110-page
  scroll contains some 700 magical formulas and
  remedies. Although it contains many incantations
  meant to turn away disease-causing demons and
  other superstition, there is also evidence of a
  long tradition of empirical practice and
  observation.
• The papyrus contains a "treatise on the heart."
  It notes that the heart is the center of the
  blood supply, with vessels attached for every
  member of the body. The Egyptians seem to have
  known little about the kidneys and made the heart
  the meeting point of a number of vessels which
  carried all the fluids of the body blood,
  tears, urine and sperm.
• Mental disorders are detailed in a chapter of the
  papyrus called the Book of Hearts. Disorders such
  as depression and dementia are covered. The
  descriptions of these disorders suggest that
  Egyptians conceived of mental and physical
  diseases in much the same way.

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Phrenology

• Phrenology (from Greek f???, phren, "mind" and
  ?????, logos, "knowledge") is a theory which
  claims to be able to determine character,
  personality traits, and criminality on the basis
  of the shape of the head (reading "bumps").
  Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall
  around 1800, and very popular in the 19th
  century, it is now discredited as a
  pseudoscience. Phrenology has however received
  credit as a protoscience for having contributed
  to medical science the ideas that the brain is
  the organ of the mind and that certain brain
  areas have localized, specific functions.
• Its principles were that the brain is the organ
  of the mind, and that mind has a set of different
  mental faculties, each particular faculty being
  represented in a different part or organ of the
  brain. These areas were said to be proportional
  to a given individual's propensities and
  importance of a mental faculty, and the overlying
  skull bone to reflect these differences.

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The 19th century

• Physiology, including neurophysiology,
  professionalized and saw some of its most
  significant discoveries. Among its leaders were
  Charles Bell (1774-1843) and François Magendie
  (1783-1855) who independently discovered the
  distinction between sensory and motor nerves in
  the spinal column, Johannes Müller (1801-1855)
  who proposed the doctrine of specific nerve
  energies, Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896) who
  studied the electrical basis of muscle
  contraction, Pierre Paul Broca (1824-1880) and
  Carl Wernicke (1848-1905) who identified areas of
  the brain responsible for different aspects of
  language, as well as Gustav Frisch (1837-1927),
  Eduard Hitzig (1839-1907), and David Ferrier
  (1843-1924) who localized sensory and motor areas
  of the brain. One of the principal founders of
  experimental physiology, Hermann von Helmholtz
  (1821-1894), conducted studies of a wide range of
  topics that would later be of interest to
  psychologists -- the speed of neural
  transmission, the natures of sound and color, and
  of our perceptions of them, etc. In the 1860s,
  while he held a position in Heidelberg, Helmholtz
  engaged as an assistant a young M.D. named
  Wilhelm Wundt. Wundt employed the equipment of
  the physiology laboratory -- chronoscope,
  kymograph, and various peripheral devices -- to
  address more complicated psychological questions
  than had heretofore been considered
  experimentally. In particular he was interested
  in the nature of apperception -- the point at
  which a perception comes into the central focus
  of conscious awareness.

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• Drawing of the cells of the chick cerebellum by
  Santiago Ramón y Cajal, from "Estructura de los
  centros nerviosos de las aves", Madrid, 1905

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Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

• Structuralism
• Introspection
• Establishment of the first psychology lab

• Wundt perceived the subject as the study of
  human consciousness and sought to apply
  experimental methods to studying internal mental
  processes. While his use of a process known as
  introspection is seen as unreliable and
  unscientific today, his early work in psychology
  helped set the stage for future experimental
  methods. An estimated 17,000 students attended
  Wundts psychology lectures, and hundreds more
  pursued degrees in psychology and studied in his
  psychology lab. While his influence dwindled in
  the years to come, his impact on psychology is
  unquestionable.

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Structuralism Becomes Psychologys First School
of Thought Edward B. Titchener, one of Wundts
most famous students, would go on to found
psychologys first major school of thought.
According to the structuralists, human
consciousness could be broken down into much
smaller parts. Using a process known as
introspection, trained subjects would attempt to
break down their responses and reactions to the
most basic sensation and perceptions. While
structuralism is notable for its emphasis on
scientific research, its methods were unreliable,
limiting, and subjective. When Titchener died in
1927, structuralism essentially died with him.
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Structuralism vs. Functionalism

• Structuralism was the first school of psychology,
  and focused on breaking down mental processes
  into the most basic components.
• Functionalism formed as a reaction to the
  theories of the structuralist school of thought
  and was heavily influenced by the work of William
  James. Major functionalist thinkers included John
  Dewey and Harvey Carr.

