WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY
The roots of western psychology can be traced to greek philosophy. The word
psychology itself is derived from the greek words ‘psyche’ which means ‘study’.
Emergences of western
psychology is divided into three
Greek heritage
periods
Medieval Period Modern Period
Greek Heritage
The eminent Greek philosophers who made relevant contribution in the field of
psychology are Alcmeon, Hippocrates (460-370 BC), Socrates (469-399 BC), Plato (428-348
BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC).
Medieval Period
The scholars such as Aristotle and plato first began to study the nature of thought and
mind and commonly known as Dark Ages.
Scholars such as St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon made some astute
observations about the inner workings of the human mind, providing a foundation for the
Renaissance. Psychology as a separate area of study split away from philosophy a little over 100
years ago.
Modern Period
The first formal Psychological Laboratory in the United States was set up by Wilhelm
Wundt (1832-1920) at johns Hopkins University in 1883.
DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHTS
Different Psychologist had different approaches to study human mind and behaviour.
This lead to the emergence of different schools of thoughts like.....
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Structuralism
This is the earliest school of psychology which grew up around the ideas of Wilhelm
Wundt in Germany. Structuralism focused on the basic element of consciousness. It focused on
the Units which male up the mind.
Wundt is creator to be the founder of structuralism, it was actually his student Edward B
Titchener who coined the term ‘Structuralism’ essentially disappeared when Titchener died.
Functionalism
William James was the founder of Functional Psychology. He believed that introspection
could serve one means by which mental activities can be studied, but james relied on more
objective measures including the use of various recording devices and examinations of concrete
products of mental activities and of anatomy and physiology.
Gestalt School
In the early 20th century, a new perspective called Gestalt psychology emerged in
Germany. It was founded in 1912 by Max Wertheimer and his colleagues kurt Koffka (1886-
1941) and Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967).
They pointed that minds is not made up of combination of simple elements. Gestalts
psychologists emphasised that the whole of anything is greater than sum its parts. Infact Kurt
Lewin applied gestalt principal in his field theory of personality.
Behaviourism
This school of psychology originated around 1910 when John B Watson (1879-1958) at
John Hopkins University rejected mind as the subject matter of psychology. He was influenced
by the work of Ivan Pavlov on classical conditioning and rejected the notion of ‘mind’.
Views of various psychologists
Bf Skinner His study was focused on the relationship between
reinforcement and response rate or probability.
Edward Thorndike His learning theory through studies on animals and
developed a important law of learning called “law of
effect”
Ivan Pavlov Another behaviourist is famous for his work on
“classical conditioning”
Eaward Tolman He focused on “purposive behaviour” is directed
towards goal and terminates once the goal is attained.
His learning experiment was that of “Latent Learning”
which says that learning remains latent or hidden until
an organism has reason to use it.
Psychoanalysis
The major and the most radical viewpoint about human behaviour were presented by
Sigmund Freud. He viewed human behaviour as a result of urges, drives and past experiences.
The personality structure as defined by Freud consist of three structures, which are as
follows
Id – Pleasure Principle
Ego/Reason – Reality Principle
Super Ego/conscience – Morality Principle
He believed that people normally progress through five stages of psychosexual development.
Each of his five states focused on different sources of pleasure.
Oral stage Anal stage
(0-2yrs) (2-3yrs)
Phalic stage Latency stage
(3-6yrs) (6-puberty)
Genital stage
(puberty)
Freud believed that people acquire defences to transform the wishes of id into an acceptable
form. These defence mechanism are
Repression
Denial
Projection
Displacement
Regression
Submilation
Other major psychoanalytic thinkers include Carl jung who gave the concept of Collective
Unconscious and Archetypes.
Humanistic Psychology
According to Humanistic Psychology, People are continually looking for different ways
to grow, to become better, to experience self growth and self actualization. In 1943, Maslow
described his hierarchy of needs in ‘A theory of Human Motivation’, published in ‘Psychological
review’.
In 1951 Carl Rogers published ‘Client-Centred Therapy’ which describe the humanistic
client centred approach to therapy. In 1961, ‘Journal of Humanistic Psychology’ was published
Existential Psychology
Existential psychology represents the philosophical root of the phenomenological
approach to personality. The purpose of existentialism was to make contact of an individual with
experience of being Alive and Aware. Life has no meaning, unless you create it.
Rollo may give concepts of Normal Anxiety, Neurotic Anxiety and Guilt. He wrote the
famous book ‘Love and Will’ in which many of his unique idea can be found.
Psychosexual stages rather signify a sequence of major issues in an individual’s life.
These stages are
Innocence Stage of infant, pre-egoic, pre-self conscious.
Rebellion Person wants freedom, but does not have understanding of the
responsibilities attached to it.
Ordinary The normal adult has learned his responsibility, but find it too
demanding so seeks refuge in conformity and traditional values.
Creative The authentic adult, the existential stage, self actualising state.
Victor frankl was an influential existential therapist. He developed “Logo Therapy” which is
based on the principle that the primary motivational force in human beings in their search for a
meaning in life. Frankl’s approach was based on three philosophical and psychological concepts.
