Oral topic

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology has a long past and a short history. It means that although psychology has its roots in philosophy, as a scientific discipline psychology is only a little over 130 years old. The roots of psychology can be easily traced back about 2,400 years to ancient Greek philosophers. However, the beginning of scientific psychology is usually associated with the date 1879, the year that a German scientist named Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany. Modern psychology arose in the context of what are known as schools of psychology. Wundt was also the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist. Other important early contributors to the field include 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).

From a historical perspective, the first school of psychology to be established was structuralism. Its founding personality was W. Wundt. He became interested in studying not so much the physiology of the sense organs such as the eyes and ears, but in how simple sensations associated with the sense organs combined to form what we call human consciousness. Wundt concluded that all visual experiences are structured out of these same three types of elemental experiences. Similar statements can be made about the other senses such as hearing, taste, and touch. According to Wundt, the primary purpose of psychology is to study the structure of consciousness. By the structure of consciousness, Wundt meant the relationship of a group of sensations, a relationship that produces the complex experiences we think of as our conscious mental life. This approach to psychology has been called mental chemistry.

William James, teaching at Harvard in the 1870s, was following Wundt's research with interest. James had an interest not only in psychology, but also in physiology and eventually in philosophy. James founded a psychological laboratory at Harvard; he also wrote The Principles of Psychology, the first psychology textbook published in the United States. The book was published in 1890, and this can also be taken as the date when the school of psychology known as functionalism was born.

The German psychologist Max Wertheimer(1880-1943), like James, was also dissatisfied with Wundt's structuralism. Wertheimer believed that Wundt's emphasis on the importance of simple sensations as the building blocks of perceptions was misguided. The general pattern that induces a complex perception is described with the German word Gestalt. Gestalt is usually translated as a "pattern," a "configuration," or an "organized whole." In 1910 Wertheimer published an article setting forth the basic assumptions of Gestalt psychology, and this is usually taken to be the starting date of the school.

Ivan Pavlov performed and directed experiments on digestion, eventually publishing The Work of the Digestive Glands in 1897, after 12 years of research. His experiments earned him the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. His work on reflex actions involved involuntary reactions to stress and pain. Pavlov extended the definitions of the four temperament types under study at the time: phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine, and melancholic.

B ehaviorism became a fourth classical school of psychology. Its founding personality is John B. Watson(1878-1958).Behaviorism proposed emphasizing the study of overt behavior, because that could be quantified and easily measured. Early behaviorists considered study of the "mind" too vague for productive scientific study. Watson came to the conclusion that psychology was placing too much emphasis on consciousness. In fact, he asserted that psychology is not a mental science at all. The "mind" is a mushy, difficult-to-define concept. It can't be studied by science because it can't be observed. Only you can know what's going on in your mind.

Starting in the 1890s, employing the case study technique, the Viennese physician Sigmund Freud developed and applied the methods of hypnosis, free association, and dream interpretation to reveal putatively unconscious beliefs and desires that he argued were the underlying causes of his patients' "hysteria."Freud was a medical doctor with a specialty in neurology. His findings and conclusions are based primarily on his work with patients.

 He dubbed this approach psychoanalysis. Freudian psychoanalysis is particularly notable for the emphasis it places on the course of an individual's sexual development in pathogenesis. In order to explain chronic emotional suffering, Freud asserted that human beings have an unconscious mental life. This is the principal assumption of psychoanalysis. No other assumption or assertion that it makes is nearly as important. The unconscious mental level is created by a defense mechanism called repression. Psychoanalytic concepts have had a strong and lasting influence on Western culture, particularly on the arts.

Psychoanalysis is not only a school of psychology, but also a method of therapy. Freud believed that by helping a patient explore the contents of the unconscious mental level, he or she could obtain a measure of freedom from emotional suffering. It is important to note that of the five classical schools of psychology, psychoanalysis is the only one that made it an aim to improve the individual's mental health.

Exercise1. Answer the following questions

1. What was the subject of Wundt's primary interest?

2. What is introspection?

3. What is the visual experience composed of?

4. What is the primary goal of psychology according to Wundt?

5. What approach can be called mental chemistry?

6. What is functionalism?

7. What studies was Wertheimer involved in?

8. How did the behaviorism appear?

9. Why did Watson refuse to consider psychology as mental science?

10. What are general beliefs of behaviorism?

11. How did the work on psychoanalysis start?

12. What are the fundamental assertions of Freud's studies?

13. What is repression? What does it serve for?

14. Why does psychoanalysis stand apart from the other four classical schools of psychology?

Exercise 2. Match the terms with their definitions.

Exercise 3. Complete the table with the correct form of the word.