Psychology as a science. History of the development of psychology. How did psychology emerge as a science? History of psychology. Great psychologists

At the beginning of the 20th century. the famous German psychologist G. Ebbinghaus wrote: “Psychology has a long past and a short history.” Speaking of the “long past,” Ebbinghaus meant the centuries-long period of development of psychological knowledge within the framework of non-psychological scientific disciplines, primarily philosophy. However, questions about the essence human soul people became interested long before the first philosophical concepts appeared - in fact, simultaneously with the emergence of human society. Further, ideas about the soul developed mainly within the framework of religious and mythological systems that ensured the existence primitive societies. Based on mythological ideas about the human soul, explanations were given for such phenomena as sleep, dreams, death, and illness. These explanations were of a magical nature: the human soul was endowed with a mysterious meaning, incomprehensible by rational means and subject to unconditional acceptance. Gradually, with the development of human society, within the religious-mythological way of explaining the world, ideas matured that came into conflict with it. This entailed a process of rationalization of myths, in connection with which views were born that, while remaining theological, contained a desire for a causal understanding of the nature of things. IN Ancient China, India, Egypt, several thousand years BC, philosophical doctrines about the structure of the world and the essence of human life, many of which are still relevant today.

Around the same time in the West, in ancient Greece, fundamentally new ideas about the soul took shape and developed. In contrast to the magical understanding in mythology, ancient Greek philosophers viewed the soul as a natural, natural phenomenon. Thus, a decisive turn was made to a new vision of mental life, which became the starting point of all subsequent scientific and psychological knowledge.

The most important directions in the development of ideas about the soul are associated with the names of Plato (427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC). Plato, as a student of Socrates, created a doctrine that is considered the first classical form of objective idealism. According to Plato, individual souls are imperfect images of a single universal world soul. The thinker drew a line between the physical and spiritual existence of a person: the perishable, material and mortal body is only a “dungeon” for the immaterial and immortal soul, which, like a pilgrim, wanders through bodies and worlds; knowledge of the surrounding world is the recollection, by the soul, of ideas that it contemplated before its union with the body.

A different idea of ​​the soul was set forth by Aristotle in his treatise “On the Soul,” which is rightfully considered the first special psychological scientific work. Aristotle was the son of a physician under the Macedonian king and himself was preparing for medical practice: his view of the mental life of a person had a pronounced natural-scientific character. According to Aristotle, the soul is the basis of all life manifestations; it is inseparable from the body and dies along with the body. Aristotle viewed the soul of an organism as its function: “If the eye were a living being, its soul would be vision.” The specificity of the soul as an integral principle of organic life is expressed in expediency, i.e. in the ability of organisms to strive for a goal and achieve it. Thus, from Aristotle’s point of view, all living things on Earth have a soul. However, the souls of different types of organisms perform different functions. The vegetable soul (plants already have it), the animal soul (animals and humans) and the rational soul (inherent only in humans)” represent three stages of life, three levels of development. The plant soul performs only vegetative functions, the animal soul - sensory-motor functions, the rational soul is the mind and will, which are manifestations of the divine mind and divine will in man and therefore they are immortal and can be separated from the body. Explanation top level The development of the soul is given by Aristotle in an extremely inconsistent and contradictory manner. Despite this, his teaching had a huge influence on all subsequent development of psychological thought; some of the philosopher’s discoveries are still relevant today.

The doctrine of the soul also developed thanks to the discoveries and experience accumulated by ancient doctors. From the medical schools of Hippocrates (460-377 BC) and the Roman physician Galen (129-201 AD), the doctrine of temperamental personality traits and four classical types of temperament came to modern psychology: phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric and melancholic. The successes achieved by ancient philosophers and physicians in the development of the doctrine of the soul served as the foundation for the further development of psychology.

The pinnacle and completion of the stage of development of psychological knowledge within the framework of the doctrine of the soul was the system of views of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), which laid the foundations for the empirical study of the soul and its abilities. The novelty of Bacon's approach was that he called for abandoning the speculative solution to questions about the nature of the soul, its essence and immortality and moving on to direct empirical study psychic phenomena and processes. He also separated the science of the body from the science of the soul, and in the science of the soul he singled out the science of the rational, divine soul and the non-rational, sentient, bodily soul, common to humans and animals. Bacon marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of psychology as the “science of consciousness.”

The concept of “consciousness” was introduced into psychology by Rene Descartes (1596-1650). According to Descartes, the beginning of all principles in philosophy and science is doubt. Everything must be questioned: both natural and supernatural, only one thing is certain - the very judgment “I think”, and therefore the existence of a thinking subject. Hence the famous Cartesian “cogilo ergo sum” - “I think, therefore I exist.” By thinking, Descartes understood everything that is done consciously. The philosopher saw awareness as a criterion of difference mental processes from non-mental, physiological, physical. At the same time, Descartes proposed a way to empirically study mental processes: direct introspection - introspection. The ideas formulated by Descartes about the accessibility of the inner world through introspection, about the psychophysical problem, about the reflex as a mechanism of behavior, about the external determination of behavior on long years determined the course of development of the philosophical doctrine of knowledge, and then the formation of psychology as an independent science. As the basis for the study of consciousness by thinkers of the 17th-19th centuries. The method of introspection was advocated, since the essence of the studied phenomena of consciousness could be discovered exclusively through introspection.

J. Locke (1632-1704), closely following the philosophy of Descartes, believed: the mind passively reflects the influences of the environment, which is ensured by a single process of perception. According to Locke, there is external experience, which is directly based on the senses (its result is simple ideas that cannot be broken down into smaller units), and internal experience, which is formed as a result of the mind's manipulation of simple ideas, while complex ideas are formed from simple ideas. The concept of “external” does not mean openness to an outside observer: both “external” and “internal” experience are available only for introspection.

German scientist G.W. Leibniz (1646-1716) distinguished between the concepts of “perception” and “apperception”, understanding the first as a presentation to consciousness of some content, and the second as a mental force that determines the purposefulness of actions and their voluntary nature. From Leibniz’s point of view, processes of “unconscious perceptions” - “small perceptions” - continuously occur in the soul; This discovery allows us to conclude that Leibniz was the first to identify a range of unconscious phenomena of consciousness inaccessible to self-observation.