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The Functionalism of William James

• Psychology flourished in American during the mid-
  to late-1800s. William James emerged as one of
  the major American psychologists during this
  period and the publication of his classic
  textbook, The Principles of Psychology,
  established him as the father of American
  psychology. His book soon became the standard
  text in psychology and his ideas eventually
  served as the basis for a new school of thought
  known as functionalism. The focus of
  functionalism was on how behavior actually works
  to help people live in their environment.
  Functionalists utilized methods such as direct
  observation. While both of these early schools of
  thought emphasized human consciousness, their
  conceptions of it were significantly different.
  While the structuralists sought to break down
  mental processes into their smallest parts, the
  functionalists believed that consciousness
  existed as a more continuous and changing
  process. While functionalism is no longer a
  separate school of thought, it would go on to
  influence later psychologists and theories of
  human thought and behavior.

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The Psychology of Sigmund Freud

• Up to this point, early psychology stressed
  conscious human experience. An Austrian physician
  named Sigmund Freud changed the face of
  psychology in a dramatic way, proposing a theory
  of personality that emphasized the importance of
  the unconscious mind. Freuds clinical work with
  patients suffering from hysteria and other
  ailments led him to believe that early childhood
  experiences and unconscious impulses contributed
  to the development of adult personality and
  behavior.

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Psychoanalysis

• Sigmund Freud was the founder of the
  psychodynamic approach. This school of thought
  emphasizes the influence of the unconscious mind
  on behavior. Freud believed that the human mind
  was composed of three elements the id, the ego,
  and the superego. Other major psychodynamic
  thinkers include Anna Freud, Carl Jung, and Erik
  Erikson.

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Freuds Contributions to Psychology

• Regardless of the perception of Sigmund Freuds
  theories, there is no question that he had an
  enormous impact on the field of psychology. His
  work supported the belief that not all mental
  illnesses have physiological causes and he also
  offered evidence that cultural differences have
  an impact on psychology and behavior. His work
  and writings contributed to our understanding of
  personality, clinical psychology, human
  development, and abnormal psychology.

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Behaviorism

• The Psychology of Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner
• Psychology changed dramatically during the early
  20th-century as another school of thought known
  as behaviorism rose to dominance. Behaviorism was
  a major change from previous theoretical
  perspectives, rejecting the emphasis on both the
  conscious and unconscious mind. Instead,
  behaviorism strove to make psychology a more
  scientific discipline by focusing purely on
  observable behavior.

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Ivan Pavlov

• Behaviorism had its earliest start with the
  work of a Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov.
  Pavlovs research on the digestive systems of
  dogs led to his discovery of the classical
  conditioning process, which demonstrated that
  behaviors could be learned via conditioned
  associations.

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Behaviorism

• Behaviorism became the dominant school of thought
  during the 1950s. Based upon the work of thinkers
  such as John Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B. F.
  Skinner, behaviorism holds that all behavior can
  be explained by environmental causes, rather than
  by internal forces. Behaviorism is focused on
  observable behavior. Theories of learning
  including classical conditioning and operant
  conditioning were the focus of a great deal of
  research.

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• An American psychologist named John B. Watson
  soon became one of the strongest advocates of
  behaviorism. Initially outlining the basics
  principles of this new school of thought in his
  1913 paper Psychology as the Behaviorist Views
  It, Watson later went on to offer a definition in
  his classic book Behaviorism (1924), writing
• Behaviorismholds that the subject matter of
  human psychology is the behavior of the human
  being. Behaviorism claims that consciousness is
  neither a definite nor a usable concept. The
  behaviorist, who has been trained always as an
  experimentalist, holds, further, that belief in
  the existence of consciousness goes back to the
  ancient days of superstition and magic.

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B. F. Skinner

• The impact of behaviorism was enormous, and this
  school of thought continued to dominate for the
  next 50 years. Psychologist B.F. Skinner
  furthered the behaviorist perspective with his
  concept of operant conditioning, which
  demonstrated the effect of punishment and
  reinforcement on behavior. While behaviorism
  eventually lost its hold on psychology, the basic
  principles of behavioral psychology are still
  widely in use today. Therapeutic techniques such
  as behavioral modification and token economies
  are often utilized to help children learn new
  skills and overcome maladaptive behaviors, while
  conditioning is used in many situations ranging
  from parenting to education.

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Dissenting schools

• Not all psychologists, however, have been happy
  with what they perceive as mechanical models of
  the mind and human nature.
• Carl Jung, a one-time follower and contemporary
  of Freud, was instrumental in introducing notions
  of spirituality into Freudian psychoanalysis
  (Freud had rejected religion as a mass delusion).
• Alfred Adler, after a brief association with
  Freud's discussion circle, left to form his own
  discipline, called Individual (indivisible)
  Psychology. His influence on contemporary
  psychology has been considerable, with many
  approaches borrowing fragments of his theory. A
  recent rebirth of his legacy, Classical Adlerian
  Psychology, combines Adler's original theory of
  personality, style of psychotherapy, and
  philosophy of living, with Abraham Maslow's
  vision of optimal functioning.
• Humanistic psychology emerged in the 1950s and
  has continued as a reaction to positivist and
  scientific approaches to the mind. It stresses a
  phenomenological view of human experience and
  seeks to understand human beings and their
  behavior by conducting qualitative research. The
  humanistic approach has its roots in
  existentialist and phenomenological philosophy
  and many humanist psychologists completely reject
  a scientific approach, arguing that trying to
  turn human experience into measurements strips it
  of all meaning and relevance to lived existence.
• Some of the founding theorists behind this school
  of thought are Abraham Maslow, who formulated a
  hierarchy of human needs Carl Rogers, who
  created and developed client centred therapy and
  Fritz Perls, who helped create and develop
  Gestalt therapy.
• A further development of Humanistic psychology
  emerging in the 1970s was Transpersonal
  psychology, which studies the spiritual dimension
  of humanity, looking at the possibilities for
  development beyond the normal ego-boundaries.

