History of Psychology

psy 101

The History of Psychology
The History of Psychology                                                                                    In order to discuss Psychology's history, it is important to
  understand that psychology still does not have one unifying approach
  unlike the natural sciences; even the definition of Psychology and
  what it truly means is still undecided. However I shall attempt to
  review chronologically its philosophical origins, include how the
  science of Physics and Biology were placed in history and how they
  influenced research and determined the development of Psychology as
  its recognised today.

  Beginning with the philosophers Plato and Aristotle (between 428- 347)
  in ancient Greece, they began to ask questions on learning,
  motivation, memory, dreaming and perception. Reluctant to measure,
  Plato and Aristotle believed the truth could be discovered through
  self-analysis.

  Aristotle describes his theory as “enlightenment” an idea that the
  mind influences the body but the body cannot influence the mind.

  This self-analytical experience is named introspection and introduces
  us firstly to Structuralism and the future of Psychology.

  One of the first psychology laboratories was founded in the late
  1870's, by Wilhelm Wundt. He suggested that all human experience could
  be viewed as simple processes based on controlled experiments of
  self-observation and behaviour and this method was termed
  “Introspection”.

  Structuralism and the Introspection technique attempted to analyse
  conscious mental experience and reduce it into elements of sensations
  and feelings, i.e. thoughts, ideas, and perception.

  At this time during the 19th century, physics and chemistry (natural
  sciences) were developed for studying complex compounds and the
  success encouraged psychologists to explore the possibility that the
  mental processes could be reduced in the same way. For...