Further development psychological ideas in the 18th century. occurred within the framework of the associative and empirical direction of the philosophical theory of knowledge. Representatives of associative psychology believed that association is the main mechanism of functioning of consciousness and psyche. The prerequisites for the development of associationism can be found in the works of Plato and Aristotle. Subsequently, the principle of association was used to understand mental processes by R. Descartes, T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, J. Locke, D. Hume. In the works of J. Locke, the term “association” itself arose: it was proposed by scientists to designate a “connection of ideas,” which is entirely due to chance or custom, i.e. not given by nature. For D. Hume, association became the explanatory principle of the entire cognitive sphere of the psyche.

From the middle of the 18th century. teachings began to arise in which association acted as an explanatory principle of the psyche in general - the teachings of the so-called “classical associationism”. This direction developed most strongly in England; among the representatives of British associationism one can name D. Hartley, J. Priestley, James Mill, John Stuart Mill. D. Hartley, the creator of the first complete system of associative psychology, built a model of consciousness by analogy with the physical models of Isaac Newton based on the principle of elementarism: the simplest elements of consciousness are interconnected by associations that develop in experience.

The term "empirical psychology" was introduced by the 18th century German philosopher. X. Wolf to designate a special discipline whose task was to study specific phenomena of mental life, in contrast to rational psychology, which dealt with the eternal, immortal soul. Empirical psychology of consciousness was developed in the works of French materialists and educators J. Lametrie, C. Helvetius, E. Condillac. Representatives of French empirical psychology paid more attention than English associationists to the activity of the subject in perceiving the world around them, viewing the psyche from a natural scientific perspective.

In the 19th century Research and discoveries in the field of anatomy and physiology of brain activity, and above all, the doctrine of reflexes, had a strong influence on the subsequent development of psychological ideas. In the works of the Czech G. Prochazka, the Englishman C. Bell and the Frenchman F. Magendie, the reflex mechanisms of human life were studied and the motor and sensory parts of the nervous system were identified. Psychophysiological and psychophysical studies of G. Helmholtz, F. Donders, E. Weber, G. Fechner contributed to the formation of an idea of ​​​​special patterns and factors of mental life that are different from both physiological and philosophical. This created the prerequisites for the separation of psychology from physiology and philosophy and its development as an independent scientific discipline.

I.M. Sechenov came up with a special program for building psychology. He developed a reflex theory of the mind, according to which mental processes, the highest manifestations of consciousness and personality unfold according to the mechanism of a physiological reflex.

Thus, during the period of formation of psychological knowledge within the framework of non-psychological scientific disciplines, pre-scientific ideas about the soul as an immaterial, incorporeal substance were eliminated; there was a rejection of the speculative solution to questions about the nature of the soul in favor of studying the phenomena of consciousness and human experience on the basis of introspection; the need for the development of experimental psychological research was formulated.

2.2. Formation of psychology as an independent scientific discipline.

The beginning of the development of psychology as an independent science is considered to be 1879, in which W. Wundt, a German psychologist, physiologist and philosopher, opened the first experimental psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig. Two years later, on the basis of this laboratory, the Institute of Experimental Psychology was created, where many outstanding psychologists of the world studied, including from Russia - V.M. Bekhterev, G.I. Chelpanov, N.N. Lange. In the same year, Wundt founded the first psychological journal. Thanks to the efforts of Wundt in 1889. The First International Psychological Congress was held in Paris and a scientific psychological community was established. According to Wundt's ideas, psychology has a unique subject - the direct experience of the subject, comprehended only through introspection, or introspection - a special procedure for the subject to observe the processes in his consciousness, requiring long-term training. Having identified the “simplest elements of consciousness” - sensation and elementary feelings - Wundt considered his main task.

E. Titchener, an American psychologist and creator of structural psychology, developed the ideas of Wundt’s introspective psychology, proposing the method of analytical introspection as the main method for studying consciousness. The peculiarity of this method was that the subject gave the results of self-observation in terms of elements of the structure of consciousness, and not in terms of objects of the external world or stimuli. By the elements of consciousness, Titchener understood sensations, ideas and the simplest feelings, from which, like bricks, all the diversity was composed mental life person.

Another follower of Wundt, the German psychologist and philosopher O. Külpe, founded the Würzburg school. Unlike the introspective methods of Wundt and Titchener, in which the actual conscious experience and the process of observing the content of this experience simultaneously unfolded, Külpe’s systematic introspection was retrospective in nature: the subject solved the proposed problem, and then described in detail the course of mental processes during its solution. At the same time, the main object of research was the thinking process itself, and not its result.

By the end of the 19th century. it became clear that the method of introspection is extremely limited and that the range of mental phenomena is not limited to the phenomena of consciousness. At this time, ideas arose to create a different psychology. In 1894, the German philosopher and psychologist W. Dilthey wrote in his work “Thoughts on Descriptive and Disjunctive Psychology” that there is not one psychological science, but two, and each of them has its own subject and its own methodology. The scientist called one psychology explanatory, meaning by it the contemporary introspective psychology of W. Wundt. Another psychology that Dilthey called for to be created was what he called descriptive. According to the author’s plan, it should have been built on completely different foundations and dealt primarily with the study of the mental life of the individual in its integrity and uniqueness. Dilthey believed that psychology belongs not to the cycle of natural sciences, but to the cycle of humanities, which includes, for example, history and cultural studies, and, therefore, should be based not on the natural scientific, experimental method, but on the method of understanding characteristic of the humanities, which is to “feel” into the object being studied. At the same time, understanding psychology does not reject the methods of explanatory psychology. The distinction between explanatory and descriptive psychology introduced by Dilthey has not lost its relevance in our time. The question of what type of sciences psychology belongs to - natural or humanitarian - and by what principles the knowledge of the human soul should be built remains open.

Intensive development of experimental psychology at the beginning of the 20th century. led to an expansion of the range of phenomena being studied, which in turn made obvious the insufficiency of the psychology of consciousness and the introspective method for explaining human mental life. The very idea of ​​consciousness has also changed: it is no longer considered as closed in itself inner world, accessible to knowledge only by the subject himself. There is a need for a fundamental revision of views on the subject of psychology. At this time, several competing concepts arose, each of which defended its own point of view on what psychology should do.

