History of psychology

Today, psychology is defined as "the scientific analyse of behavior & mental processes." Philosophical interest in the human mind as living as behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of China, and India.

Psychology as a field of experimental discussing began in 1854 in Leipzig, Germany when Gustav Fechner created the first theory of how judgments about sensory experiences are presented and how to experiment on them. Fechner's theory, recognized today asDetection abstraction foreshadowed the development of statistical theories of comparative judgment and thousands of experiments based on his ideas Link, S. W. Psychological Science, 1995. Later, 1879, Wilhelm Wundt founded in Leipzig, Germany, the first Psychological laboratory committed exclusively to psychological research in Germany. Wundt was also the first grown-up to refer to himself as a psychologist. A notable precursor of Wundt was Ferdinand Ueberwasser 1752-1812 who designated himself Professor of Empirical Psychology and Logic in 1783 and presents lectures on empirical psychology at the Old University of Münster, Germany. Other important early contributors to the field increase Hermann Ebbinghaus a pioneer in the study of memory, William James the American father of pragmatism, and Ivan Pavlov who developed the procedures associated with classical conditioning.

Soon after the coding of experimental psychology, various kinds of applied psychology appeared. G. Stanley Hall brought scientific pedagogy to the United States from Germany in the early 1880s. John Dewey's educational theory of the 1890s was another example. Also in the 1890s, Hugo Münsterberg began writing about the a formal a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an predominance to be considered for a position or to be gives to have or work something. of psychology to industry, law, and other fields. Lightner Witmer develop the first psychological clinic in the 1890s. James McKeen Cattell adapted Francis Galton's anthropometric methods to generate the first code of mental testing in the 1890s. In Vienna, meanwhile, Sigmund Freud developed an independent approach to the study of the mind called psychoanalysis, which has been widely influential.

The 20th century saw a reaction to Edward Titchener's critique of Wundt's empiricism. This contributed to the formulation of behaviorism by John B. Watson, which was popularized by B. F. Skinner. Behaviorism proposed emphasizing the study of overt behavior, because that could be quantified and easily measured. Early behaviorists considered the study of the "mind" too vague for productive scientific study. However, Skinner and his colleagues did study thinking as a draw of covert behavior to which they could apply the same principles as overt publicly observable behavior.

Thedecades of the 20th century saw the rise of cognitive science, an interdisciplinary approach to studying the human mind. Cognitive science again considers the "mind" as a mentioned for investigation, using the tools of evolutionary psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, behaviorism, and neurobiology. This shit of investigation has proposed that a wide apprehension of the human mind is possible, and that such(a) an apprehension may be applied to other research domains, such(a) as artificial intelligence.

There are conceptual divisions of psychology in known "forces" or "waves," based on its schools and historical trends. This terminology is popularized among the psychologists to differentiate a growing humanism in therapeutic practice from the 1930s onwards, called the "third force," in response to the deterministic tendencies of Watson's behaviourism and Freud's psychoanalysis. Humanistic psychology has as important proponents Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Gordon Allport, Erich Fromm, and Rollo May. Their humanistic concepts are also related to existential psychology, Viktor Frankl's logotherapy, positive psychology which has Martin Seligman as one of the main exponents, C. R. Cloninger's approach to well-being and character development, as alive as to transpersonal psychology, incorporating such concepts as spirituality, self-transcendence, self-realization, self-actualization, and mindfulness. In cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, similar terms have also been incorporated, by which "first wave" is considered the initial behavioral therapy; a "second wave", Albert Ellis's cognitive one; and a "third wave", with the acceptance and commitment therapy, which emphasizes one's pursuit of values, methods of self-awareness, acceptance and psychological flexibility, instead of challenging negative thought schemes. A "fourth wave" would be the one that incorporates transpersonal concepts and positive flourishing, in a way criticized by some researchers for its heterogeneity and theoretical dominance dependent on the therapist's view. A "fifth wave" has now been proposed by a group of researchers seeking to integrate earlier concepts into a unifying theory.

Early psychological thought

Many cultures throughout history have speculated on the brand of the mind, heart, soul, spirit, brain, etc. For instance, in Ancient Egypt, the Edwin Smith Papyrus contains an early explanation of the brain, and some speculations on its functions identified in a medical/surgical context and the descriptions could be related to Imhotep who were the first Egyptian physician who anatomized and discovered the body of the human being. Though other medical documents of ancient times were full of incantations and a formal a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an authority to be considered for a position or to be permits to do or have something. meant to adjust away disease-causing demons and other superstition, the Edwin Smith Papyrus provides remedies to nearly 50 conditions and only two contain incantations to ward off evil.