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Humanism

• The Third Force in Psychology
• While the first half of the twentieth-century was
  dominated by psychoanalysis and behaviorism, a
  new school of thought known as humanistic
  psychology emerged during the second half of the
  century. Often referred to as the third force
  in psychology, this theoretical perspective
  emphasized conscious experiences. American
  psychologist Carl Rogers is often considered the
  founding father of this school of thought. While
  psychoanalysts looked at unconscious impulses and
  behaviorists focused purely on environmental
  causes, Rogers believed strongly in the power of
  free will and self-determination. Psychologist
  Abraham Maslow also contributed to humanistic
  psychology with his famous hierarchy of needs
  theory of human motivation.

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Humanistic Psychology

• Humanistic psychology developed as a response to
  psychoanalysis and behaviorism. Humanistic
  psychology instead focused on individual free
  will, personal growth, and self-actualization.
  Major humanist thinkers included Abraham
  Maslow and Carl Rogers.

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Gestalt Psychology

• Gestalt psychology is based upon the idea
  that we experience things as unified wholes. This
  approach to psychology began in Germany and
  Austria during the late 19th century in response
  to the molecular approach of structuralism.
  Rather that breaking down thoughts and behavior
  to their smallest element, the gestalt
  psychologists believed that you must look at the
  whole of experience. According to the gestalt
  thinkers, the whole is greater than the sum of
  its parts.

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Cognitive Psychology

• Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology
  that studies mental processes including how
  people think, perceive, remember, and learn. As
  part of the larger field of cognitive science,
  this branch of psychology is related to other
  disciplines including neuroscience, philosophy,
  and linguistics. One of the most influential
  theories from this school of thought was the
  stages of cognitive development theory proposed
  by Jean Piaget.

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Cognitivism

• Noam Chomsky's review of Skinner's book Verbal
  Behavior (that aimed to explain language
  acquisition in a behaviorist framework) is
  considered one of the major theoretical
  challenges to the type of radical behaviorism
  that Skinner taught. Chomsky showed that language
  could not be learned solely from the sort of
  operant conditioning that Skinner postulated.
  Chomsky's argument was that as people could
  produce an infinite variety of sentences unique
  in structure and meaning, and that these could
  not possibly be generated solely through
  experience of natural language. As an
  alternative, he concluded that there must be
  internal mental structures - states of mind of
  the sort that behaviorism rejected as illusory.
  Similarly, work by Albert Bandura showed that
  children could learn by social observation,
  without any change in overt behaviour, and so
  must be accounted for by internal
  representations.
• The rise of computer technology also promoted the
  metaphor of mental function as information
  processing. This, combined with a scientific
  approach to studying the mind, as well as a
  belief in internal mental states, led to the rise
  of cognitivism as the dominant model of the mind.
• Links between brain and nervous system function
  were also becoming common, partly due to the
  experimental work of people like Charles
  Sherrington and Donald Hebb, and partly due to
  studies of people with brain injury (see
  cognitive neuropsychology). With the development
  of technologies for accurately measuring brain
  function, neuropsychology and cognitive
  neuroscience have become some of the most active
  areas in contemporary psychology.
• With the increasing involvement of other
  disciplines (such as philosophy, computer
  science, and neuroscience) in the quest to
  understand the mind, the umbrella discipline of
  cognitive science has been created as a means of
  focusing such efforts in a constructive way.

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Todays Psychologists

• As you have seen in this brief overview of
  psychologys history, this discipline has seen
  dramatic growth and change since its official
  beginnings in Wundts lab. The story certainly
  does not end here. Psychology has continued to
  evolve since 1960 and new ideas and perspectives
  have been introduced. Recent research in
  psychology looks at many aspects of the human
  experience, from the biological influences on
  behavior to the impact of social and cultural
  factors. Today, the majority of psychologists
  do not identify themselves with a single school
  of thought. Instead, they often focus on a
  particular specialty area or perspective, often
  drawing on ideas from a range of theoretical
  backgrounds. This eclectic approach has
  contributed new ideas and theories that will
  continue to shape psychology for years to come.

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