The author of one of the theoretical concepts that arose at the dawn of the 20th century was the Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist Z. Freud. His teaching, called psychoanalysis, became widely known and had a huge influence not only on the further development of psychology, but also on art, literature, medicine, and other areas of scientific research related to the study of man. Having received medical education , Freud studied the nature of neurotic disorders and methods of treating them. After an internship at the Salpêtrière clinic in Paris under the guidance of the French physician J. Charcot, Freud began to use hypnosis in the treatment of hysterical disorders. Analyzing the hypnotic trance states of his patients and the effects of post-hypnotic suggestion, Freud focused his attention on phenomena hidden from human consciousness, unconscious. The ideas that the psyche is not limited only to the realm of the conscious, that there are areas of mental life inaccessible to human consciousness, unconscious by it, were expressed long before the emergence of psychoanalysis. But it was Freud who made the unconscious the subject of psychology. Created initially as a method of treating hysterical neuroses, psychoanalysis was later extended by scientists to explain the mental life of a healthy person. According to Freud, the driving force behind behavior and personality development are unconscious, irrational drives, the main one of which is sexual (libido). There are three spheres in the psyche: the unconscious, the preconscious and consciousness. The source that gives motivational force to human behavior is the unconscious, saturated with the energy of libidinal drives, suppressed and repressed from the area of ​​consciousness under the influence of “censorship,” prohibitions and taboos imposed by society. According to the researcher, repressed drives have a large energy charge, but are not allowed into the area of ​​consciousness - consciousness resists them - and then the content of the unconscious penetrates consciousness in a distorted, altered form. Freud identified three main forms of manifestation of the unconscious: dreams, erroneous actions (misprints, slips of the tongue, etc.) and neurotic symptoms. Based on this, he developed a number of original methods that made it possible to obtain source material about the content of the deep structures of the human psyche: analysis of dreams, the method of free associations, analysis of slips, slips of the tongue, and forgetting. The interpretation of this material is the essence of the method that Freud called psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis has spread widely throughout the world, finding adherents not only among psychologists, but also among representatives of other fields of science and culture. The fruitfulness of Freud's theory was also manifested in the fact that many of his students, associates and followers created their own original concepts and areas of research. Among the scientists who developed Freud's ideas one can name the author of analytical psychology K. Jung, the creator of individual psychology A. Adler.;

Another major psychological direction that formed at the beginning of the 20th century. and had a significant influence on the subsequent development of psychology, became behaviorism. His birth is associated with the publication by J.B. Watson in 1913 of the article “Psychology from the Point of View of a Behaviorist.” However, the prerequisites for the emergence of behaviorism were formed long before this: first of all, in the works on the study of the psyche and behavior of animals by J. Loeb and E. Thorndike and in the works of I.P. Pavlov, developing ideas about conditioned reflexes. Behaviorists refused to consider subjective world of man as a subject of psychology and proposed to consider human and animal behavior as such, classifying all objectively observable reactions (R) of the body to external influences (S) into this category.The task of psychology, according to behaviorists, should be to identify patterns of connections between stimuli and reactions (S -> R), and the goal is to predict the behavior of the subject and control it. Having abandoned the discredited method of introspection, behaviorists replaced it with the method of objective observation and experiment. One of the most important topics of experimental research was the problem of learning and development skills; work in this direction made it possible to collect a vast amount of facts and subject them to careful statistical processing. The disadvantage of behaviorist experiments was that they were carried out mainly on white rats, and the resulting patterns and laws of learning were easily transferred to human behavior. Until the 60s. XX century behaviorism and the neo-behaviorism that replaced it occupied a dominant position among the concepts of American psychology, influencing the development of psychotherapy, social psychology, teaching methods, advertising psychology, etc. At the same time, the mechanism of behaviorism and its ignorance of consciousness were harshly criticized by representatives of other theoretical areas of psychology.

Another psychological direction that actively developed in the 1910-1930s. In Germany, it was called “Gestalt psychology”. Its main representatives - M. Wertheimer, V. Köhler, K. Koffka - were employees of the University of Berlin. Gestalt psychology did not abandon the study of the phenomena of consciousness and the method of phenomenological introspection, but it understood consciousness itself as a kind of dynamic whole, as a “field”, each point of which interacts with all the others. The unit of analysis of this field was the gestalt as an integral figurative structure, irreducible to the sum of its constituent sensations. The achievements of Gestalt psychology in the field of studying perception and creative thinking constitute the golden fund of world psychology. After Hitler came to power, the school disintegrated as a result of the emigration of its main members, but its ideas had a significant influence on the subsequent development of psychology.

Thus, in the 1910-1930s. In world psychology, a large number of competing, often incompatible and incomparable trends have formed. These include, first of all, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and Gestalt psychology. Along with them, other theoretical schools developed, in particular the dynamic psychology of K. Lewin and the genetic psychology of J. Piaget. A unique situation arose, which was called an open crisis of psychology: instead of a unified science, different theories with their own subjects of research, methods and principles were in circulation. The positive content of the crisis consisted in active work to create a psychological theory that would meet the needs of an intensively developing society.

Domestic psychology during this period also searched for a methodological basis for the development of science, various directions arose: reflexology V.M. Bekhterev, reactology by K.N. Kornilov, cultural-historical theory of L.S. Vygotsky, D.N.’s theory of attitude Uznadze. In the 1930s A powerful theoretical, methodological and experimental direction has emerged, called the “activity approach”, the main category of analysis in which is “activity”. Particular credit for the development of this approach belonged to L.S. Vygotsky, S.L. Rubinstein, A.N. Leontiev, in whose works the principles that were productively developed over the following years by their students and followers took shape.

The state of psychology, characterized by a diversity of views on key issues in the development of science, continues to this day. However, the differences between individual scientific schools are no longer perceived as insurmountable and destructive of the integrity of psychology; on the contrary, the subject of psychology is interpreted so broadly that previously competing directions act as complementary to each other.

2.3.Current state of psychological theory.

The current state of psychological theory is determined primarily by the needs of practice. Several main trends in the development of psychological science can be identified.

Further development of those theoretical concepts that emerged during times of open crisis. At the same time, previously formed theoretical directions are subject to significant revision, their categorical apparatus is revised and enriched. For example, the classical formula of behaviorism S -> R, in which all human behavior is considered only as a reaction to the influence of the surrounding world, has undergone such a transformation, thereby excluding the activity of the subject himself. Between the stimulus and response behavior, a mediating link is introduced - intermediate variables - which are cognitive and motivational factors. The attempt to build a new theoretical concept using old categories was called neobehaviorism. The most significant representatives of this trend are E. Tolman and K. Hull. 3. Freud's ideas were developed in neo-Freudianism. While maintaining the position on the determining role of the unconscious, neo-Freudians are trying to overcome biologism and pansexualism classical psychoanalysis. Representatives of this trend place emphasis on the social conditions of personal development and reject the ideas of the omnipotence of sexual desires. The largest scientists of the neo-Freudian movement include American psychologists K. Horney, E. Fromm and E. Erikson. Despite attempts to overcome the shortcomings of classical theories, the influence of behaviorism and psychoanalysis in their modern version is low and interest in research within these scientific paradigms is steadily declining.

