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ОглавлениеPsychology. The theories. Behaviourism The theory of object relations The ideas of prominent psychologists of the 20th century Для бесплатного чтения доступна только часть главы! Для чтения полной версии необходимо приобрести книгуPsychology. The essentialsThe subject and object of psychologyFor a long time the subject of psychology has been the soul (from ancient Greece and Rome and up to the 17th century), then consciousness (from Descartes in the 17th century and up to the early 20th century), and finally behaviour (from the early 20th century). At the present time it is proposed to regard psychology as a science about construction, functions and development of psyche in its various forms including consciousness as the highest form of psyche proper to a man. Thus the subject of psychology is psyche, and the object of psychology is all flesh with psyche (including animals and a man). Psyche has emerged in the process of evolution and its main function is adaptation that lets the living organism adapt to changing environment with maximal agility. For correlation of internal condition of organism with the environment one more psychic function is required – the subjective reflection of objective reality. Psychic reflection comes over as sensation, perception, thinking, memory and other psychic phenomena. Psychic phenomena are divided into: 1) psychic conditions (motivational, volitional etc.); 2) psychic processes (memory, concentration, thinking etc.); 3) psychic traits of personality (character, temper etc.). A man possesses an exclusive psychic trait – consciousness that allows him to use not only individual but cultural experience as well. Pre-scientific images of psycheFirst images of psyche emerged in the terms of “the science of the soul”. In the sixth century B. C., Democritus asserted that the soul was material and consisted of atoms, atoms being the components of all objects, alive and inanimate (panpsychism). In the fourth century B. C., Plato considered that two worlds existed: the world of ideas and the world of things with the soul being an intermediate between them and remembering through life what the cosmic soul had known. Then in the fourth century B. C., Aristotle claimed that the soul was proper to living organisms ‘(antropopsychism). In the Middle Ages the knowledge of psyche was closely interlaced with Christian confession (Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century). The basic works of those times were related to the cognition of the world through the divine revelation or through experimental way. At those times physiological data on psychic functioning were collected in the works of Arab thinkers (Avicenna and others). The premises to the issue of psychology as an independent field of knowledge were the works of philosophers of the 15th century. They include the works of F. Bacon invoking the empirical study of the soul and the works of R. Descartes (the 17th century) that became basis for the study of consciousness. The empirical psychology of J. Locke emerged, it regarded psyche as tabula rasa on which the experience was imprinted through life. Also the works of associanists appeared, they considered associations the main mechanism of psyche (the 18th century, D. Hume, D. Hartley). Psychology as a scienceThe scientific development of psychology dates back to the 19th century. The discoveries in the fields of physiology, psychiatry and biology gave rise to psychology as an independent branch of knowledge. The main criterion of the emergence of psychology as a science was experiment. In 1879 in Leipzig W. Wundt opened the first laboratory of experimental psychology. In the laboratory the phenomena of consciousness were studied by the method of introspection (observing internal conditions in the process of perception). In Russian psychology physiologist I. M. Sechenov proposed the programme of psychological science based on the study of reflexes. The works of functionalists appeared in the USA (W. James) in which psyche was regarded as an adaptation to the environment. In the early 20th century behaviourism emerged as an opposition to introspection; it concentrated on the study of behaviour ignoring the internal contents (J. Watson). At the same time gestalt psychology emerged; it studied the function of consciousness – the build-up of an image to make a complete unit that was not a mere sum of its parts (M. Wertheimer, K. Koffka, K. Levine). Another important school that emerged in the 20th century was deep psychology analyzing unconscious processes and studying their impact on daily life (Z. Freud, C. Jung, A. Adler). Then the new branch appeared – humanistic psychology (A. Maslow, C. Rogers, W. Frankl). Внимание! Авторские права на книгу "Psychology: The Essentials" (M. Myagchenkova) охраняются законодательством! |
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