Psychology is a very vast area. It’s the study of the human behaviour and mental processes that is used to explain why one behaves, feel and think a certain way. There are many schools of thoughts that are developed by various theorists to explain human behaviours from different perspectives and understandings. One of it would be known as Gestalt psychology. This are in psychology involves principles that to tend describe how people tend to organize their visual perception into groups and view it as a whole. There are a few contributors in this area and one of it is Wolfgang Kohler, a German educated American Psychologist. He was born in Estonia in the year of 1887 to parents who were off German descendants. According to an article that was written about him, his world was around only educators. His family members consist of a school master, educators and scholars (Kohler: In the beginning,” n.d.). Growing up, he not only was into the field of Science but music and outdoor activities as well (“Kohler: In the beginning,” n.d.). He attended universities in Tubingen, Bonn and Berlin. He earned his PhD in Berlin where he did his desertion on psycho-acoustics under Karl Stumpf (“Wolfgang Köhler,” n.d.; Zawidzki, 2004).
Kohler married in his twenties and was a father of four. Few details exist on their marriage but later events suggest that all was not well (Schultz & Schultz, 2004). After earning his doctorate, he worked in a Psychological institute in Frankfurt (1910-1913) with Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka. This was the start of the Gestalt psychology (“Wolfgang Köhler,” n.d.; Zawidzki, 2004). Because Gestalt psychology was the study of perception, he pursued his ideas through the research with animals, sp...
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...elligence and problem solving skills. He rejected any differences in insight between animals and homosapiens. However, Edward Thorndike criticised his conclusion and stated that animals learn through the process of trial and error which in this case would be through rewards and punishment (Hothersall, 1995).
As a conclusion, many of the psychologist and theorist that contribute to the development of Psychology do leave a significant impact behind which will be carried forward to in the future in any school of thought. This discipline can be used to measure and describe why we perceive such things in a way which can be explained by the concept of perceptual organization. Gestalt psychologists believed that one’s behaviours and perceptions is shaped by the past phenomena’s or antecedents that one has previously encountered at some point in his or her life.
Rationalism and empiricism were two philosophical schools in the 17th and 18th centuries, that were expressing opposite views on some subjects, including knowledge. While the debate between the rationalist and empiricist schools did not have any relationship to the study of psychology at the time, it has contributed greatly to facilitating the possibility of establishing the discipline of Psychology. This essay will describe the empiricist and rationalist debate, and will relate this debate to the history of psychology.
The study of psychology began as a theoretical subject a branch of ancient philosophy, and later as a part of biological sciences and physiology. However, over the years, it has grown into a rigorous science and a separate discipline, with its own sets of guidance and experimental techniques. This paper aims to study the various stages that the science of psychology passed through to reach its contemporary status, and their effects on its development. It begins with an overview of the historical and philosophical basis of psychology, discusses the development of the various schools of thought, and highlights their effects on contemporary personal and professional decision-making.
In the year 1896, a new term “theory of psychoanalysis” was invented by Sigmund Freud in which “it refers to all the processes that take place in our mind of an unconscious way and to a form of treatment of the nervous disorders” (Rodriquez). Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was an Austrian neurologist who created and developed an entirely new approach to discover about the personality and the subconscious of the human. His creation in the psychology field was “at once a theory of the human psyche, a therapy for the relief of its ills, and an optic for the interpretation of culture and society” (Jay). Sigmund Freud is regarded as one of the most influential and controversial characters of the twentieth century due to his discoveries in many aspects of the field of psychology included Freud’s self-analysis that he left behind.
Sigmund Freud was one of the most iconic psychologist in the twentieth century. He developed various theory in the field of psychology. Although, some of his work is outdated, his impact on the field is still strongly felt. One of his theory that he put forward was the belief that a person’s personality was set in childhood, along with the idea that if someone tried to analyze the psyche of a person, they’ll put up barriers, or defense mechanism, to “lie” to themselves. Freud’s work on the psychoanalytic is still used to treat depression and various anxiety disorder.
The psychodynamic approach lends itself to being a controversial yet highly influential theory in the history of psychology. The theory has become one of the most significant psychological approaches and its originator, Sigmund Freud, has become a major influence in modern psychology. The psychodynamic approach largely focuses on motivation and past experiences which develop and individual’s personality. Freud used the iceberg metaphor to outline the three states of consciousness and argued that only twenty percent of the mind represents the conscious. In addition he theorised that there was a pre-conscious mind which represents general memory. Finally, the unconscious mind which is essentially the reservoir of repressed or hidden experiences and desire.