Another trend in the development of modern psychology is the eclectic approach, which is implemented primarily in an attempt to combine elements, concepts, methods, and theoretical constructs of previously incompatible directions. The disagreements between the main scientific schools, which seemed insurmountable in the middle of the 20th century, are not so obvious today. As knowledge about the nature of the human psyche expands, greater emphasis is placed on the mutual enrichment of different theoretical concepts with each other's concepts and methods. For example, two American psychologists J. Dollard and N. Miller made an attempt to combine the achievements of the behaviorist learning theory with the achievements of Freud's psychoanalysis, setting out their ideas in the book “Personality and Psychotherapy.”

1. New original theoretical concepts are emerging. So, in the early 1960s. Humanistic psychology, called the “third force,” gained recognition and great influence. Western psychology(following psychoanalysis and behaviorism, which have lost their power). Its founders are considered to be A. Maslow and K. Rogers. Humanistic psychology unites different scientific schools that have a common strategic platform. The subject of study within the framework of this direction is the whole person in his highest, specific only for a person, manifestations - including: self-actualization of the individual, personal values ​​and meanings, love, creativity, freedom, responsibility, interpersonal communication. Humanistic psychology opposes itself, on the one hand, to behaviorism, which it criticizes for its mechanistic approach to man, and on the other hand, to psychoanalysis, which completely determines mental life by drives and complexes. The main provisions of this direction are as follows:

   • man is whole and must be studied in his integrity;
   • Each person is unique, so analysis individual cases no less justified than statistical generalizations;
   • a person is open to the world, a person’s experiences of the world and himself in the world are the main psychological reality;
   • a person strives for constant development and self-realization, he is an active and creative being;
   • a person has some freedom from external determination.

In the mid-1960s. In the USA, another direction emerged, called “cognitive psychology”. Today it is one of the most influential areas of Western psychology. It appeared as an alternative to behaviorism, which excluded the mental component from the analysis of behavior and ignored cognitive processes, The main method of cognitive psychology is the information approach, within which models of human reception and processing of information are developed. The origins of cognitive psychology were J. Bruner, G. Simon, P. Lindsay, D. Norman and others.

Thus, current state psychology represents a plurality of views on the nature of the human psyche and its development. This variability of scientific schools and directions is historically determined and is the result of the search by many thinkers over several millennia for answers to questions about the essence of man and the factors determining his development and behavior.

2.4. Main directions of psychological practice.

Along with the development of psychology as an independent scientific discipline, there was the development of psychological practice, designed to help a person in difficult life situations, be it teenage, child-parent, marital problems or a tough system of professional selection and competition in the business world. The possibilities of providing psychological assistance to the population were realized only a few decades ago. Development practical psychology is determined, on the one hand, by the intensive development of psychological theory, on the other, by the social order of society in conditions of social instability, interethnic conflicts, and events of a crisis and catastrophic nature. The formation of practical psychology occurs in close connection with fundamental branches of psychology, such as general, developmental, social Psychology, educational psychology and personality psychology, the basis of which is the theoretical principles and methods of psychological knowledge, the laws of existence and development of mental reality.

The main tasks of practical psychology include knowledge of mental reality and the development of means of practical assistance and psychological support for individuals experiencing difficulties in solving life problems, in organizing optimal living conditions that contribute to the best social and psychological adaptation. Among the various areas of activity of a practical psychologist, the following can be distinguished:

1. psychodiagnostic work;
2. psychological counseling;
3. psychotherapy;
4. correctional and developmental activities;
5. psychoprophylactic work.

Psychological diagnostics is based on the use of psychodiagnostic tools and methods that ensure the reliability and validity of data, allowing one to obtain meaningful information about a specific person or group of people. In a psychodiagnostic examination, there are three main stages: data collection, their processing and interpretation, making a decision (diagnosis, prognosis or drawing up psychological portrait personality).

Psychological counseling is an important area of ​​activity for a practical psychologist, including individual counseling, pedagogical counseling, career counseling, management consulting, consulting for executives, etc. In fact, in any field of activity in which psychological knowledge is used, counseling is used in one form or another. The content of psychological counseling is working with a specific request coming from both an individual client and a group or organization as a whole. The widest scope of psychological counseling is family counseling related to the normalization of parent-child relationships, solving premarital and marital problems, pre-divorce and post-divorce conditions. Age-related counseling is aimed at solving problems of a child’s mental development, including during periods of age-related crises. A significant place is occupied by consulting organizations related to the problems of personnel selection, personnel management, team formation, career planning for individual employees, and forecasting the development of the organization as a whole. A specific type of counseling is a “helpline”, which allows a person to seek psychological support in the most difficult moments of life and prevent unwanted actions and behavior. Psychological counseling can be defined as direct work with people aimed at solving various kinds of psychological problems associated with overcoming difficulties in interpersonal relationships, where the main means of influence is a conversation constructed in a certain way. The psychological meaning of counseling is to help a person understand the causes of difficulties, problems social interactions in personal, family and professional contacts. The main task of a psychologist-consultant is to give the client the opportunity to look at his problems and everyday difficulties from the outside, to change psychological attitudes.

Psychotherapy is traditionally understood as a deeper psychological impact on the psyche, and through it on the entire organism of a person or group, in comparison with counseling, for the purpose of treating or preventing diseases and conditions of maladjustment, developing health, etc. However, in recent years, the intensive development of psychotherapy in our country and abroad has led to the successful spread of its influence on a much wider range of problems and areas of our lives; psychotherapeutic knowledge and even some techniques have become of interest not only to specialists, but also to every person . Today we can already talk about the formation of a special psychotherapeutic worldview, the center of which is a holistic self-actualizing and developing personality.

The correctional and developmental activity of a psychologist is most in demand when working with children, where it is aimed at eliminating deviations in mental and personal development child. This activity is closely related to psychological diagnostics. A practical psychologist not only makes a diagnosis, but also develops a correctional program based on it, and also independently carries out a significant part of the correctional work. The main objectives of correcting a child’s mental development are to eliminate deviations in mental development based on the creation of optimal opportunities and conditions for the development of the child’s personal and intellectual potential and the prevention of undesirable negative trends in personal and intellectual development.

