Today, we can affirm without any doubt that scientific psychology was the product of the philosophical interaction and the physiology of the nervous system, particularly the sensory one.
Likewise, Germany is considered its “cradle”, where it began at the end of the 19th century, to later make its way through other countries in the world and spread throughout the developed world as a scientific discipline.
Wundt, Wilhem (Germany) and the foundation of scientific psychology
The goal of psychology is study of “conscious processes” or what Wundt considers part of the “immediate experience”. For Wundt, psychologists do not study the external world per se, they study the psychological processes by which we experience and observe the external world. Furthermore, they cannot separate themselves from their objects of study since they study their own conscious processes.
The tool of psychologists is the experimental self-observation or introspectionbeing this a rigidly controlled process, which is not limited to self-reports, but includes objective measures as well as reaction times and word association.
Wundt places psychology between the physical sciences and the natural sciences; LExperimental and research methods similar to those in the physical sciences to document they are used for psychological questions as an inductive, experimental science. Wundt’s approach is that of a scientist using experimental methods to study such life. Wundt believed that language, myths, aesthetics, religion, and social customs are reflections of our higher mental processes; For him these processes cannot be manipulated or controlled, so it is not possible to study them experimentally, but rather through historical records and literature and through naturalistic observations. He also conceives a third branch of psychology that integrates the empirical findings of this, with other sciences, scientific metaphysics. Wundt’s goal (expressed in the text) is the establishment of psychology as a foundational science, which integrates the social and physical sciences.
Janet, Pierre – School of Paris
He was one of the members of the so-called School of Paris, who followed in the footsteps of Ribot and Charcot. Janet works hard on the Hypnosis as a way of studying the “subconscious mind”, applying it in cases of hysteria, anticipating Breuer and Freud in the cathartic method. He elaborates the theory of total or partial psychological automatism to explain the amnesic behaviors observed in split personality. Insist on the notion of “field of consciousness” and of its “narrowing” in the sick because of their psychological weakness. He divides neuroses into hysteria and picasthenia (a term created by him to replace that of neurasthenia). Hysterias are characterized by “narrowing of consciousness” and picasthenias by obsessive ideas and compulsive behaviors.
Its method (referred to in the text) will be the use of suggestion and hypnosis to search for and modify pathogenic memories.
Galton – British School
In English psychology it is necessary to emphasize the great Darwinian influence (this short text demonstrates it) as well as the influence of philosophical psychology.
Galton expresses open concern about the heritability of human capabilities and his “power to produce a lineage of highly gifted men…”.
Eugenics, a discipline dedicated to the improvement of the race through the control of reproduction, arises as a consequence of the social climate of the mid-nineteenth century. Galton tried to defend its positive aspects. He applied numerous anthropometric tests to test the effect of heredity in individuals. (Creator London Anthropometric Laboratory). introduced the application of statistical techniques to psychology. Thought was also studied, using the “free association” and creating word association tests. In short, he was one of the pioneers in world psychology and a founder of the differential-psychometric tradition.
James, William – American School
He was the father of American psychology, developing the philosophy of pragmatism. He starts from the pragmatist thesis that “perception and thought exist only with a view to conduct.” He applies the principle of functionalism to psychology, changing it from its traditional place as a branch of philosophy and placing it among the sciences based on the experimental method. By defining the Consciousness as “Thought Stream”, a consciousness that cannot be captured, opposes Wundt’s theory, which considers it as an association of units or elements. Consciousness is personal, changing, continuous (although with ups and downs such as sleep) and selective. The approach of personal conscience leads him to develop the theory of the Self.
Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich – Russian School
Russian physiologist who never came to accept psychology as a natural science, but who greatly influenced psychology in the 20th century. he was the founder of Russian experimental psychology. Pavlov did not distinguish between the temporal nervous relationship of physiologists and the associations of psychologists, a fact that allowed both sciences to unite through a substrate of similar neuronal functioning. He worked on conditioning and believed that all behavior can be explained by stimulus and response.
