introduction to psychology, a brif history of Psychology

1. HISTORY OF
PSYCHOLOGYIntroduction to Psychology
For Nurses

2. Introduction
The history of psychology as a
scholarly study of the mind and
behaviour dates back to the
Ancient Greeks.
There is also evidence of
psychological thought in
ancient Egypt.
Very high level of work on
mind-sciences one can find in
Vedic scriptures of Sanatana
Dharm (Hinduism.
From the dated back of unknow
history there was application of
certain principle as a part in
yogic practices of India.

3. Early psychological
Thought
• Many cultures throughout history have speculated on the
nature of the mind, heart, soul, spirit, brain, etc.
• in Ancient Egypt, the (Edwin Smith) Papyrus contains an early
description of the brain, and some speculations on its functions
(described in a medical/surgical context).
• Ancient Greek philosophers, from Thales (fl. 550 BC) through
even to the Roman period, developed an elaborate theory of
what they termed the psuchẽ (psyche) (from which the first
half of "psychology" is derived), as well as other
"psychological" terms – nous, thumos, logistikon, etc.
• The most influential of these are the accounts of Plato
(especially in the Republic), Pythagoras and of Aristotle (esp.
Peri Psyches, better known under its Latin title, De Anima).
Plato's tripartite theory of the soul, Chariot Allegory and concepts
such as eros defined the subsequent Western Philosophy.
Plato
Thales
Thales

4. • In Asia, China had a long history of administering tests of
ability as part of its education system.
• In the 6th century AD, Lin Xie carried out an early
experiment, in which he asked people to draw a square with
one hand and at the same time draw a circle with the other
(ostensibly to test people's vulnerability to distraction).
• Some have claimed that this is the first psychology
experiment, and, therefore, the beginnings of psychology as
an experimental science.

5. • India, too, had an elaborate theory of "the self" in its Vedanta
philosophical writings.
• Buddhist philosophies have developed several psychological theories
formulating interpretations of the mind and concepts such as
aggregates (skandhas), emptiness (sunyata), non-self (anatta),
mindfulness and Buddha-nature, which are addressed today by
theorists of humanistic and transpersonal Psychology.
• Several Buddhist lineages have developed notions analogous to those
of modern Western psychology, such as the unconscious, personal
development and character improvement.

6. • Middle East Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (850–934)
was among the first, in this tradition, to discuss
disorders related to both the body and the mind,
arguing that "if the nafs [psyche] gets sick, the body
may also find no joy in life and may eventually
develop a physical illness.”

7. Beginnings of
modern
Psychology:
Origin of term
Psychology
• The first use of the term "psychology" is often
attributed to the German scholastic
philosopher Rudolf Göckel (1547–1628), often
known under the Latin form Rodolphus
Goclenius), who published the Psychologia hoc
est: de hominis perfectione, in Marburg in
1590.
• However, the term seems to have been used
more than six decades earlier by the Croatian
humanist Marko Marulić (1450–1524) in the
title of his Latin treatise, Psichiologia de
ratione animae humanae.
• As its title appears in a list of Marulic's works
compiled by Franjo Bozicevic-Natalis in his
"Vita Marci Maruli Spalatensis" (Krstić, 1964).

8. Origin of term
Psychology
• The term did not come into popular usage until the
German Rationalist philosopher, Christian Wolff (1679–
1754) used it in his works Psychologia empirica (1732)
and Psychologia rationalis (1734).
• This distinction between empirical and rational
psychology was picked up in Denis Diderot's (1713–1780)
and Jean le Rond d'Alembert's (1717–1783) Encyclopédie
(1751–1784) and was popularized in France by Maine de
Biran (1766–1824).
• In England, the term "psychology" overtook "mental
philosophy" in the middle of the 19th century, especially
in the work of William Hamilton (1788–1856).

9. Enlightenment
psychological
thought
• Early psychology was regarded as
the study of the soul (in the
Christian sense of the term).
• The modern philosophical form of
psychology was heavily influenced
by the works of René Descartes
(1596–1650).
• Ex: objections to his Meditations on
First Philosophy (1641),
• Passions of the Soul (1649) and
Treatise on Man (completed in 1632

10. Doctrine of
the Soul".
• Descartes dissected animals and human
cadavers and as a result was familiar with the
research on the flow of blood leading to the
conclusion that the body is a complex device
that is capable of moving without the soul, thus
contradicting the "Doctrine of the Soul".