Psychoprophylactic activity is associated with communicating the necessary psychological knowledge to those who primarily need it - parents, teachers, students, social service workers, etc. - in order to prevent possible violations of developmental conditions and increase psychological competence. This may also be work to create conditions that are most favorable for the development of productive interpersonal interactions in teaching teams or in organizational structures at enterprises. Psychoprophylaxis also concerns preventive measures to prevent ill-being in mental and personal development, the commission of illegal actions, and the harmful consequences of drug and alcohol addictions. Psychoprophylaxis includes working with dysfunctional families, parents and children from these families, preventing cases of possible social complications.

Thus, the main content and goal of practical psychology is psychological assistance and psychological support for a person who finds himself in a difficult life situation, ensuring the psychological comfort of the individual in relation to himself, in interactions with other people, in relations to the world as a whole, and this aspect we can talk about the psychological health of the individual. Psychological health is in close connection with the highest manifestations of the human spirit, makes a person self-sufficient, armed with the means of self-knowledge, self-acceptance, self-respect and self-development in the context of interactions with other people and in the cultural, social, economic and environmental realities of the surrounding world.

Self-test questions.

1. What stages are distinguished in the history of psychology?
2. How did the open crisis of psychology manifest itself?
3. What are the main trends in the modern development of psychology?
4. What is the essence of the humanistic direction of psychology?
5. What main directions of practical psychology do you know?

Literature.

1. Godefroy J. What is psychology. In 2 volumes. T. 1. M., 1992. Ch. 2.
2. Petrovsky A.V., Yaroshevsky M.G. History of psychology Textbook. allowance. M., 1996.
3. Nurkova V.V., Berezanskaya N.B. Psychology: Textbook.Md 2004. Chapter 2.
4. Bolotova A.K., Makarova I.V. Applied psychology Textbook. M., 2001.
5. Pervin L., John O. Personality psychology: Theory and research: Trans. from English / Ed. B.C. Maguna. M., 2000.
6. Sokolova E.E. Thirteen dialogues about psychology: Anthology with comments on the course “Introduction to Psychology.” M 1997.
7. Schultz D., Schultz S.E. History of modern psychology Trans. from English St. Petersburg, 1998.

Psychology interacts with many branches of scientific knowledge. Many branches of psychology arose at the intersection with other sciences and are related, applied branches of scientific knowledge that explore the patterns of objective reality from the perspective of the subject of psychology. In Fig. Figure 1.8 shows the relationships between individual branches of psychology and related scientific disciplines.

Rice. 1.8.

1.4. History of the development of psychological knowledge

Let us briefly consider the main stages of the emergence and development of psychology as a science.

Individual(from Latin individuum - indivisible, individual) or individual- This

• an individual person as a unique combination of his innate and acquired properties;
• the individual person as a social being who is more than a combination of innate qualities;
• a person as an individual in an environment of other people.

Subject(from lat. subiectum – subject; subject, individual) – this

• a person, as a bearer of any properties, a personality;
• a specific carrier of objective-practical activity and cognition, a carrier of the active;
• the person whose experience and behavior are the subject of consideration; all other people are objects for this person.

Personality- This

• man as a bearer of consciousness (K.K. Platonov);
• social individual, object and subject of the historical process (B.G. Ananyev, [, p. 232]);
• "social individual, subject public relations, activity and communication" [, P. 122];
• “the qualities of an individual acquired by him in social and objective activities and inherent only to this individual” (A.V. Petrovsky, );
• “a distinctive and characteristic pattern of thinking, emotions and behavior that forms the personal style of interaction of an individual with his physical and social environment” [, P. 416];
• "a set of individual psychological characteristics that is formed throughout life, which determine what is peculiar to this person attitude towards oneself, society and the world around us as a whole" (Yu.V. Shcherbatykh, [P. 199]).

Individuality– this is the uniqueness of human properties.

Psychology of Personality(English: personality psychology) – a branch of psychology in which the nature and mechanisms of personality development are studied and various theories of personality are constructed.

Brief summary

Psychology is a field of scientific knowledge that studies the patterns of emergence, formation and development of mental processes, states and properties of humans and animals.

Target psychological research– study of the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, as well as the physiological and neurobiological processes underlying cognitive activity and people's behavior.

The object of psychology is the psyche, the subject is the basic laws of the generation and functioning of mental reality.

Psyche – general concept, denoting the totality of all mental phenomena. There are four groups of mental phenomena: processes, states, personality traits and mental formations.

The chronology of psychology as an official science begins only from 1875-1879, when the first experimental psychological laboratory was organized by Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig. However, psychology as such existed long before this; its history goes back about 2.5 thousand years.
Man, as a being with a unique gift - consciousness, tends to ask questions and look for answers to them, try to understand and explain the world around him, himself in it, his difference from animals and from other people, etc. The so-called “pre-scientific psychology” developed in debate and reflection, psychological knowledge was accumulated and improved through the contributions of the most different people- philosophers, physicians, geographers, mathematicians, etc., which made possible the birth of psychology as a science proper. The main stages of the development of psychology can be presented in the form of the following diagram (Fig. 7).
The first period is psychology as the science of the soul. Psychology, like many other modern sciences, has its origins in ancient philosophy. The name “ancient philosophy” refers to the ideas and teachings of ancient Greek and Roman thinkers from the 7th century. BC. to 6th century AD That's when the first ones appeared philosophical schools who tried to comprehend and present in a single concept the structure of the surrounding world and the person in it. It was these ideas and teachings that became the first type of philosophizing and conceptual thinking in general in history. The teachings of Plato (idealistic) and Aristotle (materialistic) are the two most famous philosophical concepts of that time. An important problem for psychology, which for the first time then became the subject of debate and reflection, was the so-called “psychophysical problem” (the question of the place of the psyche in the material world, from the Greek psyche - soul, physis - nature), which was solved in three ways - monistically (from the Greek . monos - one), dualistically (from the Latin dualis - dual) and pluralistically (from the Latin pluralis - multiple).
The next major historical stage - the Middle Ages (traditionally dates back to the 5th-15th centuries) - is associated with the dominance of Christian doctrine and intolerance towards other points of view. Despite the fact that the education system was developing during this period, its content was censored; the works of the so-called “fathers” and “teachers of the church” were recognized. The ideas of ancient philosophy at this time developed specifically in Arabic-speaking countries. For psychology, this period is associated primarily with works on ethics, education and moral development of man (Aurelius Augustine the Blessed, Ibn Sina, Ibn Roshd, etc.).

