Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Science that studies the mental processes, sensations, perceptions and behavior of the
human being, in relation to the physical and social environment that surrounds him.
What is the history of psychology?
Psychology is a social science that deals with studying and understanding the human
mind and behavior. Despite its formal origins in the 19th century, it is considered the
modern continuation of a long philosophical tradition of questioning the origins of
consciousness and what exactly it is that distinguishes us from animals.
The antecedents of psychology date back to classical antiquity, especially Greco-
Roman, since many of the great thinkers of the West arose within that Mediterranean
society.
Philosophers such as Socrates and Plato, in the 5th and 4th century BC. C., important
questions were asked about what it is to be human, and they came to the conclusion that
there should be a "soul" to oppose the body, and that the mental, intellectual and moral
aspects of the individual resided in the former, while that the second was the seat of the
passions and the most “animal” aspects of the human being.
This opposition between body and soul, or rather body and mind, was central to
Western culture and many religions, such as Christianity, took it literally. It also
allowed the appearance of medical studies of the body, many of which also had ancient
beginnings, distinguishing as the centuries passed more and more what was a bodily
ailment, from what was an ailment "of the spirit".
For this, of course, it was necessary to overcome the religious paradigm of medieval
Christianity, which attributed any disease that was not strictly corporeal, to demonic
possession or other mystical explanations.
Prayer and exorcism were the most common method of dealing with ailments.
However, numerous ancient treatises on the subject had survived, such as the famous
theory of the four humours, which supposed diseases as the product of an imbalance of
the four fundamental fluids of the human body: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow
bile.
The term "psychology" emerged during the Western Renaissance, taking up the Greco-
Roman pagan heritage. It was formed, precisely, by the Greek words psyché, "soul",
and logos, "speech".
Thanks to this reunion of the West with itself, and to the work of philosophers such as
René Descartes (1596-1650), Baruch Espinoza (1632-1677) or John Locke (1632-
1704), who delved into and questioned the body/soul dichotomy, the The modern
panorama was ready for the first steps to be taken towards the formalization of the
sciences, and among them, psychology.
Other important precursors in the matter were the Croatian Marko Marulic (1450-1524),
and the Germans Rodolfo Goclenio (1547-1628) and Christian Wolff (1679-1754). Also
noteworthy are the earlier forms of psychiatry, which from the mid-18th to the 19th
centuries were practiced under the name of "alienism."
"Scientific" psychology, that is, modern psychology, was born in the 19th century, hand
in hand with the increase in medical and biological knowledge, especially neurological
and psychophysiological knowledge. The studies of scientists such as Gustav Fechner
(1801-1887), Paul Pierre Broca (1824-1880) and Carl Wernicke (1848-1905) were key
in this regard.
Also important was the revolution caused by the evolutionary theories of Charles
Darwin (1809-1882), whose theories on the origin of species were soon applied to
human society itself, often with disastrous political results. In any case, it is important to
understand how the new scientific perspectives turned to the study of the human mind
itself, among many other things.
The first experimental psychology laboratory was founded in 1879, at the German
University of Leipzig, and was the work of the philosopher and psychologist Wilhelm
Wundt (1832-1920). This event is considered the foundational milestone of modern
psychology, that is, its definitive separation from philosophy, embarking on a properly
scientific path.
The positivism of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who valued the experimental sciences
above any other approach to reality, had an immense influence on this.
This is how the first two currents of psychology arose:
• The structuralism defended by Wundt.
• The functionalism proposed in the United States by William James (1842-1910).
During the first decades of the existence of psychology, three new aspects would come
to join them:
• Psychoanalysis, developed by the famous Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).
• Gestalt psychology, proposed by Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) and Wolfgang Köhler
(1887-1967), among others
• Behaviorism, whose greatest representative was the American John B. Watson (1878-
1958).
Que es la psicología
Ciencia que estudia los procesos mentales, las sensaciones, las percepciones y el
comportamiento del ser humano, en relación con el medio ambiente físico y social que
lo rodea.
Esta oposición entre cuerpo y alma, o más bien cuerpo y mente, fue fundamental para la
cultura occidental y muchas religiones, como el cristianismo, lo tomaron al pie de la
letra. También permitió la aparición de los estudios médicos del cuerpo, muchos de los
cuales tuvieron también inicios antiguos, distinguiendo conforme pasaban los siglos
cada vez más lo que era una dolencia corpórea, de lo que era una dolencia “del espíritu”.
Para ello, desde luego, hubo que superar el paradigma religioso del cristianismo
medieval, que atribuía cualquier enfermedad que no fuera estrictamente corpórea, a la
posesión demoníaca u otras explicaciones de tipo místico.
El rezo y el exorcismo eran el método más común para lidiar con las dolencias. Sin
embargo, habían sobrevivido numerosos tratados antiguos al respecto, como la famosa
teoría de los cuatro humores, que suponía las enfermedades como producto de un
desbalance de los cuatro fluidos fundamentales del cuerpo humano: sangre, flema, bilis
negra y bilis amarilla.
En ello tuvo una inmensa influencia el positivismo de Auguste Comte (1798-1857), que
valoraba las ciencias experimentales por encima de cualquier otra aproximación a
la realidad.