Definition of the science of psychology

Is psychology a branch science of the biological sciences, of philosophy or of the social sciences? The criteria on this matter overflow in both directions. Personally, and coinciding with other Mexican colleagues, I consider that Psychology is an independent science. And in fact and in investigative methodology it is not an individual science, but a set of sciences, disciplines and practices, which could well be called "Psychological and Behavioral Sciences Psychic ”; except Psychoanalysis which is a theory, a method and a praxis sui generis.- In this Online Psychology article we are going to offer a definition of the science of psychology to try to clarify this matter.

Index

1. History tour
2. Psychology as an Independent Science
3. An independent and interdisciplinary science

While it is known that la Psychology originated within Greek Philosophy - and that Philosophical or Rational Psychology still exists, scientific Psychology in the 17th-18th and 19th centuries was part of Mathematics, Physics, empiricist and rationalist Philosophy, until it was incorporated as a part of Biology during French positivism, being in the take off of Social Sciences during the second half of the XIX century that it became a branch of these with many reservations, in frank opposition to Freud's nascent Psychoanalysis, predominantly biologism, psychophysics, reflexology and behaviorism in the USA and in several countries Europeans.-

In the case of Mexico, Psychology came as a branch of Philosophy and Biology at the same time, in a struggles with the imported Mexican positivism of A.Comte and with the influence of the so-called Materialism Dialectical. So at the beginning Psychology remained as a branch of Philosophy with biological, physical and physiological foundations, until it achieved its autonomy but closely linked to Philosophy.

It is in the Mexican university environment that Psychology becomes a branch of Social Sciences in some universities in the country and in others it is adopted as a branch of the Biological Chemistry sciences, in which factors of understood values, academic policies and, of course, the orientation of the various psychological currents that predominated and that led the therapeutic Methodology in the wide field of the application of Psychology and other sciences of the conduct.-

In my personal consideration and starting from the classification of the sciences made by the great scientist social, philosopher, epistemologist, methodologist and logician of science, Elí de Gortari, resumed the estimation of what Psychology is today an independent and autonomous science, but closely related and directly linked to three large groups of sciences:

• natural Science
• Social Sciences
• Philosophical Sciences

Maintaining an indirect relationship with Technology, Mathematics and the so-called Science of Science or Meta science, which by the way are very broad all, sharing the Psychological Sciences and Psychic Behavior their own breadth and complexity that demand that the training of the new psychologists is interdisciplinary and that consequently the school plan is increased in terms analogous to those of the career of Medicine. Taking into account that mental health and emotional and affective stability, for example, constitute public health and mental hygiene problems, adjacent to endemic public health problems and pandemic.

As human societies become more complex in terms of population and behaviors, behaviors, attitudes, habits, consumption, urbanization, conflict, aggressiveness and social violence, that is, in all its components and social factors, the psyche human consciousness, social consciousness and intellectual culture, as well as the sciences of social and individual behavior also become more extensive and acquire the status of interdisciplinary.

Such is the case of "Psychology" whose objects and areas of application cannot be conceived without prior and simultaneous knowledge of Psychology. Social, from some sociological branches, Social Psychiatry, Social Anthropology, Philosophy, Criminology, Legal Medicine, and fundamentals of Medical and Biological Sciences, as well as elementary knowledge of Neurophysiology, Biochemistry and Geophysics population.

In scientific and technical terms, the "Human psyche" and its interconnection with the biophysiology of the individual and their social, cultural, techno-mechatronic, geographical-ecological environment; and the endless urban growth and its incursion into the increasingly moated love masses, despite its immense complexity irreducible to mere reflections, responses and pre-behaviors, the human psyche requires that "Psychology" is a conjunction of sciences, disciplines, techniques and therapeutics that consider the subject as an individual-mass whose subjectivity, in part, is given from its "Exteriority" multifactorial and in other "parts", comes in its genetics, in the biological group and in its organic totality.

Hence the importance of estimating Psychological Sciences and Psychic Behavior as an independent and interdisciplinary "Science" with each and every one of the sciences that make up these enormous groups of Natural, Social and Philosophical sciences, by virtue of the fact that the human social subject passes through various stages in his history as an ideal male and female adult individual, until he reaches the stage of full adulthood and the phase of decrepitude, stages, these, which have or present their own "Psyche", contemplating the "particular psychic life" presented by the other stages of the psychosocial life of the individual-mass, social and human.-

The question of the large number of currents or orientations in "Psychology" and of the psychotherapies and techniques that have been developed, would be an aspect pending analysis, as well as the question of Psychoanalysis in all its aspects, which occupies a very special place next to "Psychology" and Psychiatry and Philosophy itself, and even, depending on the country in which It has been studied and practiced, because in some countries it is treated as science or an intermediate or total independent discipline and in others, it is even treated as a pseudoscience.-

Therefore, I conclude by ratifying the urgent need for psychological science and psychic behavior acquire the rank of science for the present and immediate future of humanity, psychically, mentally, behaviorally and existentially healthy and free; and that the new professionals of "Psychology" are the new physicians of the mental health or of the "Mental Existence" and advocate that this mental health is a matter of public mental health of Condition.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Definition of the science of psychology, we recommend that you enter our category of Social psychology.