This era, which lasted a whole millennium, ended with a transitional stage, which was called the “Renaissance” (or Renaissance, 14-16 centuries), associated with the names of such thinkers as Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli, Francois Rabelais, Johannes Kepler, Martin Luther, etc. At this time, the first scientific revolution in the history of mankind took place, associated with the creation by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus of the heliocentric system of the world, followed by the second, the beginning of which is associated with the name of Galileo Galilei, who confirmed the heliocentric concept and laid the foundations of a new mechanistic natural science . The main result of this period for science as a whole was the transition from a passive and contemplative - to an active attitude of the knowing mind, and for psychology - the transition to “humanism”, which brought to the fore the ideal of human activity as the creator of his earthly existence, capable of comprehending and turning into fortunately all the wealth of the surrounding world.
The second period is psychology as the science of consciousness. This period covers the so-called “modern era” (17-19 centuries). The work of Isaac Newton is considered the “crown” that completes the second scientific revolution, which covered such fields of knowledge as astronomy, mechanics, geography, geometry and many others.
In philosophy of the 17th century. Against the backdrop of the rapidly developing natural science, one of the most prominent figures was René Descartes, whose works predetermined the development, in particular, of psychology for the next three centuries. According to his teaching, the human body (organism) is subject to the same laws of physics as any other natural phenomena, while the mind (consciousness, thinking, mind) is what distinguishes man from everything else, including animals; it is a spiritual entity that acts independently of the body, although they are one. Only with the help of the mind can one obtain true knowledge, only reason can be trusted, only it should be guided. R. Descartes discovered a new field of research - consciousness (thinking) and developed a method of its analysis (introspection, reflection - from the Latin reflexio - turning back, i.e. the focus of human thinking on understanding and awareness of its own forms and prerequisites).
Subsequently, the works of many scientists and philosophers were devoted to the study of the work of consciousness, the influence of emotions on it, its connection with sensations, perception, memory, etc. (Benedict Spinoza, John Locke, Gottfried W. Leibniz, etc.).
Much work was devoted to human consciousness by the German scientist and philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose works in the mid-18th century. marked the beginning of the third scientific revolution, as he was able to create an evolving “picture of the world.” The ideas of evolution covered a wide variety of areas of knowledge and stimulated many studies and discoveries.
By the mid-19th century, when the evolutionary theory of Charles R. Darwin became famous, experimental studies of physiology had already contributed to such significant advances in the field of psychology that the latter was placed on a par with such sciences as physics, biology, etc. The dominant direction in psychology during the period under review was “associationism” (from the Latin associatio - association, connection). Association was considered as the basic principle and law of the organization of mental activity and human behavior. It was believed that complex mental phenomena are formed from elementary ones (sensations, thoughts, experiences) through mechanistic connection with each other (David Hartley, Johann F. Herbart, James Mill, etc.).
After the organization of the first experimental psychological laboratory, the so-called “ physiological psychology"(together with W. Wundt, its founder is Hermann L. F. Helmholtz, widely known as a physicist), which sought to rely on natural sciences in the study of mental phenomena. Sensations and perceptions were the first to be studied experimentally.
By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. in psychology, several relatively independent directions took shape, which began to develop rapidly: developmental psychology (study of the characteristics of the child’s psyche), differential psychology (study of individual differences between people using specially developed methods and tests), zoopsychology (comparison of stages of psychological development in the evolutionary series) and other.
The third period is psychology as the science of behavior. At the beginning of the 20th century. Psychology as a science was experiencing a kind of crisis: with the increase in more and more accurate and effective research into mental phenomena, a holistic picture of the psyche was not obtained. The reason for this was a large number of scientific directions and schools, each of which deeply studied only one mental phenomenon, but most importantly, in its explanation it proceeded from its own theoretical positions, which often contradicted the ideas of scientists of other schools.
The study of objectively observable behavior became a kind of reaction to this state of affairs. Psychology as a science of behavior can be roughly represented in the form of two different branches - Russian and American.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev, the author of the idea of ​​reflexivity of the psyche and reflex regulation of activity, in 1885 became the founder of the first experimental psychological laboratory in Russia, and in 1907 - the Psychoneurological Institute in St. Petersburg. Georgy Ivanovich Chelpanov founded and became director of the country's first Institute of Experimental Psychology in Moscow in 1912. Russian scientists were studying the properties of the nervous system. The teachings of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov on the types of the nervous system and the theory of “conditioned reflexes” (automatic reactions formed during life as a result of learning - in contrast to innate “unconditioned” reflexes, including instincts) radically changed the entire world psychology.
At the same time, John B. Watson in the USA became the founder of “behaviorism” (from the English behavior - behavior) - a direction in psychology, according to which the “stimulus-response” scheme is sufficient for studying the relationship between environmental influences and human reactions. Behaviorism has found many supporters, for a long time was dominant in America and is still popular today.
In a certain sense, the ideas of all these scientists were simplified - for some, the entire psyche was reduced to reflexes, for others - only to external manifestations. However this period had a huge influence on all subsequent development of psychology: thus, thanks to the works of Russian scientists, the patterns of occurrence and physiological basis of many mental phenomena were subsequently studied, thanks to the contribution of American psychologists, “training” programs (from the English train - to train, educate) were developed, practical techniques on psychological correction, etc.
The fourth period is psychology as a science that studies facts, patterns and mechanisms of the psyche. Most of the 20th century. psychology developed differently in the USSR and abroad (in Europe and the USA) due to political and ideological reasons. If at the beginning of the existence of the new system in Russia the exchange of opinions between scientists from different countries was quite intense, then since 1936, by government decree, work in psychology that did not correspond to the ideology of “Marxism-Leninism” was prohibited.
The fundamentals of the theory of reflection, which is discussed in the above diagram, developed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, are that all matter has a property essentially related to sensation - the property of reflection. In the USSR there were three large psychological centers, differing in areas of research - in Moscow, Leningrad and Tbilisi. Despite ideological restrictions, and in many ways thanks to them, the research and discoveries of Soviet scientists were carefully theoretically substantiated and based on experimental data, which distinguished them favorably from many beautiful, but unprovable concepts of their foreign colleagues.
The international psychological community has recognized the merits of a number of Soviet psychologists, but the most famous are the works of such outstanding scientists as Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, Sergei Leonidovich Rubinstein and Alexei Nikolaevich Leontiev.
Only in the late 50s - early 60s. 20th century In the USSR, previous bans began to be lifted and contacts with foreign colleagues were resumed. Up to the 80s. in Russia they “assimilated” (from the Latin assimilatio - assimilation, assimilation, adaptation) the experience accumulated in the psychology of other countries.
In foreign psychology, during the period under review, four main major psychological trends developed:
. behaviorism and neobehaviorism (John B. Watson, Edward C. Tolman, Clark L. Hull, Burres F. Skinner, Albert Bandura, etc.);
. psychoanalysis and neo-psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud, Carl G. Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, Erik Erikson, etc.);
. humanistic psychology (Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Gordon Allport, etc.);
. cognitive psychology (Fritz Heider, Leon Festinger, Julian Rotter, George Kelly, etc.).
Currently, psychology is becoming increasingly synthetic in nature, i.e. modern psychologists do not isolate themselves within the framework of a separate scientific school (as was done before), but, in accordance with the problems being studied, use mutually complementary knowledge obtained by representatives of different schools. A systematic approach to the human psyche has become widespread.
In various classification schemes of modern psychology, about 40 of its branches are distinguished, some of which have acquired a relatively independent status: developmental, social, educational, medical psychology, personality psychology, occupational psychology, professional (including military, naval, etc.) psychology, etc. .d. Modern means of communication, including the Internet, make it possible to almost instantly exchange experiences and learn about new discoveries, which makes the development of psychology more uniform and accessible to all.

