The establishment of scientific psychology

  • Jul 26, 2021
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The establishment of scientific psychology

We can affirm that scientific psychology was the product of the philosophical interaction and the physiology of the nervous system, in particular of the sensorial one, Germany being considered as its "cradle" to later make its way through other countries in the world. Next, in PsychologyOnline we detail all the aspects about the establishment of scientific psychology.

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Index

  1. Wundt, Wilhelm - the foundation of scientific psychology in Germany
  2. Janet, Pierre - Paris school
  3. Galton - British school
  4. James, William - American School
  5. Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich - Russian school
  6. Differences and coincidences between schools on scientific psychology
  7. History of mental illness. concept and treatment

Wundt, Wilhelm - The Foundation of Scientific Psychology in Germany.

The goal of psychology is the study of "conscious processes" or what Wundt (Germany) considers part of the "immediate experience". For Wundt, psychologists do not study the outside world per se, they study the psychological processes by which we experience and observe the outside world. Furthermore, they cannot separate themselves from their objects of study since they study their own conscious processes.

The tool of psychologists is the experimental self-observation or introspectionThis being a rigidly controlled process, which is not limited to self-reports, but includes objective measures as well as reaction times and word association.

Wundt places psychology between the physical sciences and the natural sciences; Experimental and investigative methods similar to those of the physical sciences to document they are used for psychological questions as an inductive, experimental science. Wundt's approach is that of a scientist using experimental methods to study that life. Wundt believed that language, myths, aesthetics, religion, and social customs are reflections of our higher mental processes; For him these processes cannot be manipulated or controlled, so it is not possible to study them in a experimental form, but through historical records and literature and through observations naturalists. He also conceives a third branch of psychology that integrates its empirical findings, with other sciences, scientific metaphysics. Wundt's goal (expressed in the text) is the establishment of psychology as a foundational science, that integrates the social and physical sciences.

The establishment of scientific psychology - Wundt, Wilhelm - the foundation of scientific psychology in Germany

Janet, Pierre - Paris school.

He was one of the members of the so-called School of Paris, who followed in the footsteps of Ribot and Charcot. Janet works intensively on the hypnosis as a way of studying the "subconscious mind", applying it in cases of hysteria, anticipating Breuer and Freud in the cathartic method. He elaborates the theory of total or partial psychological automatism to explain the amnesic behaviors observed in the unfolding of the personality. Insists on notion of "field of consciousness" and of its "narrowing" in the sick because of their psychological weakness. He divides neuroses into hysterias and picastenias (a term created by him to replace neurasthenia). Hysterics are characterized by "narrowing of consciousness" and picastenias by obsessive ideas and compulsive behaviors.

His method (referred to in the text) will be the use of suggestion and hypnosis to search for and modify pathogenic memories.

Galton - British school.

In English psychology the great darwinian influence (this short text proves it) as well as the influence of philosophical psychology.

Galton expresses an open concern for the heritability of human capacities and their "power to produce a line of highly gifted men ...".

Eugenics, a discipline dedicated to the improvement of the breed through the control of reproduction, arises as a consequence of the social climate of the mid-nineteenth century. Galton tried to defend the positive aspects of him. He applied numerous anthropometric tests to check the effect of heredity on individuals. (Creator of the London Anthropometric Laboratory). Introduced the application of statistical techniques to psychology. Thought was also the object of study, using the "Free association" and creating word association tests”. In short, he was one of the pioneers in world psychology and founder of the psychometric-differential tradition.

James, William - American school.

He was the father of American psychology, developing the philosophy of pragmatism. It starts from the pragmatist thesis that "perception and thought exist only with a view to behavior." Apply the principle of functionalism to psychology, changing it from its traditional place as a branch of philosophy and placing it among the sciences based on the experimental method.

By defining the consciousness as a "stream of thought", a consciousness that is not catchable, is opposed to Wundt's theory, which considers it as an association of units or elements. Consciousness is personal, changing, continuous (although with ups and downs such as sleep) and selective. The approach of personal conscience leads him to develop the theory of the I.

Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich - Russian school.

Russian physiologist who never came to accept psychology as a natural science, but who greatly influenced twentieth-century psychology. Was the founder of Russian experimental psychology. Pavlov did not distinguish between the temporal nervous relationship of physiologists and the associations of psychologists, a fact that made it possible to unite both sciences through a substrate of neuronal functioning Similary. He worked on conditioning and believed that all behavior can be explained by stimulus and response.