Psychology is a relatively new field in the realm of the sciences with only about 130 years old. Wilhelm Wundt was known as the “father of psychology” the first psychologist. Wundt was in the philosophy filed in the beginning of his study; later on in his life, he opened the first psychology laboratory. A well known method in Wundt’s experiment was the Introspection, “this was a description of an experience broken down into its simplest terms, its elements” (Watson, Evans 278). William James was one of the most famous founder of American psychology. He was interested in how people are influenced by their environment, “rather than breaking consciousness down into its elements, he preferred to look at the human experience as complete wholes” (McMahon, Judith 8). The most well known and popular psychologist in modern day is Sigmund Freud, an Austrian Physician in the late 1800’s. Freud established the theory of personality, in his view, “problems that appear in adolescence or adulthood can be tranced to things that happened in the first five or six years of life” (McMahon, Judith 7). Freud’s concepts of mind, the conscious, pre-conscious, and the unconscious are still widely used in present books and movies.
Within the scope of analytic psychology, there exist two essential tenets. The first is the system in which sensations and feelings are analyzed and listed by type. The second has to do with a way to analyze the psyche that follows Jung’s concepts. It stresses a group unconscious and a mystical factor in the growth of the personal unconscious. It is unlike the system described by Sigmund Freud.
The first theory Psychodynamic theory presented by Sigmund Freud, is based on how a person’s self-awareness and understanding of the past on present behavior. Psychody...
Psychology is the investigation of the mind and how it processes and directs our thoughts, actions and conceptions. However, in 1879 Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany. Nevertheless, the origins of psychology go all the way back thousands of years starting with the early Greeks. This foundation is closely connected to biology and philosophy; and especially the subfields of physiology which is the study of the roles of living things and epistemology, which is the study of comprehension and how we understand what we have learned. The connection to physiology and epistemology is often viewed as psychology, which is the hybrid offspring of those two fields of investigation.
The personalistic theory of modern psychology suggests that changes made in society are the direct result of an individual(s). The focus of the personalistic theory places emphasis on those thought to be unique individuals that have contributed to the progress of psychology and accomplished known achievements McCauley (2008, p. 5). Andreas Vesalius has been considered by many to be the originator of the human anatomy and William Harvey has been describing to have taken the role of laying the foundation for modern psychology Fearing (1929, p.1). Vesalius and Harvey were men both scholars of biological science, in which this field had not begun to advance until the seventeenth century.
Sigmund Freud is one of the founders of psychology, and he came up with the theory of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic in the field of psychology. This school of thought is about the-the unconscious mind on a person’s behavior, and he believed that human beings are composed of three elements the ego, the ID and the superego. The theories
Ansbacher, H., & Ansbacher, R. (1956). The individual psychology of Alfred Adler. New York: Basic Books.
Alfred Adler’s theory of personality and system of psychotherapy has been articulated since more than the half century. Since then, Adler’s ideas have been gradually infused the modern psychology. (Ellen Berger 1970, 645-648) Adler’s original things reflect the shift of psychoanalysis to ego psychology. Many psychoanalysists hail Alder as a pioneer for the latest developments in the field of psychoanalysis. (Ellen Berger 1970, 638) He observed that our society overvalues men and undervalues women and as a result both men and women are suffering. According to his perception men and women are of equal values. Many anthropologists, physicists and biologists’ work show the relationship of their work with the Adler’s concept that says that all living things and their proclivities are interconnected with each other. According to the Adler’s concept of the final goal, there is a fictional future reference point that is responsible to pull all the movement in the similar direction. This concept is the same as that of strange attractor in the chaos theory where strange attractor is a magnetic end point that is responsible to pull on and to set the limitations for a process. (Nelson 1991) The Core Of Adler’s Philosophy A very humanistic and optimistic view of life is the core of Adler’s philosophy. His psychology is a value-oriented psychology where all the human beings are capable for self-fulfillment, striving for self-improvement, capable of living together and they can contribute for the sake of common welfare. If the people will not cooperate with each other then there will be a risk of destruction of each other. Community Feelings People start feeling deep belonging to the race of humans when their social interes...
O’Connell, D. C., & Kowal, S. (2009). The evolution of modern psychology: A critical, forward-looking perspective on some pioneers. Journal of Psychology, 217, 73-78. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com
Hergenhahn, B. R., & Henley, T. B. (2014). An introduction to the history of psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.