QUESTIONS TO PREPARATE FOR THE EXAM

Object, subject and tasks of psychology.

Subject of psychology - This psyche as the highest form of relationship between living beings and the objective world, expressed in their ability to realize their motives and act on the basis of information about it.

The subject of psychology is a person as a subject of activity, the systemic qualities of his self-regulation; patterns of formation and functioning of the human psyche: his ability to reflect the world, cognize it and regulate his interaction with it.

The subject of psychology is understood differently throughout history and from the perspective of different areas of psychology.

· Soul (all researchers before the beginning of the 18th century)

· Phenomena of consciousness

· Direct experience of the subject

Adaptability

Origin of mental activities

· Behavior

· Unconscious

· Information processing processes and the results of these processes

· Personal experience of a person

Object of psychology - This patterns of the psyche as a special form of human life and animal behavior. This form of life activity, due to its versatility, can be studied in a wide variety of aspects, which are studied in various branches of psychological science.

They have as their object: norms and pathology in the human psyche; types of specific activities, development of the human and animal psyche; human attitude to nature and society, etc.

The main task of psychology as a science is to reveal the laws of the emergence, development and course of human mental activity, the formation of its mental properties, identifying the vital significance of the psyche and thereby providing assistance in its mastery, its purposeful formation in accordance with the needs of society.

Specific tasks of psychology:

Clarification of the nature and essence of mental activity and its connection with the brain, the function of which is this activity, its relationship to the objective world.

Study of the emergence and development of mental activity in the process biological evolution animals and the socio-historical development of human life. Clarification of the common and different in the psyche of people and animals, the characteristics of human consciousness in various social conditions of life.

Studying the emergence and development of the child’s psyche, as well as identifying the progressive transformation of the child into a conscious person; identifying how his psychological characteristics are formed in the process of training and education.

Study of the structure of human mental activity, the main forms of its manifestation and their relationship.

The study of the occurrence of sensations, perception, attention and other reflections of objective reality and how they regulate this reality.

Disclosure psychological foundations training and education, studying the qualities and characteristics of a teacher’s personality.

Identification and study of the psychological characteristics of various types of industrial, technical, creative and other types of human activity.

Study of the characteristics of mental activity of adults and children with defects of the brain and sensory organs.

The concept of the psyche.

Psyche is a property of highly organized living matter, which consists in the subject’s active reflection of the objective world, in the subject’s construction of an inalienable picture of this world and the regulation of behavior and activity on this basis.

From this definition follows a number of fundamental judgments about the nature and mechanisms of manifestation of the psyche. Firstly, the psyche is a property only of living matter. And not just living matter, but highly organized living matter. Therefore, not every living matter possesses this property, but only that which has specific organs that determine the possibility of the existence of the psyche.

Secondly, the main feature of the psyche is the ability to reflect the objective world. What does this mean? Literally this means the following: highly organized living matter with a psyche has the ability to receive information about the world around it. At the same time, obtaining information is associated with the creation by this highly organized matter of a certain mental, i.e., subjective in nature and idealistic (immaterial) in essence image, which with a certain degree of accuracy is a copy of material objects of the real world.

Thirdly, the information received by a living being about the surrounding world serves as the basis for regulation internal environment a living organism and the formation of its behavior, which generally determines the possibility of a relatively long existence of this organism in constantly changing environmental conditions. Consequently, living matter with a psyche is capable of responding to change external environment or on the impact of environmental objects.

The emergence of psychology as a science. History of the development of psychological knowledge.

Since ancient times, needs public life forced a person to distinguish and take into account the peculiarities of the mental makeup of people. The philosophical teachings of antiquity already touched upon some psychological aspects, which were resolved either in terms of idealism or in terms of materialism. Thus, the materialistic philosophers of antiquity Democritus, Lucretius, Epicurus understood the human soul as a type of matter, as a bodily formation formed from spherical, small and most mobile atoms. But the idealist philosopher Plato understood the human soul as something divine, different from the body. The soul, before entering the human body, exists separately in the higher world, where it cognizes ideas - eternal and unchanging essences. Once in the body, the soul begins to remember what it saw before birth. Plato's idealistic theory, which interprets the body and psyche as two independent and antagonistic principles, laid the foundation for all subsequent idealistic theories. The great philosopher Aristotle, in his treatise “On the Soul,” singled out psychology as a unique field of knowledge and for the first time put forward the idea of ​​​​the inseparability of the soul and the living body. The soul, the psyche, manifests itself in various abilities for activity: nourishing, feeling, moving, rational; Higher abilities arise from and on the basis of lower ones. The primary cognitive ability of a person is sensation; it takes the forms of sensory objects without their matter, just as “wax takes the impression of a seal without iron and gold.” Sensations leave a trace in the form of ideas - images of those objects that previously acted on the senses. Aristotle showed that these images are connected in three directions: by similarity, by contiguity and contrast, thereby indicating the main types of connections - associations of mental phenomena. Thus, stage I is psychology as the science of the soul. This definition of psychology was given more than two thousand years ago. They tried to explain all the incomprehensible phenomena in human life by the presence of a soul. Stage II – psychology as a science of consciousness. It appears in the 17th century in connection with the development of natural sciences. The ability to think, feel, desire was called consciousness. The main method of study was a person's observation of himself and the description of facts. Stage III – psychology as a science of behavior. Appears in the 20th century: The task of psychology is to conduct experiments and observe what can be directly seen, namely: behavior, actions, human reactions (the motives causing actions were not taken into account). Stage IV – psychology as a science that studies objective patterns, manifestations and mechanisms of the psyche. The history of psychology as an experimental science begins in 1879 in the world's first experimental psychological laboratory, founded by the German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig. Soon, in 1885, V. M. Bekhterev organized a similar laboratory in Russia.

