A History of Psychology

Abstract

The history of psychology shows strong parallels with that of psychiatry. At its inception, psychology placed itself between the natural and the social sciences, which was reflected in its conceptual and methodological choices. Historically, no single school of thought within psychology managed to provide a full explanation of mental illness, but they all had the potential to advance our understanding and complemented each other. The usefulness of any psychological approach for psychiatry is determined to a large degree by how much it can incorporate person-centredness and agency into its theory and research. This is an area where psychology has benefited from more (rather than less) social science and humanities input during its history. This chapter contrasts four major schools of thought in psychology from this perspective: psychoanalysis and behaviourism as well as cognitive and humanistic psychology. Psychoanalysis focussed on the whole person and managed to incorporate values and ethics into its epistemology more than other approaches could; in addition to recognizing the role of psychological trauma and conflict and of meaning, this was one of its crucial contributions to psychiatry.

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