The method used by Pavlov (the text shows a brief fragment) is that of conditioned reflexes. These works of conditioned reflexes They set the tone for generating the current model that explains these behaviors at the cellular and molecular levels.
DIFFERENCES AND COINCIDENCES BETWEEN SCHOOLS
The French school maintains a position far from the experimentalist direction of the German school, as well as the associationism and atomism of the British school.
The studies of the French school focus on the individual and his psychic processes.
The American school and the German school define consciousness in a completely different way: “stream of thought” (James) and “set of experiences lived by a person” (Wundt). James was convinced that all activity is functional; applying biological principles to the mind, he came to formulate the Functionalist Theory of mental life and behavior.
To British evolutionism one can assimilate German experimental psychology. Wundt (Germany) is considered the founder of general psychology (adult, normal and generalized mind) and Galton (England), the foundation of individual psychology (individual differences in human abilities). Galton was the first to study individual differences and the development of mental tests.
In regards to the methods used: the school germanWundt studies the mind objectively and scientifically. He introduced measurement and experiment into this discipline, which until then had been a branch of philosophy; the school French, internal and external observation, fundamentally of the clinical and hypnotic method; the school american choose the experimental and research method, agreeing on this point with the German school; the school british, introduces statistical techniques applied to psychology; and finally, the school russianyou will use the method of conditioned reflexes.
In short, we can see a common goal for all schools, which is to provide psychology with a scientific and experimental approach, promoting it as an independent science.
HISTORY OF MENTAL ILLNESS. CONCEPT AND TREATMENT
The origin of mental illness has to do with a common practice in ancient Greece, consisting of marking slaves in a visible place to make them recognizable as inferior individuals.
In Classical Antiquity an explanation of mental disorders was given from the disorders produced in the brain by humoral imbalances. These pictures were associated with demonic possession, so it was imperative to stay away from such people.
The Middle Ages saw the mentally ill as sinners, worshipers of the devil who had to “pay” with suffering for their “weakness” and lack of Faith, this type of explanation persisting until the end of the 16th century.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, mental or emotional disorders were considered a voluntary departure from reason that had to be corrected through hospitalization and severe disciplinary measures. In these centuries the mentally ill are locked up and removed from community life. The purpose of their isolation was not their treatment but to protect society from those who violated social norms. The criterion of animality marks madness in the eighteenth century. It is the zero degree of human nature: the madman is not sick, he is an animal. Therefore, taming and brutalizing are the methods for its domination. The inhumane practices of the internees (whipping, beatings, chaining, mistreatment of all kinds) are justified by that free animality of madness, where man no longer exists. (Michel Foucault).
In the 19th century, somatic explanations of mental illness predominated; object of medical study, psychological disorders were considered as a brain dysfunction that should be subject to moral treatment according to the principles established by the French psychiatrist Philippe Pinel (1745-1826). A complaint is widespread among psychiatrists: madmen and criminals are mixed in the same place. A new awareness of madness arises from the experience of confinement. It is not a humanitarian attitude towards the insane that differentiates them within the boarding schools: the mixture is an injustice to the other inmates. Madness becomes more and more individualized. From the initial chaotic space of the Middle Ages, where the mad and the sane mixed, practices of separation that were increasingly refined towards madness have been produced. However, the insane asylums of the time were true dens for the insane. The prevailing environment, far from favoring the good evolution of the patients, contributed to their decompensation and disorganization.
The 20th century is characterized by the introduction and development of psychoanalysis, the expansion of the nosological classification of mental illnesses initiated by Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), the development of neurology, physiology and biochemistry, bases of the development of organic psychiatry, the rise of psychopharmacology and, finally, the beginning of psychosociological conceptions of health and mental illness. Regarding the current situation, even the word mentally ill, mental patient, crazy, etc., continue to be associated with violence and crime, etc. These patients are seen as a kind of urban, violent and uncontrollable predators that, even under treatment, can explode, harming their peers, judging them on many occasions as unrecoverable, non-productive for society, guilty for having this…