'Historical Roots of Psychology Essay\r'

'psychological learning is a relatively new science, having emerged as a formal discipline single during the nineteenth hundred. It, however, came into creative activity due to the philosophical aim of understanding and justifying the nature of the wit and the soul. Physiology was later integrated into psychology when the latter(prenominal) sought to discover the causes and the cure for intellectual illness. diachronic Roots of Psychology Psychology is considered as i of the youngest sciences †it emerged as a formal discipline only during the 19th century. Ironic eithery, the historical roots of psychology washbowl be traced back to the ancient orbit of philosophy.\r\n end-to-end history, philosophers and religious scholars make water sought to understand and explain the nature of the mind and the soul. This objective, in turn, resulted in the constitution of psychology as an official school of pattern (MSN Encarta, 2008). Ancient Philosophers and Philosophies Hel lenic philosophers started venturing into psychological topics from most 600 to three hundred BC. They were said to be most interested in epistemology, a philosophical sub-discipline which studied the nature of intimacy and human existence.\r\nAs a result, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle wrote extensively about topics such as knowledge, beauty, desire, free will and reciprocal sense (MSN Encarta, 2008). The abundant interest of the Greek philosophers in epistemology led to the creation of cosmology, the â€Å"study of the universe as a whole, including its distant past and future” (MSN Encarta, 2008). They moldiness have realized that the nature of the universe set(p) the existence of its inhabitants, including human organisms. Contentions\r\nFrench philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes, however, disagreed with the views of the ancient Greek thinkers †he believed that the mind and the form were independent units. The body was a physical entity while the mind was a spiritual wholeness †the pineal gland (a minute organ found at the base of the brain) was their sole means of interaction. English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, meanwhile, argued that all human experiences (images, sensations, feelings and concepts) were actually physical processes that took place at bottom the nervous system and the brain.\r\nThis belief lastly became the can for monism, a philosophical school of thought which argued that â€Å"the mind and the body ar peerless and the same” (MSN Encarta, 2008). At present, however, psychologists no longer recognize monism due to the immense scientific evidence that validate the intertwined relationship amid the physical and mental aspects of human experience (MSN Encarta, 2008). aboriginal Psychology It is widely believed that psychology became a science in 1879.\r\nIn this year, physiologist Wilhelm Wundt established the root research laboratory dedicated to the scientific study of the m ind at the University of Leipzig in Leipzig, Germany. Since the late 18th and early 19th centuries, physiology has already been integrated into psychology. Some experts believed that specific separate of the brain were responsible for certain brain activities (MSN Encarta, 2008). This thinker paved the way for the creation of psychological subfields whose theories and principles be cosmos used in modern-day psychology.\r\nFunctionalism Functionalism was one of the most well- cognise psychological schools of thought during the first decades of psychology. Its founder, William James, was a staunch advocate of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory that â€Å"all characteristics of a species must answer some adaptive purpose” (MSN Encarta, 2008). Consequently, James created a psychological subfield which espoused the investigation of the purpose of consciousness instead of its structure.\r\nFunctional psychologists later came up with the longitudinal research, a tech nique which was composed of interviewing, testing and observing one person over a long hitch of time. In using this system, the psychologist can make and nature observations on a patient’s nurture and his or her response to different situations (MSN Encarta, 2008). Sigmund Freud Viennese brain doctor Sigmund Freud was one of the most prominent figures in the field of psychology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.\r\nHe is best known for his temperament theory of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis operated on the premise that â€Å" concourse are motivated largely by unconscious mind forces (such as) strong sexual and aggressive drives” (MSN Encarta, 2008). Although humans have the capability to suppress their unconscious motives, it is necessary for them to vex a suitable outlet if they wish to keep up a healthy personality (MSN Encarta, 2008). Psychoanalysis eventually became a form of psychotherapy through the technique of free association.\r\nFreud develo ped free association as a means of probing the unconscious mind. In this technique, the patient is made to lie down and peach about whatever thoughts, wishes and memories that come to his or her mind. The analyst, in turn, determines the psychological significance of these verbalizations by attempting to interpret them. For Freud, dreams were the â€Å" majestic road to the unconscious” †the disguised expressions of deep, hidden impulses (MSN Encarta, 2008). behaviouristic psychology Behaviorism was formed in the 1990s mainly as a response to Freudian psychology.\r\nPsychologists who followed the source contested the reliability and usefulness of studying infrared mental processes such as consciousness and unconsciousness. For them, it was bettor to analyze only behavior that could be outright observed rather than interpreting the vague manifestations of a given behavior. Because of its relatively more scientific methods, behaviorism dominated the field of psycho logy for almost 50 years (MSN Encarta, 2008). Two of the most well-known experiments in behaviorism are those by American psychologist Edward lee(prenominal) Thorndike (1898) and Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1906).\r\nThorndike’s tests on cats produced the law of effect, which argued that â€Å"behaviors that are followed by a positive burden are repeated, while those followed by a negative outcome or none at all are extinguished” (MSN Encarta, 2008). Pavlov’s research on dogs, on the other hand, resulted in the Pavlovian conditioning (also known as classical conditioning). According to the Pavlovian conditioning, it is potential for an organism to relate one stimulus to other (MSN Encarta, 2008). Conclusion\r\nIt is true that psychology emerged as a formal discipline only during the 19th century and is mostly a combination of philosophical and physiological concepts. But these did not hinder psychology from being a very advanced school of thought today . One of the most important contributions of psychology is the straightlaced treatment of mental illnesses. Prior to the advent of psychology, mentally ill people were believed to be possessed with atrocious spirits. As a result, they were subjected to physical torture in order to release the malevolent beings that were â€Å"controlling” them.\r\nFurthermore, advances in the field of psychology that were geared towards improving mental health just goes to show that medicine has already progressed so much as well. Health is no longer defined as merely being free of disease but also having a vigorous mind. The body, after all, cannot function without the mind and misdeed versa. References MSN Encarta. (2008). Cosmology. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from http://encarta. msn. com/encyclopedia_761564398/Cosmology. html MSN Encarta. (2008). Psychology. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from http://encarta. msn. com/encyclopedia_761576533/Psychology. html\r\n'