There are
Freedom of will
Will to meaning
Meaning of life
He wrote many famous books like ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, ‘The Will to Meaning’, ‘The
Doctor and The Soul’ and ‘Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning’.
Transpersonal Psychology
Transpersonal psychology integrates spiritual and transcendent experiences within the
frame work of modern psychology. It had rooted in early work by William James and Carl
Jung who was deeply interested in the spiritual aspects of the human nature.
Lofore and Shapiro identified spirituality, higher potential transcendence and other state
of consciousness as the key concept of transpersonal psychology.
Cognitive Revolution
Cognitive revolution in psychology is mostly a response to behaviourism which
emphasised on objectivity and focused on the overt behaviour for studying human psyche.
In 1950 new disciplinary fields like linguistics, neuroscience and computer science again
revived interest in mind as focus of scientific enquiry. This particular perspective was known as
the cognitive revolution.
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism Psychology refers to the systematic investigation, analysis and
assessment of human behaviour as they are experienced in surroundings where people of
different cultural background interact. It studies the impact of culture on individual lives and
behaviour. It has helped in understanding human behaviour from a cultural perspective where
people with different cultural backgrounds co-exist.
Founding paths of Academic Psychology
The four founding pillar or famous scholars of academic psychology are Wilhelm
Wundt, Sigmund Freud, William James, Wilhelm Dilthey.
Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Wundt opened the ‘Institute for Experiment Psychology’ at the University of
Leipzig in Germany in 1987. His school of psychology was called Voluntarism, the process of
organising mind.
Edward Titchener, Wundt’s student prompted Wundt’s theory and described his system
as Structuralism, or the analysis of the basic elements that constituted the mind.
Wundt’s contribution to psychology can be summarised in four main points, these are as
follow
He wrote first text book of psychology (Principles of Physiological Psychology,
1873-1874).
He set up the first laboratory of Experimental psychology (1875).
He used the scientific method to study the structure of sensation and perception.
He showed that introspection could be used to study mental states in replicable
laboratory experiments.
Sigmund Freud
Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian Neurologist who was fascinated by patients suffering
from hysteria and neurosis.
William James
William james was an American psychologist and philosopher who is sometimes referred
to as the ‘Father of American Psychology’. Pragmatism and functionalism are two philosophies
used by William James to further his understanding of the world around him.
Wilhelm Dilthey
Wilhelm Dilthey was born in Biebrich on Rhine in 1833, two years after Hegel had died.
According to Dilthey, “the human sciences (humanistic and social science), help to define what
Dilthey calls the Historical World.
The notable ideas from the desk of Dilthey were numerous like Hermeneutics which is
the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom
literature and philosophical texts, distinction between explanatory and descriptive psychology,
distinction between explanatory and descriptive sciences and typology of the three basic
weltanschauungen (German word for world view).
Issues in psychology
Psychology emphasis on a strict adherence to experimental method (Logical empiricism), logical
positivism, operationism and use of inferential statistics.
Crisis in Psychology Due To Strict Adherence to Logical Empiricism
Logical Empiricism is a term that was coined by the Austrian sociologist and economist
Otto neurath (1880-1945) to name the philosophical work of the Vienna Circle and related work
being pursued by the physicist and philosopher Hans Reich en bach (1891-1953) and his
associates.
The central thesis of logical empiricism was “verificationism”, atheory of knowledge
which asserted that only statements verifiable through empirical observation are meaningful.
The notion of verificationism also created a lot of crisis in the field as according to this
doctrine a proposition is ‘Cognitively Meaningful’,only if there is a finite procedure for
conclusively determining whether it is true or false.
Indic Influences on Modern Psychology
The psychologist Cyril Burt once summarised the modern history of pdychologicsl
science as “Psychology first lost its soul, then lost its mind, until it was finally in danger of
losing consciousness altogether”.
Wundt relied on the method of ‘introspection’ to study mental process.
In 1950’s Michael Murphy visited Sri Aurobindo Ashram and got deeply inspired and
started Esalen on returning to California.
Herbert Benoit 1955, a French psychiatrist, wrote on psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism
In 1960s many Asian teachers become popular in the west, including Swami
Satchitanand, Kirpal singh, Nahana Ponika Thera, Swami Muktananda, Pir Vilayat Khan and
many others. In 1960 only Eric Formm wrote an psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism.
In 1965, Medrad Boss, a psychiatrist who visited India to study yoga. Leaders of the
Humanistic psychology were also Influenced with the Eastern thoughts like Maslow referred to
Vedanta in his writings on ‘Beings vs doing’, where as Roger was highly influenced by ‘Taoism’
in the development of his nation of a natural ‘Organism’ process of self actualisation.
Daniel Goleman, a psychologist wrote ‘The Varities of Meditative Experience’ in 1977.
He studied about Hindu and Buddhist meditation.
Ken Wilber published his first book ‘The Spectrum of Consciousness’ in 1977
Renneth Pelletier, 1983 published an excellent book titled ‘Towards a Science of
Consciousness’.
In 1990 Crook and Fontana published an excellent book “A Buddhist Influences on
Modern Psychology”.
In 1991, Robert Thurman along with Dalai Lama and scientists from several discipline
including neuroscience, psychology, biology among other convene the first of several “Mind
Science” conferences at Haward.