11. psychology as a medical discipline
• The emergence of psychology as a medical discipline was given a major boost by
Thomas Willis, not only in his reference to psychology (the "Doctrine of the
Soul") in terms of brain function, but through his detailed 1672 anatomical work,
and his treatise De anima brutorum quae hominis vitalis ac sentitiva est:
exercitationes duae ("Two Discourses on the Souls of Brutes"—meaning
"beasts"). However, Willis acknowledged the influence of Descartes’s rival, Pierre
Gassendi, as an inspiration for his work.

12. Impact of philosophers of the British Empiricists &
Associationist
• The philosophers of the British Empiricist and Associationist schools had a profound impact on
the later course of experimental psychology.
• John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), George Berkeley's Treatise
Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), and David Hume's A Treatise of Human
Nature (1739–1740) were particularly influential,
• David Hartley's Observations on Man (1749) and John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic. (1843).
• Also notable was the work of some Continental Rationalist philosophers, especially Baruch
Spinoza's (1632–1677) On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662) and Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz's (1646–1716) New Essays on Human Understanding (completed 1705, published
1765).
• Also was an important contribution Friedrich August Rauch's (1806–1841) book
Psychology: Or, A View of the Human Soul; Including Anthropology (1840),[39][40] the
first English exposition of Hegelian philosophy for an American audience

13. German idealism
• German idealism pioneered the proposition of the unconscious, which Jung
considered to have been described psychologically for the first time by
physician and philosopher Carl Gustav Carus.[42] Also notable was itsuse
by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1835),[43] and by Eduard
von Hartmann in Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869); psychologist Hans
Eysenck writes in Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (1985) that
Hartmann's version of the unconscious is very similar to Freud's.
• The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard also influenced the humanistic,
existential, and modern psychological schools with his works The Concept
of Anxiety (1844) and The Sickness Unto Death (1849).

14. Contemporary
Psychology
Transition from Philosophy to Psychology

16. Psychology as a science
• Psychology was a branch of the domain of philosophy until the
1870s, when it developed as an independent scientific discipline in
Germany.
• Psychology as a self-conscious field of experimental study began in
1879, in Leipzig Germany, when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first
laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research
• Wundt was also the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist
• precursor of Wundt was Ferdinand Ueberwasser (1752-1812) who
designated himself Professor of Empirical Psychology and Logic in
1783 and gave lectures on scientific psychology at the Old
University of Münster, Germany.

17. Development of Applied Psychology
(1880s-1890s)
• G. Stanley Hall brought scientific pedagogy to the United States
from Germany in the early 1880s.
• John Dewey's educational theory of the 1890s was another
example. Also Hugo Münsterberg began writing about the
application of psychology to industry, law, and other fields.
• Lightner Witmer established the first psychological clinic in the
1890s.
• James McKeen Cattell the first program of mental testing in the
1890s.
• Same time, Sigmund Freud developed an independent approach to
the study of the mind called psychoanalysis.

18. The 20th century :
Edward Titchener's critique of Wundt's
empiricism.
• formulation of behaviourism by John B. Watson,
which was popularized by B. F. Skinner.
• 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.
• Skinner and his colleagues studied thinking as a
form of covert behavior to which they could
apply the same principles as overt (publicly
observable) behaviour.

19. 1950’s –
2000’s
• an interdisciplinary approach to studying the
human mind.
• Cognitive science again considers the "mind"
as a subject for investigation, using the tools
of evolutionary psychology, linguistics,
computer science, philosophy, behaviorism,
and neurobiology.

20. Time line of Development of
Psychological approaches
Cognitive Revolution (from 1950's)
HUMANISM (1960s)
BEHAVIORISM (1897 - 1914)
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY(1912)
PSYCHO ANALYTICAL THEORY(1920’s)
FUCTIONALISM (1906)
STRUCTURALISM (1873)

21. HISTORY OF
PSYCHOLOGY
• For any questions contact
• KB Benoy
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Development of Psychological approaches
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