The method used by Pavlov (the text shows a short fragment) is that of the conditioned reflexes. These studies on conditioned reflexes provided the guidelines for generating the current model that explains these behaviors at the cellular and molecular levels.

Differences and coincidences between schools on scientific psychology.

The french school maintains a position away from the experimentalist direction of the German school, as well as from the associationism and atomism of the British school. French school studies focus on the individual and his psychic processes.

The american school and the German school they define consciousness in a completely different way: "stream of thought" (James) and "set of experiences lived by a person" (Wundt). James was convinced that all activity is functional; Applying biological principles to the mind, he came to formulate the Functionalist Theory of mental life and behavior.

German experimental psychology can be assimilated to British evolutionism. Wundt (Germany) is considered the founder of general psychology (adult, normal and generalized mind) to Galton (England), the foundation of individual psychology (individual differences in abilities human). Galton was the first to study individual differences and develop mental tests. Regarding the methods used: the school german, Wundt, studies the mind in an objective and scientific way. He introduced measurement and experiment to this discipline, which until then had been a branch of philosophy; the school french, the internal and external observation, fundamentally of the clinical and hypnotic method; the school american chooses the experimental and research method, coinciding on this point with the German school; the school british, introduces statistical techniques applied to psychology; and finally, the school russian, you will use the method of conditioned reflexes.

In short, we can observe a common goal for all schools, which is to endow psychology with a scientific and experimental approach, promoting it as a independent science.

The establishment of scientific psychology - Differences and coincidences between schools on scientific psychology

History of mental illness. concept and treatment.

The origin of mental illness has to do with a common practice in Ancient Greece, consisting of marking slaves in a visible place to make them recognizable as inferior individuals.

The Classical Antiquity an explanation of the mental disorders from disorders produced in the brain by homoral imbalances. These paintings were associated with demonic possession, so it was imperative to stay away from such people.

The Middle Ages saw the mentally ill as sinners, worshipers of the devil who had to "pay" with suffering his "weakness" and lack of faith, persisting this type of explanations until the end of the century XVI.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mental or emotional disorders were considered an estrangement voluntary reason that should be corrected through internment and severe measures disciplinary. In these centuries lThe mentally ill are locked up and cut off from community life. The purpose of their isolation was not their treatment but to protect society from those who violated social norms. The criterion of animality marks the madness in the eighteenth century. It is the zero degree of human nature: the madman is not sick, he is an animal. Therefore, taming and brutalizing are the methods for their domination. The inhuman practices of the internees (whipping, beatings, chains, mistreatment of all kinds) are justified by that free animality of madness, where man no longer exists. (Michel Foucault).

In the nineteenth century the somatic explanations of mental illness; object of medical study, psychological disorders were considered as a brain dysfunction that should be object of moral treatment according to the principles established by the French psychiatrist Philippe Pinel (1745-1826). A complaint is generalized among psychiatrists: madmen and criminals are mixed in the same place. A new awareness of insanity emerges from the experience of confinement. It is not a humanitarian attitude towards the insane that makes them differentiate themselves within the internees: mixing is an injustice to the other inmates. Madness becomes more and more individualized. From the initial chaotic space of the Middle Ages, where madmen and sane people mixed, increasingly refined separation practices towards madness have been produced. However, the madhouses of the time were veritable rots of madmen. The prevailing environment, far from favoring the good evolution of the patients, contributed to their decompensation and disorganization.

The 20th century is characterized by the introduction and development of psychoanalysis, the expansion of the nosological classification of mental illnesses initiated by Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), the development of neurology, physiology and biochemistry, bases of the development of organic psychiatry, the boom of psychopharmacology and finally the start of psychosociological conceptions of health and mental illness. Regarding the current situation, even the word mentally ill, mental patient, crazy, etc., are still associated with violence and crime, etc. These patients are seen as a kind of urban, violent and uncontrollable predators that, even under treatment, can explode, harming their peers, judging them in many cases. occasions such as unrecoverable, unproductive for society, guilty for having this disease, lacking motivation or simply unable to bear stress due to a deficit of character.

The World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) work to demystify mental illness, and since 1992, celebrate October 10 as "World Mental Health Day."

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 The establishment of scientific psychology, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

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