History concepts and development

¶ … History of Psychology

In many ways, the history of psychology can be said to have come 'full circle,' from its early attributions of human behavior to purely biological causes, to psychoanalysis' stress upon the relationship of the mind's ability to control the body, to today's modern use of psychopharmacology to use chemicals to modify human behavior. However, the modern use of psychology is more often scientifically rather than anecdotally based -- the 19th century theorist Sigmund Freud developed his theory of human psychological development from a few case studies, which would not satisfy today's more rigorous demands of scientific objectivity and the need for results to be quantified, regarding client treatment. (Myers, p. 46)

In Freud's day, however, psychology did aspire to some form of scientific validity. Doctors tended to view the human mind as affected by biological complaints such as a 'wandering womb,' that produced hysteria in females. But Freud believed that human behavior could be explained by probing the inner psyche, or unconscious through the analysis of dreams, slips of the tongue, and patient resistance to certain ideas. (Myers, p. 568) Psychoanalysis, the therapy developed by Freud, attempted to give clients insight by bringing them into a state of personal, conscious awareness by interpreting previously repressed feelings. (Myers, p. 568)

However, later theorists were more apt to take focus upon the individual in society. Also, later theorists were more inclined to analyze the human person, not in pathological or arrested state, but in a normal state. The input of theorists such as Karen Horney and Erik Erikson during the early part of the 20th century stressed human development from infancy to adulthood and the development of human society from a 'primitive' or collective state to today's more individualistic culture. However, theorists such as Karl Jung still made use of Freud's theory of the unconscious, even while Jung was more apt to stress the need to understand the collective unconscious, the social collective memory.