PSYCHOLOGY

History and Systems of Psychology



Abstract

This study attempts to explore the history and systems of psychology, in a comprehensive manner. Score of researches in the past has focused on the same subject but mostly lacks comprehension in the body of the paper. This paper has discussed the key concepts of history and systems of psychology briefly but comprehensively. The study presents a detailed discussion and analysis section, which contain all the key concepts, past researches and arguments regarding the subject. This study concludes with a basic but fact that psychology system has changed and developed during its history, however majority of its concepts are not discovered yet, which demands further researches on exploration of psychological concepts, in order to better understand the the world.

History and Systems of Psychology

Introduction

"Psychology" originated from the Greek words logos, meaning word, and psyche, meaning "soul" or "mind". It is the systematic study of animal and human mental and behavior processes. The science of psychology emerged in the later part of the nineteenth century in Germany as a joint branch of physiology and philosophy. Psychiatry emerged from the practice in the nineteenth century of assigning physicians to be superintendents of insane asylums. The first scientific psychologists, such as the German Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), the Englishman Francis Galton (1822-1911), and the American E. B. Titchener (1867-1927), clearly focused on empirical studies of repeatable external phenomena that could be quantified, such as perception and sensory stimulus. They deliberately modeled their new science on the traditional physical sciences. With the exception of Galton, these pioneers frowned upon applied psychology, not wishing to challenge psychiatry in the art of healing, but rather concentrated on applying science to limited examinations of human behavior. But soon the American psychologist G. Stanley Hall (1884-1924) and others began to apply psychology to education and aptitude testing. THS history and systems of psychology.

Discussion

Psychology as an independent, scientific field has been present for approximately100 years. The theory of behaviorism, first established by the work of the famous Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) and greatly expanded in the 1920s by the American psychologist John B. Watson (1878-1958), became the first of many theories from the ranks of psychologists to compete with the all-encompassing nature of the theory of psychoanalysis promoted by the Austrian neuropsychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Following the lead of Hall, later psychologists moved beyond just education counseling and aptitude testing to create clinical psychology, in which the theories of psychology served as tools in mental health care. This innovation was bitterly contested within the profession, and it is no accident that members of the medical profession, under such leaders as Freud, rather than psychologists, were the first to extensively develop twentieth-century mental health care. Psychology, unsure of itself as a science, slowly made the transition into healing. (Brennan, 2002)

The psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) carried the banner of behaviorism that had been left by Watson. As a strict behaviorist, Skinner believed that nurture dictated all action and that nature played no ...