The history of psychology is one of the few comprehensive disciplines that synthesize knowledge on individual areas and problems of psychology. The history of psychology allows us to understand the logic of the formation of psychology, the reasons for changes in its subject, and its leading issues. The history of psychology teaches not only factors, but also thinking, the ability to understand and adequately evaluate individual psychological phenomena and concepts. The logic of scientific knowledge, the analysis of the formation of new methods and approaches to the study of the psyche prove that the emergence of experimental psychology and the methodological apparatus of psychology were determined and reflected by scientists.

The history of psychology studies the patterns of formation and development of views on the psyche based on the analysis of various approaches to understanding its nature, functions, and genesis. Psychology is associated with various fields of science and culture. From its very inception, it was oriented toward philosophy and for several centuries was actually one of the sections of this science. The connection with philosophy was not interrupted throughout the entire period of the existence of psychology as a science; it was either weakened (as at the beginning of the 19th century), or strengthened again (as in the middle of the 20th century).

The development of natural science and medicine has had and is having no less influence on psychology. Also in the works of many scientists there is a connection with ethnography, sociology, cultural theory, art history, mathematics, logic, and linguistics.

In the history of psychology, the historical-genetic method is used, according to which the study of the impossible past is carried out without taking into account the general logic of the development of science in a certain historical period, and the historical-functional method, thanks to which the continuity of expressed ideas is analyzed. The biographical method is of great importance, allowing one to identify possible reasons and the conditions for the formation of the scientist’s scientific views, as well as the method of systematizing psychological statements.

The sources for the history of psychology are primarily the works of scientists, active materials, memoirs about their lives and activities, as well as the analysis of historical and sociological materials and even fiction that helps to recreate the spirit of a certain time.

Until the last quarter of the 19th century, philosophers studied human nature, based on my own, very limited experience, with the help of reflection, intuition and generalizations. Change became possible when philosophers began to use tools that were already successfully used in biology and other natural sciences.

Psychology is a science that studies the psyche of humans and animals. But it was not always like this - just a few centuries ago psychology was not distinguished as a separate scientific discipline. So what is the history of psychology in brief?

The origins of modern science lie in philosophical treatises ancient world: pundits from India, Greece, and China tried to find out the true nature of consciousness in order to, on the basis of this knowledge, educate the spirit and heal diseases. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates believed that the soul is in the brain, and developed a doctrine of temperament, which (with the exception of some modifications) is also adhered to by modern psychologists. Aristotle interpreted the soul as the essence of the material body, the principle of manifestations of biology. During the Hellenistic period, the psyche was still separated from biology. Alas, the feudal era of the Middle Ages significantly slowed down the growth of psychology as a separate science, relying entirely on church and biblical knowledge. However, in the Arab world, scientists continued to move towards the goal, explaining spiritual phenomena with scientific point vision. Avicenna, Ibn Roshd and many others preserved their thoughts in treatises. It was their ideas that became the basis for the emergence of psychology in Europe during the Renaissance and capitalism.

During the heyday of capitalism, humans were studied along with mechanisms, as a natural being that lives according to certain laws. Such views were held by Leonardo da Vinci, Huarte, and Vives. The revolution of the bourgeoisie set a new direction in the study of the psyche and soul - the psyche began to be studied from the point of view of strictly determinism, clearly outlining the causes and consequences of a wide variety of mental phenomena. Changes in the social system have become a prerequisite for the study of the human psyche and its connection with the material body at a new level. Thus, thanks to Descartes, the world learned the theory of reflex, and the soul in his ideas became consciousness. During the time of Descartes, scientists discovered the connection between associative thinking and the psyche, which Hobbes and Descartes wrote about, Spinoza defined and outlined the concept of affect, Leibniz discovered apperception and the unconscious, and Locke identified abilities human mind to experiential learning. D. Hartley carefully studied associative thinking, placing it at the forefront of all mental processes for as much as 50 years. Russian scientists adhered to materialism in matters of studying the psyche: Lomonosov and Radishchev were materialists.

The 19th century, thanks to the development of physiology, brought to psychological science knowledge and methods for the experimental study of mental phenomena, quantitative indicators as a measure. This direction was followed by Weber, Helmholtz and Fechner. Darwin soon announced to the world that mental functions are one of the the most important factors biological development.

At the end of the 19th century, psychology became an independent science, separating from philosophical and physiological knowledge. At this time, psychological laboratories appeared all over the world, in which mental phenomena were studied through experiment. However, the very first laboratory was opened by Wundt in the city of Leipzig.

Domestic scientists at this time adhere to the objective approach put forward by Sechenov. Sechenov was supported by Bekhterev, Lange, Tokarsky, and then thanks to Pavlov and Bekhterev, the ideas of an objective approach became famous throughout the world. World scientists in psychological laboratories studied individual manifestations of the psyche: Donders studied sensations, Ebbinghaus focused his attention on associations, Cattell studied attention, James and Ribot devoted themselves to studying emotional states, and Binet looked for the relationship between will and thinking.

Differential psychology soon emerged to study the psychological differences between people. Galton, Lazursky, and Binet are considered its representatives and founders.

The history of psychology briefly speaks of modernity: at the beginning of the 20th century, a crisis occurred in psychological science - consciousness is no longer considered the totality of a person’s past experience, but becomes a manifestation of phenomena hidden in the depths of the psyche. In American psychology, Watson and his favorite direction are at the forefront - behaviorism, which states that only human bodily reactions to external stimuli are worthy of study. Along with behaviorism, Gestalt psychology appeared, which studies man as whole system. Soon psychoanalysis arose, according to the ideas of which a person is driven by his motives hidden in the depths of the psyche.

In Russian psychology, Marxism arose, which considers man only a product of social and cultural phenomena. In the second half of the 20th century, there was a “rivalry” of various areas of psychology with each other, the emergence of existential and humanistic directions.

Thus, psychology has come a long way in development from philosophical views to an independent and serious science. Today, psychological knowledge is increasingly valued in the world, and who knows where the study of the mental processes of the human mind will lead next...

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