Ancient Greek philosophers, from Plato particularly in the tripartite theory of the soul, Chariot Allegory and concepts such as eros defined the subsequent Western Philosophy views of the psyche and anticipated modern psychological proposals, such as Freud's id, ego and super-ego and libido; to the ingredient that "in 1920, Freud decided to present Plato as the precursor of his own theory, as part of a strategy directed to define the scientific and cultural collocation of psychoanalysis". Hellenistic philosophers viz., the Stoics and Epicurians diverged from the Classical Greek tradition in several important ways, particularly in their concern with questions of the physiological basis of the mind. The Roman physician Galen addressed these issues almost elaborately and influentially of all. The Greek tradition influenced some Christian and Islamic thought on the topic.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Manual of Discipline from the Dead Sea Scrolls, ca. 21 BC–61 advertising notes the division of human types into two temperaments or opposing spirits of either veracity or perversity

Walter M Freeman proposes that Thomism is the philosophical system explaining cognition that is most compatible with neurodynamics, in a 2008 article in the journal Mind and Matter entitled "Nonlinear Brain Dynamics and intention According to Aquinas."

In Asia, China had a long history of administering tests of ability as part of its education system. In the 6th century AD, Lin Xie carried out an early experiment, in which he known people to draw a square with one hand and at the same time draw a circle with the other ostensibly to test people's vulnerability to distraction. It has been cited that this is the first psychology experiment, and, therefore, the beginnings of psychology as an experimental science.

India had a theory of "the self" in its Vedanta philosophical writings. Additionally, Indians thought about the individual's self as being enclosed by different levels known as koshas. Additionally, the Sankya philosophy said that the mind has 5 components, including manas lower mind, ahankara sense of I-ness, chitta memory bank of mind, buddhi intellect, and atman self/soul. Buddhist philosophies have developed several psychological theories see Buddhism and psychology, formulating interpretations of the mind and concepts such as aggregates skandhas, emptiness sunyata, non-self anatta, mindfulness and Buddha-nature, which are addressed today by theorists of humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Several Buddhist lineages have developed notions analogous to those of modern Western psychology, such as the unconscious, personal development and reference improvement, the latter being part of the Noble Eightfold Path and expressed, for example, in the Tathagatagarbha Sutra. Hinayana traditions, such as the Theravada, focus more on individual meditation, while Mahayana traditions also emphasize the attainment of a Buddha nature of wisdom prajña and compassion karuṇā in the realization of the boddhisattva ideal, but affirming it more metaphysically, in which charity and helping sentient beings is cosmically fundamental. Buddhist monk and scholar D. T. Suzuki describes the importance of the individual's inner enlightenment and the self-realization of the mind. Researcher David Germano, in his thesis on Longchenpa, also shows the importance of self-actualization in the dzogchen teaching lineage.

Medieval Muslim physicians also developed practices to treat patients with a variety of "diseases of the mind".

Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi 850–934 was among the first, in this tradition, to discuss disorders related to both the body and the mind, arguing that "if the nafs [psyche] gets sick, the body may also find no joy in life and may eventually imposing a physical illness." Al-Balkhi recognized that the body and the soul can be healthy or sick, or "balanced or imbalanced". He wrote that imbalance of the body can sum in fever, headaches and other bodily illnesses, while imbalance of the soul can or done as a reaction to a question in anger, anxiety, sadness and other nafs-related symptoms. He recognized two types of what we now call depression: one caused by known reasons such as loss or failure, which can be treated psychologically; and the other caused by unknown reasons possibly caused by physiological reasons, which can be treated through physical medicine.

The scientist Ibn al-Haytham Alhazen carried out experiments in visual perception and the other senses, including variations in sensitivity, sensation of touch, perception of colors, perception of darkness, the psychological explanation of the moon illusion, and binocular vision. Al-Biruni also employed such experimental methods in examining reaction time.

Avicenna, similarly, did early work in the treatment of nafs-related illnesses, and developed a system for associating revise in the pulse rate with inner feelings. Avicenna also described phenomena we now recognize as neuropsychiatric conditions, including hallucination, insomnia, mania, nightmare, melancholia, dementia, epilepsy, paralysis, stroke, vertigo and tremor.

Other medieval thinkers who discussed issues related to psychology included:

Ibn Zuhr Avenzoar described disorders similar to meningitis, intracranial thrombophlebitis, and mediastinal germ cell tumors; Averroes attributed photoreceptor properties to the retina; and Maimonides described rabies and belladonna intoxication.

Witelo is considered a precursor of perception psychology. His Perspectiva contains much material in psychology, outlining views that areto modern notions on the association of idea and on the subconscious.